First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

by Gallup Press

Third, this story describes a doomed relationship. The conventional manager genuinely wants to bring out the best in the employee, but she chooses to do so by focusing on fixing the employee’s weaknesses. The employee probably possesses many strengths, but the manager ends up characterizing him by the few areas where he struggles. This is the same dynamic that often proves the undoing of other failed relationships. Have you ever suffered through a bad relationship — the kind of relationship where the pressures of each day sapped your energy and made you a stranger to yourself? If you can stand to, think back to how you felt during that relationship and remember: A bad relationship is rarely one where your partner didn’t know you very well. Most often, a bad relationship is one where your partner came to know you very well indeed … and wished you weren’t that way. Perhaps your partner wanted to perfect you. Perhaps you were simply incompatible and your weaknesses grated on each other. Perhaps your partner was a person who simply enjoyed pointing out other people’s failings. Whatever the cause, you ended up feeling as though you were being defined by things you did not do rather than by things you did do. And that felt awful. This is the same feeling that many managers unwittingly create in their employees. Even when working with their most productive employees, they still spend most of their time talking about each person’s areas of nontalent and how to eradicate them. No m...