The One Thing You Need to Know

Alan writes - following the success of Marcus Buckingham's previous books (he has sold 1.6 million copies of his first two books) - First, Break All the Rules, and Now, Discover Your Strengths comes this new one – The One Thing You Need to Know.

The focus of the book is on the one key ingredient of management, leadership and being, what he calls, individually successful.  He sees the key ingredient in each of these as the ability to focus; which he defines as having two qualities – the ability to filter and hence distinguish the imperative from the important and secondly the ability to focus as a laser does and thereby bring disproportionate pressure on a few key areas.

Buckingham draws on a wealth of applicable examples to reveal that a controlling insight lies at the heart of managing, leading and personal success. Lose sight of this "one thing" and even the best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Buckingham's great gift is his ability to cut through the mass of often-conflicting agendas and zero in on what matters most, without ever oversimplifying. As he observes, success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources.

For Buckingham there are significant differences between leaders and managers and while one person can play both roles they need to be very clear about what they are doing – why and when. Managers focus on people and focus their talents. Leaders paint a picture of the future, and enable people to overcome their cautiousness and fear so as to move into this view of the future.

So what are his key points?

"Great leaders rally people to a better future."

"Great managers discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it."

His key to individual success is:

"Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it."

Of course, the devil is in the details. It will in many cases be harder to follow these simple rules than it seems. But when you read the whole text and think about it, it does make sense.