La única cosa que necesitas saber
Llegó la hora de empezar a comentar sobre liderazgo y así hacerle justicia al slogan de este blog. Debo confesarles que tengo unas ganas enormes de contarles como me fue el viernes pasado en el recital que H-Sur dio en La Batuta pero vamos a guardar eso para un siguiente post.
Desde hace unos meses he estado cacareando sobre un par de conceptos potentes que le leí a un autor que descubrí recientemente. Dado que he cacareado bastante, pido disculpas a quienes se han tenido que tragar 10 veces esta historia, sin embargo estoy pensando en aquellos de ustedes a quienes no se la he contado aun y por otro lado, creo que este medio de comunicación tiene algunas ventajas a la hora de transmitir algunos de los conceptos.
La historia es la siguiente. En Octubre tuve la posibilidad de escuchar a Marcus Buckingham en su exposición como keynote speaker en la conferencia anual de la Direct Marketing Association of America (DMA). La única referencia que tenía de Buckingham era el éxito de su libro First, Break all the Rules, libro que no había leído.
Aprendí que este señor trabajó más de 17 años en The Gallup Organization investigando a varios de los grandes líderes de nuestra época. Buckingham tuvo por años el privilegio de entrevistar y estudiar en detalle a gente como Jack Welch, considerado el ejecutivo más exitoso de todos los tiempos, el notorio ex alcalde de New York Rudolph Giuliani, o el destadado guionista de hollywood Dave Koepp entre muchos otros. Luego de sus años como investigador se dio cuenta –según el mismo lo relata- que había aprendido mucho acerca de las características que hacían únicas a estas personas y por tanto decidió escribir acerca de ello.
Su carrera como escritor comenzó con el libro First, Break all the Rules y luego fue seguido por la secuela Now, Discover your strenghts. Ambos libros fueron superventas y son ampliamente comentados en círculos académicos y entre estudiosos del management.
La ponencia de Buckinham en la DMA trataba sobre su tercer libro: The One thing you need to know. En este libro, el punto central es que un buen “manager” no es lo mismo que un buen lider. El expone que los grandes managers son aquellos capaces de identificar los talentos únicos en cada persona y aprovecharlos al máximo. Los grandes managers tratan a los miembros de sus equipos en forma diferente, basados en el entendimiento de cada personalidad y motivación individual. Buckingham destaca que los grandes Gerentes no invierten demasiado tiempo en tratar de remediar las debilidades de cada persona como sí lo hacen enfocandose en desarrollar los talentos únicos que la persona ya tiene. Los grandes managers no ven a las personas como medios para conseguir un fin, ellos ven el desarrollo de los talentos únicos de cada persona como un fin en si mismo.
En contraste, los grandes líderes son capaces de descubrir los valores y creencias que son compartidas por un grupo de personas para luego capitalizar desde ese espacio. Los grandes líderes son individuos optimistas y obsesivos en imaginarse un mundo mejor al que los rodea y en esta obsesión son capaces de movilizar a sus seguidores para hacer de su visión una realidad. Marcus nos habla de la universalidad de algunos valores y creencias. El nos presenta el miedo al futuro como el más universal de los sentimientos. Los grandes líderes convierten la ansiedad acerca del futuro en confianza por la vía de proveer una extraordinaria claridad acerca del camino a recorrer. Los grandes líderes son aquellos que son capaces de movilizar a sus seguidores hacia un mundo mejor.
Les trasmito algunos de los aprendizajes clave del libro, con las palabras del propio Buckinham:
Key Learnings
• With enough research and focus, insights can usually be
boiled down to “just one thing.”
Because the world is so complex, it is valuable to distill
information down to controlling insights that guide action. This
is the premise behind the concept of “just one thing.” However, to
become a controlling insight, three tests must be passed:
1. Generalizable: The insight must apply across a broad range
of situations.
2. Transformative: The insight must be powerful enough to
elevate performance from merely good to truly great.
3. Actionable: A controlling insight must guide action. It must
point to precise actions to be taken, with specific effects.
• The chief responsibility of a manager is to turn a person’s
talent into performance.
People join companies but leave managers. A person’s manager
influences how long the person stays at an organization and how
effectively the person performs. A manager is a catalyst for
performance, speeding up talent and making that talent work
harder. (Talent is defined as a naturally recurring pattern of
thought, feeling, or behavior. Being responsible or competitive or
able to have empathy are all talents.)
• The one thing you need to know about great managers: they
find what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.
Great managers recognize that each person has unique talents
and motivations, and they seek to understand and leverage these
uniquenesses. They build their teams to maximize the unique
talents and contributions of each person on the team. In doing so,
they are proponents of “individualization” where they treat each
person differently based on that person’s talents and motivations.
Great managers may standardize the outcomes, but individualize
how each person goes about achieving those outcomes.
Average managers play checkers while great managers play chess.
In checkers all of the pieces move in the same homogenous way,
but in chess, each piece moves differently. Great managers
understand the differences in each piece and coordinate the team
to take advantage of the individual strengths.
• Great managers think very differently about developing their
people—focusing on the strengths.
At most companies, managers review their people by focusing
primarily on a person’s weaknesses or “opportunities,” and
development emphasizes addressing shortcomings. A typical
one-hour performance discussion might spend 2 minutes focused
on what a person does well and 58 minutes on what needs to be
improved. In most instances, this is not development; it is
damage control, and it is not a formula for greatness or winning.
In contrast, great managers spend 80% of their time working to
grow an employee’s greatest strengths. Investing to develop a
person’s greatest talent is how breakthrough performance can be
achieved. This mans not that great managers ignore
shortcomings, but that they focus on the talent and work around
the shortcomings. Ways this can be achieved include changing
people’s jobs, allowing them to spend most of their time where
their talent fits best; partnering an employee with another
individual with complementary talents; or helping a person get
“just a little bit better” to avoid glaring weaknesses.
Even with this approach, there will be non-performers. If after
training is provided to develop skills there is no change in
performance, the individual simply lacks the necessary talent.
Great managers recognize this as a casting error. Instead of
investing further to try to fix the person, they focus instead on
fixing the problem.
“Great management is not about changing
people. Great managers take people ‘as is’ and
then focus on releasing their talents.”
- Marcus Buckingham
Truly great managers do not see people merely as a means to an
end; they see people as the end. Great managers are personally
motivated by being able to identify people’s talents and then
more fully develop them.
• A leader’s chief responsibility is to rally people to a better
future.
Rallying people requires that leaders have innate optimism.
Great leaders are not unrealistic; in fact they are grounded in
reality. However, they are spurred on by a core belief that things
can be better in the future than they are today. They are able to
create a vision of this future and rally others to support it. In
addition, great leaders have egos in that they believe they are the
ones to make this better future come true. (Ego gets bad press.
Ego does not mean arrogance; it is self-assurance and selfconfidence.)
Importantly, great leaders channel their egos not to
benefit themselves but to build their enterprise.
• The one thing you need to know about great leaders: they
find what is universal and capitalize on it.
While great managers find what is unique and leverage it, great
leaders find what is shared. The most relevant characteristic that
is shared by all people is a fear of an unknown future. (This fear
has led people to rituals and gurus to help deal with it.) Leaders
deal in the unknown. They have to turn legitimate anxiety into
confidence. The most effective way to do this is through clarity.
“Clarity is the answer to anxiety. Effective
leaders are clear.”
- Marcus Buckingham
Specifically, followers are begging for, and great leaders provide,
clear answers to the following four key questions:
1. Who do we serve? Great leaders focus their followers on
serving one specific core group. By serving this core group,
the organization can better serve other groups as well. For
example, an executive from Wal-Mart recently told an
audience that Wal-Mart serves those who live from paycheck
to paycheck; others are invited to shop at Wal-Mart and may
be satisfied in doing so, but Wal-Mart is focused on serving
those who are struggling to get by.
2. What is our core strength? Followers want to know what the
advantages are and why the team will win. They want one
clear and specific reason, and not something vague such as
“our culture” or “our people.” People want to know exactly
what about their culture or people will enable success. At
Best Buy the CEO has stated that the strength of the
company and the reason that Best Buy will succeed is the
ability of the front-line employees to answer questions and
assist customers.
3. What is our core score? Employees need one key metric to
use in measuring progress. Deciding the one specific
measure to use in keeping score results in driving the actions
that are taken. For example, previously Britain’s jails focused
on the key metric of “number of escapees.” This score was
based on serving society and led to a focus on security. A new
director of the prison system believed that society would be
better off by focusing on serving the prisoners; he changed
the core score to track the rate of recidivism. Another
example: when Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York
City he stated that reducing crime was the paramount goal.
It turned out that by achieving this goal tourism increased
and new businesses opened. But, this one clear goal provided
a way for everyone to keep score. Tools such as balanced
scorecards with multiple measures may be good analytical
tools used for management, but leaders need one, simple,
clear metric to rally the organization around.
4. What actions can we take today? Great leaders provide a
few very specific and unambiguous actions that can be taken
immediately. For example, Giuliani immediately moved to
get rid of graffiti on the subways, require cab drivers to wear
collared shirts, and rid street corners of kids with squeegees.
Most importantly, great leaders do not necessarily have the right
answers to these questions—in many cases there are no “right
answers.” But, they provide answers that are clear, specific, and
vivid. Their followers know exactly who they serve, how they will
win, how to keep score to know if they are winning, and what
they can go do today.
• Great leaders develop three important disciplines:
1. They muse. Great leaders build in time to think and reflect.
In particular, they reflect on what causes success, and they
think about excellence.
2. They pick their heroes with great care. When leaders give
awards and praise in front of others they send important
signals to the organization. Praising is a form of leadership,
but it needs to be used carefully. When they praise and select
individuals that will be viewed as heroes by others, great
leaders explain why these individuals were selected—who
they served, how they scored, and what actions they took. In
doing so, they embed these behaviors in the organization.
3. They practice their words, phrases, and stories. Great
leaders are able to communicate in ways that resonate with
others. This doesn’t happen by accident. They practice the
words that they use to help others see the better future that
they imagine. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a
Dream” speech is viewed by many as original, but it used
phrases and images that King had carefully honed over years
of practice. In practicing their words, great leaders don’t
worry about repetition.
Other Important Points
• Human universals. An anthropologist studied all cultures
in the history of the world to find those elements that are
universally shared. The result is a list of more than 300
characteristics that all cultures possess. These include loving
one’s family, fearing outsiders and enemies, taking turns,
joking with others, and even tickling.
Desde hace unos meses he estado cacareando sobre un par de conceptos potentes que le leí a un autor que descubrí recientemente. Dado que he cacareado bastante, pido disculpas a quienes se han tenido que tragar 10 veces esta historia, sin embargo estoy pensando en aquellos de ustedes a quienes no se la he contado aun y por otro lado, creo que este medio de comunicación tiene algunas ventajas a la hora de transmitir algunos de los conceptos.
La historia es la siguiente. En Octubre tuve la posibilidad de escuchar a Marcus Buckingham en su exposición como keynote speaker en la conferencia anual de la Direct Marketing Association of America (DMA). La única referencia que tenía de Buckingham era el éxito de su libro First, Break all the Rules, libro que no había leído.
Aprendí que este señor trabajó más de 17 años en The Gallup Organization investigando a varios de los grandes líderes de nuestra época. Buckingham tuvo por años el privilegio de entrevistar y estudiar en detalle a gente como Jack Welch, considerado el ejecutivo más exitoso de todos los tiempos, el notorio ex alcalde de New York Rudolph Giuliani, o el destadado guionista de hollywood Dave Koepp entre muchos otros. Luego de sus años como investigador se dio cuenta –según el mismo lo relata- que había aprendido mucho acerca de las características que hacían únicas a estas personas y por tanto decidió escribir acerca de ello.
Su carrera como escritor comenzó con el libro First, Break all the Rules y luego fue seguido por la secuela Now, Discover your strenghts. Ambos libros fueron superventas y son ampliamente comentados en círculos académicos y entre estudiosos del management.
La ponencia de Buckinham en la DMA trataba sobre su tercer libro: The One thing you need to know. En este libro, el punto central es que un buen “manager” no es lo mismo que un buen lider. El expone que los grandes managers son aquellos capaces de identificar los talentos únicos en cada persona y aprovecharlos al máximo. Los grandes managers tratan a los miembros de sus equipos en forma diferente, basados en el entendimiento de cada personalidad y motivación individual. Buckingham destaca que los grandes Gerentes no invierten demasiado tiempo en tratar de remediar las debilidades de cada persona como sí lo hacen enfocandose en desarrollar los talentos únicos que la persona ya tiene. Los grandes managers no ven a las personas como medios para conseguir un fin, ellos ven el desarrollo de los talentos únicos de cada persona como un fin en si mismo.
En contraste, los grandes líderes son capaces de descubrir los valores y creencias que son compartidas por un grupo de personas para luego capitalizar desde ese espacio. Los grandes líderes son individuos optimistas y obsesivos en imaginarse un mundo mejor al que los rodea y en esta obsesión son capaces de movilizar a sus seguidores para hacer de su visión una realidad. Marcus nos habla de la universalidad de algunos valores y creencias. El nos presenta el miedo al futuro como el más universal de los sentimientos. Los grandes líderes convierten la ansiedad acerca del futuro en confianza por la vía de proveer una extraordinaria claridad acerca del camino a recorrer. Los grandes líderes son aquellos que son capaces de movilizar a sus seguidores hacia un mundo mejor.
Les trasmito algunos de los aprendizajes clave del libro, con las palabras del propio Buckinham:
Key Learnings
• With enough research and focus, insights can usually be
boiled down to “just one thing.”
Because the world is so complex, it is valuable to distill
information down to controlling insights that guide action. This
is the premise behind the concept of “just one thing.” However, to
become a controlling insight, three tests must be passed:
1. Generalizable: The insight must apply across a broad range
of situations.
2. Transformative: The insight must be powerful enough to
elevate performance from merely good to truly great.
3. Actionable: A controlling insight must guide action. It must
point to precise actions to be taken, with specific effects.
• The chief responsibility of a manager is to turn a person’s
talent into performance.
People join companies but leave managers. A person’s manager
influences how long the person stays at an organization and how
effectively the person performs. A manager is a catalyst for
performance, speeding up talent and making that talent work
harder. (Talent is defined as a naturally recurring pattern of
thought, feeling, or behavior. Being responsible or competitive or
able to have empathy are all talents.)
• The one thing you need to know about great managers: they
find what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.
Great managers recognize that each person has unique talents
and motivations, and they seek to understand and leverage these
uniquenesses. They build their teams to maximize the unique
talents and contributions of each person on the team. In doing so,
they are proponents of “individualization” where they treat each
person differently based on that person’s talents and motivations.
Great managers may standardize the outcomes, but individualize
how each person goes about achieving those outcomes.
Average managers play checkers while great managers play chess.
In checkers all of the pieces move in the same homogenous way,
but in chess, each piece moves differently. Great managers
understand the differences in each piece and coordinate the team
to take advantage of the individual strengths.
• Great managers think very differently about developing their
people—focusing on the strengths.
At most companies, managers review their people by focusing
primarily on a person’s weaknesses or “opportunities,” and
development emphasizes addressing shortcomings. A typical
one-hour performance discussion might spend 2 minutes focused
on what a person does well and 58 minutes on what needs to be
improved. In most instances, this is not development; it is
damage control, and it is not a formula for greatness or winning.
In contrast, great managers spend 80% of their time working to
grow an employee’s greatest strengths. Investing to develop a
person’s greatest talent is how breakthrough performance can be
achieved. This mans not that great managers ignore
shortcomings, but that they focus on the talent and work around
the shortcomings. Ways this can be achieved include changing
people’s jobs, allowing them to spend most of their time where
their talent fits best; partnering an employee with another
individual with complementary talents; or helping a person get
“just a little bit better” to avoid glaring weaknesses.
Even with this approach, there will be non-performers. If after
training is provided to develop skills there is no change in
performance, the individual simply lacks the necessary talent.
Great managers recognize this as a casting error. Instead of
investing further to try to fix the person, they focus instead on
fixing the problem.
“Great management is not about changing
people. Great managers take people ‘as is’ and
then focus on releasing their talents.”
- Marcus Buckingham
Truly great managers do not see people merely as a means to an
end; they see people as the end. Great managers are personally
motivated by being able to identify people’s talents and then
more fully develop them.
• A leader’s chief responsibility is to rally people to a better
future.
Rallying people requires that leaders have innate optimism.
Great leaders are not unrealistic; in fact they are grounded in
reality. However, they are spurred on by a core belief that things
can be better in the future than they are today. They are able to
create a vision of this future and rally others to support it. In
addition, great leaders have egos in that they believe they are the
ones to make this better future come true. (Ego gets bad press.
Ego does not mean arrogance; it is self-assurance and selfconfidence.)
Importantly, great leaders channel their egos not to
benefit themselves but to build their enterprise.
• The one thing you need to know about great leaders: they
find what is universal and capitalize on it.
While great managers find what is unique and leverage it, great
leaders find what is shared. The most relevant characteristic that
is shared by all people is a fear of an unknown future. (This fear
has led people to rituals and gurus to help deal with it.) Leaders
deal in the unknown. They have to turn legitimate anxiety into
confidence. The most effective way to do this is through clarity.
“Clarity is the answer to anxiety. Effective
leaders are clear.”
- Marcus Buckingham
Specifically, followers are begging for, and great leaders provide,
clear answers to the following four key questions:
1. Who do we serve? Great leaders focus their followers on
serving one specific core group. By serving this core group,
the organization can better serve other groups as well. For
example, an executive from Wal-Mart recently told an
audience that Wal-Mart serves those who live from paycheck
to paycheck; others are invited to shop at Wal-Mart and may
be satisfied in doing so, but Wal-Mart is focused on serving
those who are struggling to get by.
2. What is our core strength? Followers want to know what the
advantages are and why the team will win. They want one
clear and specific reason, and not something vague such as
“our culture” or “our people.” People want to know exactly
what about their culture or people will enable success. At
Best Buy the CEO has stated that the strength of the
company and the reason that Best Buy will succeed is the
ability of the front-line employees to answer questions and
assist customers.
3. What is our core score? Employees need one key metric to
use in measuring progress. Deciding the one specific
measure to use in keeping score results in driving the actions
that are taken. For example, previously Britain’s jails focused
on the key metric of “number of escapees.” This score was
based on serving society and led to a focus on security. A new
director of the prison system believed that society would be
better off by focusing on serving the prisoners; he changed
the core score to track the rate of recidivism. Another
example: when Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York
City he stated that reducing crime was the paramount goal.
It turned out that by achieving this goal tourism increased
and new businesses opened. But, this one clear goal provided
a way for everyone to keep score. Tools such as balanced
scorecards with multiple measures may be good analytical
tools used for management, but leaders need one, simple,
clear metric to rally the organization around.
4. What actions can we take today? Great leaders provide a
few very specific and unambiguous actions that can be taken
immediately. For example, Giuliani immediately moved to
get rid of graffiti on the subways, require cab drivers to wear
collared shirts, and rid street corners of kids with squeegees.
Most importantly, great leaders do not necessarily have the right
answers to these questions—in many cases there are no “right
answers.” But, they provide answers that are clear, specific, and
vivid. Their followers know exactly who they serve, how they will
win, how to keep score to know if they are winning, and what
they can go do today.
• Great leaders develop three important disciplines:
1. They muse. Great leaders build in time to think and reflect.
In particular, they reflect on what causes success, and they
think about excellence.
2. They pick their heroes with great care. When leaders give
awards and praise in front of others they send important
signals to the organization. Praising is a form of leadership,
but it needs to be used carefully. When they praise and select
individuals that will be viewed as heroes by others, great
leaders explain why these individuals were selected—who
they served, how they scored, and what actions they took. In
doing so, they embed these behaviors in the organization.
3. They practice their words, phrases, and stories. Great
leaders are able to communicate in ways that resonate with
others. This doesn’t happen by accident. They practice the
words that they use to help others see the better future that
they imagine. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a
Dream” speech is viewed by many as original, but it used
phrases and images that King had carefully honed over years
of practice. In practicing their words, great leaders don’t
worry about repetition.
Other Important Points
• Human universals. An anthropologist studied all cultures
in the history of the world to find those elements that are
universally shared. The result is a list of more than 300
characteristics that all cultures possess. These include loving
one’s family, fearing outsiders and enemies, taking turns,
joking with others, and even tickling.
posted by Guillermo A. Ponce at 7:10 p. m.
1 Comments:
Buen material, muy largo; transcribir el texto del libro así en extenso, es para terminar de leerlo el fin de semana, si es que. Hay temas centrales como los del manager ajedrecista que mueve cada pieza desde sus particulares talentos y diferencias; muy bueno. Ideal sería que linkees el gran bulto y compartas lo que para ti fue significativo de ese material y conferencias.
Igual gracias y pretendo leerlo el fin de semana con tiempo.
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