The One Thing You Need to Know

by Marcus Buckingham
about great managing, great leading, and sustained individual success

Also wrote: First Discover Your Strengths

Contents

1) The "One Thing"
Controlling insights, core concepts

Part I: Sustained Organizational Success
2) Managing and Leading: What's the difference?
View from the Middle: What great Managers actually do
View from the Top: What great leaders actually do

3) Great Managing
- The basics of good managing
- Great managers play chess
- Great managers are romantics, employ individualization to benefit all
- The Three Levers of motivation
- The 5 most useful questions

4) Great Leading
- Leaders win loyalty, rally all of us to a better place, leads by commonality of all our goals
- 5 fears, 5 needs, one focus: the universals of human nature can be understood to pick a goal
- Leaders win by being clear: who we serve, why we will win, what the future will be, our core strength, etc.
- actions define your core concepts also: either systematic actions or symbolic actions
-symbolic actions give your followers something to look to
-systematic actions interrupt their routine or day and force an evaluation
-Find your Clarity as a leader through 3 disciplines: Take time to reflect, Select your Heroes with Great Care, Practice.

Part II: Sustained Individual Success
-20 Percenters do what they love, and have passion for.
-learn from 20 Percenters around you - see what it looks like to follow your passion
-sustained success means saying no to doing things you don't love
-or finding your strengths and cultivating them
-if you're bored, frustrated, drained, unfulfilled --> reevaluate and get to your strengths
-Intentional imbalance leverages your strengths to create something new you love to do.