First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham & Marcus Buckingham

Author:Marcus Buckingham & Marcus Buckingham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: management, leadership, Gallup, talent, strengths
Publisher: Gallup Press
Published: 2013-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Tales of Transformation

“Why is it so tempting to try to fix people?”

As you might expect, conventional wisdom tells a rather different story. First, it spins us this tale: You can be anything you want to be if you hold on to your dreams and work hard. The person you feel yourself to be every day is not the real You. No, the real You is deep inside, hidden by your fears and discouragements. If you could free yourself of these fears, if you could truly believe in yourself, then the real You would be released. Your potential would burst out. The giant would awaken.

This is a tale of transformation, and we love it. It is just so uplifting and so hopeful, who wouldn’t root for the hero who confronts his demons and transforms himself into everything he always knew he could be? Well, surely we all would. That’s why we root for Michael J. Fox in The Secret of My Success, Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, and John Travolta in Phenomenon. We love all these stories of transformation, not least because they imply that all of us have the same potential and that all of us can access this unlimited potential through discipline, persistence, and perhaps some good luck along the way.

Softened by conventional wisdom’s first installment, we are easily persuaded by the second: To access your unlimited potential, you must identify your weaknesses and then fix them. This remedial approach to self-perfection is drummed into you from your first performance appraisal. You are told that to advance your career, you must “broaden your skill set.” You must become more “well-rounded.” During each subsequent appraisal there may be a few words of congratulation for another year of excellent performance, but then it’s into the nitty-gritty of the conversation — how to improve your “areas of opportunity.” Your manager brings up, yet again, those few areas where you struggle — where you have always struggled — and you and she then cobble together another “developmental plan” to try to shore up your weaknesses once and for all. By the time you reach the end of your career, you have spent so much time fixing yourself that you must be well-nigh perfect.

The best managers dislike this story. Like all sentimental stories, it is comforting and familiar, but strangely unsatisfying. The hero, diligently shaving off his rough edges, seems sympathetic and noble, but somehow not … real. The more you ask these managers about this story, the more vivid their criticisms become. Listen to them long enough and they will peel back its cheery surface completely to reveal the rather sinister messages hidden beneath. This is what they told us:

First, its promise that each of us can “be anything we want to be if we just work hard” is actually quite a stark promise. Because if we can all “be anything we want to be,” then we all have the same potential. And if we all have the same potential, then we lose our individuality.

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