Book Reviews from Around the World

By Marcus Buckingham

Every once in a while I’ll throw a secular book on leadership into my reading mix. The One Thing You Need to Know was the choice this time around. Marcus Buckingham worked for the Gallup organization for years meeting with and interviewing some of the most successful people in society. This book is a compilation of his main insights concerning management, leadership and sustained individual success.

His title comes from the idea that there is one controlling insight behind everything in life. Like if you boil everything down to the one main reason people succeed or fail at something – this would be the one thing you need to know. I’m not sure if I’m really on board with this way of thinking…seems a little over simplified to me. But the book was pretty interesting and it did get to some root issues in life.

His main thought about management was to find what makes the people you manage unique and capitalize on their strengths. He told many stories of businesses and managers that succeed by paying close attention to their employees. He stressed that if you as a manager can order your organization around the strengths of your people, you will run a much stronger organization. Seems obvious (as does most of his bottom line answers), but its amazing how many examples you can think where this is not done well.

The leadership section of the book was pretty entertaining. The key to success in leadership? – Clarity. If you can provide a clear picture of exactly where your organization is going, you have a much easier time motivating the people going with you toward that place. Instead of looking at everyone’s individual strengths, leadership focuses on the commonalities in people and leverages them into movement toward a common future. Where management focuses entirely on the people, leadership’s focus is the vision itself. Portraying the vision with absolute clarity is Buckingham’s “One Thing” about leadership.

Lastly, there is sustained personal success. Buckingham defines success as having the most impact in an area for the most prolonged period of time. I liked that definition as it really works across a wide spectrum of viewpoints. When Buckingham studied the most successful people he could find, the key insight he found was really interesting. It was “find out what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.” Sounds funny but it’s actually good advice. If you spend your life doing stuff that bores, drains, and frustrates you, you sure aren’t set up for great success. Buckingham gave a strong argument for doing what you love to do day in and day out. He pointed out that this kind of life will bring you motivation and provide the sustained energy needed to make a large impact over a long period of time.

Overall, I thought this was a good read. I found myself distrusting a lot of its concepts due to the books secular nature, but in general I agree with his bottom lines. I’m not really sure that it’s all you need for success (in fact I’m sure its not), but I liked reading about Buckingham’s research and agree with many of his conclusions. I probably wouldn’t read this book again, but would recommend it for business leaders or people working in the business world.

# posted by Danny Schulz @ 7:06 PM