The One Thing You Need to Know
Marcus Buckingham


Key To Happy Relationships: Find the most generous explanation for each other's behavior and believe it.

Love entails giving a positive explanation for the other person's behavior.

Learn to recast the other person's weaknesses as strengths.

Believe the other person is doing the best he can with what he has.

Chose your perceptions of others carefully because they will drive your behavior towards them.


Managers need to be catalysts who excel at turning peoples' talents into performance.

Leaders
Rudy Giuliani: "know your values, be hopeful, be prepared, show courage, build great teams, love people."
Army: "Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage."

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"Great leaders rally people to a better future."
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Leaders are not satisfied with the status quoa but crave progress to a better future.

Great managers need a coaching instinct and Great leaders need optimism and ego.

A leader not only believes in a better future but believes he is the best person to lead the group into that future.

MANAGING

The Basics of Good Managing
1. Select good people
2. Define clear expectations
3. Define clear consequences
4. Show you care for people

Managers play Chess not Checkers because each individual moves differently. You can't treat everyone the same.

Discover what is unique about each individual and capitalize on it.
1. It saves you time.
2. It makes each individual accountable.
3. It introduces a healthy amount of disruption.

Three Levers:
1. Identify strengths and weaknesses.
2. Identify each person's triggers.
3. Identify each person's style of learning.

LEADING

"If you know someone's fears you will know his need."

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Every leader must discover what is universal and capitalize on it.
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Five Fears, Five Needs, One Focus
1. Fear of Death--Need for Security
2. Fear of Outsiders--Need for Community
3. Fear of the Future--Need for Clarity
4. Fear of Chaos--Need for Authority
5. Fear of Insignificance--Need for Respect

Fear of the Future and the Need for Clarity is the best place to focus.

Where are your followers crying out for clarity?

1. Who do we serve?
2. What is our core strength?
"Get your strengths together and make your weaknesses irrelevant."
3. What is our core score?
4. What actions can we take today?

The Disciplines of Leadership
1. Take time to reflect
2. Select your heroes with great care
3. Practice

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

Sustained success is more like sculpting than building; you don't need to add new things but cut away things. Identify what weakens you and then cut it out of your life.

Sustained success is making the greatest impact over the longest period of time.