Press/Articles

Submitted by admin on October 7, 2009 - 4:48pm

Press/Articles

The Wisdom of Thoughtfulness

by Amy Zipkin

New York Times

Wednesday, May 31, 2000 (All day)

Every few weeks, some Silicon Valley start-up tries to lure Mary Morse, a software engineer, away from Autodesk, a computer-aided design company in San Rafael, Calif. At least one of them has dangled an options package that could have made her rich by now.

But Ms. Morse invariably says thanks, but no thanks. The reason she is staying put, she says, is simple: she likes her bosses.

Navigating the Amazon Circle

by Katie Hafner

New York Times

Sunday, May 21, 2000 (All day)

Introduce a computer to a heap of raw data and the temptation to slice the information every which way can prove irresistible. One example is Amazon.com’s purchase-circle program, which enables customers to see what books are popular among different groups. Apparently, the idea is that readers can learn the buying preferences of people with whom they might have something in common, or about whom they might be curious, and that one can glean insights into a place or company by seeing, for instance, that a top seller in Kenya is ”The Carbohydrate Addict’s Lifespan Program” or that in Hoboken, N.J., a number of people want to know how to put on a Jewish wedding.

It’s the Manager, Stupid

by Mark Borden

Fortune

Monday, October 25, 1999 (All day)

THE GREAT WORKPLACE "SECRET"

What makes a company a great place to work? Good managers. And good managers, say Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their best-selling book, First, Break All The Rules (Simon & Schuster, $25), are leaders who ignore conventional niceties. Good managers play favorites, don’t try to fix their employees’ weaknesses, and don’t believe in the power of positive thinking. Rather, they build on strengths and cast people in the right role. Based on interviews of more than 80,000 managers and a million employees, the Gallup Organization (yes, the poll people, but nearly all the company’s revenue comes from management research and consulting) created a 12-question formula to determine the strength of a workplace. None of the 12 questions address issues like pay, benefits, perks, or what employees think of the CEO. Instead, questions like “Do my opinions seem to count?” and “Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?” were used to discover the keys to higher levels of productivity, profit, retention, and customer satisfaction. FORTUNE’s Mark Borden discussed the book with its authors.

Employers Learn One Size Doesn’t Fit All

by Carol Memmott

USA Today

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 (All day)

First, Break All the Rules

By Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (Simon & Schuster, 271 pp., $25)

Say goodbye to the faceless worker in the gray flannel suit. A new book based on Gallup interviews with 80,000 managers reveals a surprisingly old-fashioned but very modern strategy that great managers share. Are you ready? Treat every employee as an individual.

In First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Gallup shares findings based on 25 years of research. Their biggest discovery: Talented people need great managers, and when turnover is an issue, usually the manager is to blame.

Employees Offer Advice On How to Retain Them

by Patricia Kitchen

Newsday

Sunday, May 16, 1999 (All day)

Learning to play by their strengths is the key

IF YOU’RE a manager wracking your brain for ways to find and retain good people in your department, you might just want to ask yourself the following: “Do I play to my people’s strengths?” and “Have I thanked anyone in the past seven days for doing a good job?” Such acts are far more important in retaining talented employees than perks such as in-chair massages and concierge services, according to a new book “First, Break All the Rules – What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently” (Simon & Schuster, $25). And this book is worth paying attention to. It’s written by two workplace experts at the Gallup Organization, which interviewed more than a million employees over the past 25 years.

Of the 100 million questions that Gallup has posed, the authors, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, set out to whittle that number down to the handful that best measures the core of a stong workplace.