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Nine Lies about Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World
Nine Lies about Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real World | Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall
6 posts | 1 read | 2 reading | 2 to read
Forget what you know about the world of workYou crave feedback. Your organization's culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. Your competencies should be measured and your weaknesses shored up. Leadership is a thing.These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they're lies. As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies--distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking--that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact. They cause dysfunction and frustration, ultimately resulting in workplaces that are a pale shadow of what they could be.But there are those who can get past the lies and discover what's real. These freethinking leaders recognize the power and beauty of our individual uniqueness. They know that emergent patterns are more valuable than received wisdom and that evidence is more powerful than dogma.With engaging stories and incisive analysis, the authors reveal the essential truths that such freethinking leaders will recognize immediately: that it is the strength and cohesiveness of your team, not your company's culture, that matter most; that we should focus less on top-down planning and more on giving our people reliable, real-time intelligence; that rather than trying to align people's goals we should strive to align people's sense of purpose and meaning; that people don't want constant feedback, they want helpful attention.This is the real world of work, as it is and as it should be. Nine Lies About Work reveals the few core truths that will help you show just how good you are to those who truly rely on you.
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OutAndAbout
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Good assumption challenging perspective on some of the worst corporate practices out there. I summarized each lie in previously posted quotes but that doesn‘t do the book justice so I highly recommend reading this one. Well researched and excellent story telling and writing. #nfnov

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OutAndAbout

Lie no. 4. The best people are well rounded. Competencies are BS. Stop trying to find the unicorn employee that has every competency and figure out how to engage a diverse set of people with various skills onto a single purpose and then give them technical support to fit the job to the person. (Gave the example of an adjustable seat for pilots instead of finding and average height pilot. )
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OutAndAbout Lie no. 6. People can reliably rate other people. Studies show the ratings say more about the rarer than the person they‘re rating. Also the definitions are poorly constructed and usually aren‘t proven indicators or performance anyway. Instead, have people rate themselves. And ask more future based questions. 4y
OutAndAbout
- Do you always go to this team member when you need extraordinary results.
- Do you choose to work with this team member as much as you possibly can.
- Would you promote this person today if you could.
- Do you think this person has a performance problem that you need to address immediately.
4y
OutAndAbout
Lie no. 7. People have potential. This isn‘t so much a lie as the idea that you can see a persons potential. Big companies waste a huge amount of resources on “hi pos”, which demeans anyone they aren‘t smart enough to understand.
4y
OutAndAbout Lie no. 8. Work life balance matters most. Reality - no amount of “life” will offset time spent in drudgery at work. Find what you love about your job and spend your effort creating more of those “red threads” in your normal work day. 4y
OutAndAbout Lie no. 9. Leadership is a thing. If you know who you are, what abilities you have that can be used for good, you will gain followers, and that‘s really all that leadership is. 4y
6 likes5 comments
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OutAndAbout
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Lie no. 2 - the best plan wins. Plans are outdated the moment they are created. “Plans scope the problem, not the solution.” Instead make sure your people have all the information and trust them to make sense of it. Then aggressively coach them, frequency of checkins is more important than quality. One on ones aren‘t in addition to your job. As a manager they ARE your job! It‘s so hard to teach managers how critical one on ones are. Good advice.

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OutAndAbout
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Lie #1 - people care which company they work for. Reality - they care about the people they work with. Teams are more important for engagement than the company as a whole.

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OutAndAbout
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Lie #5 - people need feedback. “We aren‘t looking for feedback. We‘re looking for an audience.... attention” #til #nfnov. “The truth,then, is that people need attention - and when you give it to us in a safe and nonjudgmental environment, we will come and stay and play and work.”

9 likes1 stack add
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JeanaRae
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Listening to this audiobook to try & better myself as a leader. So far I'm enjoying it.