First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman, 1999

In this motivating book, the Gallup Organization sets the scene by presenting the findings of a 25-year study of 80,000 managers across a wide spectrum of business environments.

Their question was simple: “How do the world’s greatest managers find, focus and keep talented employees?”

Moving away from conventional wisdom which dictates a “treat everyone the same” approach, the authors urge us toward a highly customized approach, which is exciting but also challenging.

In this economic crunch, I had to ask, “How do we as leaders have time for an individualized management style?” Through revisiting this book, I came to ask a far better question, and that is: “How can we NOT make the time for customizing our management approach, especially when we know it works?”

This book is a classic and very timely. Enjoy!