Marcus Buckingham presents practical skills that managers can employ to maximize the output of subordinates in the workplace through the identification of their strong points as well as their weaknesses in the, What Great Manager Do article. Buckingham makes a clear distinction between leaders and managers in his statement that; great leaders utilize the needs and fears we all share while great managers on the other hand discover, improve, and celebrate the difference of the personnel they are working with.
Spotting an individual’s unique trait and capitalizing on it saves time. Buckingham uses practical examples to clarify this point. An example is Michelle (Walgreen Manager) who would have spent a lot of time in training Jeffery on effective customer care skills. Identifying Jeffery’s strength and capitalizing on it, saved time. Capitalizing also makes one accountable for the task allocated. Michelle encouraged Jeffery to improve on the skills he was good at instead of praising him for tasks he performed, as a way to make Jeffery conscious of his contribution to the store. Capitalizing on the unique traits of worker builds team spirit, since it creates inter-dependency among the workers. Team spirit builds when workers appreciate of each other’s unique contribution to the business. Buckingham notes that capitalizing on unique traits adds an extra challenge to a business’ management on matters of the businesses orthodoxies, due to worker innovation and creativity.
Great managers realistically assess an obstacle’s difficulty and instill an unrealistic belief that the subordinate can overcome the obstacle. In case the subordinate fails, the manager interprets it as a lack of effort. This approach encourages self-improvement. Repeated failure is a sign of weakness. Weakness can be solved by training the worker on the skills he/she lacks, pairing the worker with a worker that complement his/her weakness, the idea of the involvement of an authoritative third party who assesses the employee’s performance, or realignment of all of the other workers tasks search that the weakness of the worker is masked. Buckingham also argues that the most powerful trigger, to improve a workers performance is recognition. There are various form of recognition that are motivational to a worker such as congratulating his achievement one-on-one, or in front of his coworkers, or with messages and feedback from customers.
Buckingham’s article gives clear explanations and illustrations on the importance and the practicability of managers need for indentifying and appreciating workers differences, strengths, and weaknesses for the workers skills and career development as well as positive business growth.
Works Cited
Buckingham, Marcus. What Great Managers. Harvard Business Review
