Peak Business Navigation is based in Madison, WI, serving clients in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.
Archive for month: January, 2025
The original book by Gallup on employee engagement and management styles launched the StrengthFinders book series and product.
What might be obvious to most people is not so obvious to others – no two employees are the same. Thus, treating employees the same will fail to get the highest level of engagement and performance from them. That’s the main rule to be broken – treating everyone the same.
End of the day – managers matter. Probably more than any other perk, benefit or development program. Great managers attract, retain and grow great people. People tend to quit managers, not jobs.
What We Like About this Book
The book starts off by looking at the 12 questions for employee engagement. We often come back to them again and again when it seems things aren’t going well with employees, or when we’re trying to take someone to the next level.
- Do I know what’s expected of me at work?
- Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
- At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
- In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
- Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
- Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
- At work, do my opinions seem to count?
- Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
- Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
- Do I have a best friend at work?
- In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
- This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
Then the book goes into more rule breaking, like spending the most time with your best people versus equally. Or not making everyone follow the same progression and steppingstones.
Any criticisms?
Hard to criticize this one. The chapters break up well, the examples are great and it’s clearly well researched.
Is it best to be really nice to employees? When does pushing people go too far? Kim Scott takes a look at finding the balance between being pushy and being kind. Drawing her two axes for Caring Personally and Challenging Directly, she gives a review of techniques for striking the optimal balance as a manager.
What We Love About this Book
Lots of examples. Lots of techniques. Covers everything from employee meetings to career conversations. From annual reviews to decision making. If there’s a situation you might face at work, there’s likely a great example here of common pitfalls of being too nice or too aggressive and how to land in between the two extremes.
Kim Scott makes a great argument that being too nice is really doing a disservice to your team. She also shows how important it is to actively demonstrate that you care about the person as a person and not as an employee. Striking the balance allows for happy and engaged employees working in a high performing organization.
Any criticisms?
It’s geared mostly to work environments where employees are professional and have a certain level of education. The concepts do apply anywhere, but Kim Scott worked at Google and Apple, so a manager on a shop floor or in a restaurant might not find the same benefit as someone managing a professional office team.