It is the Manager Gallup Book Review 2020 – One of the Best Leadership Books Written by Jim Cliffton & Jim Harter. This review will help you to enhance your leadership skills.
Theme of the book – ‘The Quality of Managers and Team Leaders is the single biggest factor in your Organisation’s long term success’
By Jim Clifton – Chairman and CEO of Gallup – a Global Analytic and Advisory Company.
Photo of Jim Clifton
And Jim Harter, PhD – Chief Scientist workplace at Gallup.
Photo of Jim Harter
This book is a very useful reference book for CEOs, CHROs , Managers and Team Leaders.
Powered by 52 business changing discoveries from Gallup’s latest studies , “It’s The Manager” is a very useful reference book for CEOs, CHROs and Managers and Team Leaders.
This book consists of :
- Brief introduction of New will of the Working World. Economic slow down of businesses has been discussed. It is largely due to outdated management practices which are stuck in time for last 30 years, not keeping pace with New Will of the Working World.
- 52 Studies involving in depth analysis of five business functions
- Five Appendixes to guide about utilization of individual strengths by leaders for implementation of business functions.
- An access code to Clifton Strength Assessment to determine your strengths for leadership. It is one time access code.
New Will of the Working World.
While the workplaces – factories, offices and the employees have gone through extraordinary historic changes, the clock of the management practice has been stuck in time for more than 30 years. Although the processes adapted so far are flawless. the defect or the flaw lies in the failure of maximizing human potentials. This has resulted in declining production and increasing the costs.
For analyzing and obtaining data, Gallup has conducted wide ranging surveys and interviews across the Globe.
The present work force mainly consist of the Millennials, Generation Z and Baby Boomers, who wants their job to be great, and should have some vision, mission and purpose , where they will get a good exposure and a chance to unleash and utilize their potentials fully and a fairly comfortable work life balance . They don’t want a stereotype job, old style command and control from their bosses.
This issue can be fixed. At present only 15% of the total workforce is fully engaged. The workplaces and the world will change, if this figure can be raised to 50% or more by maximizing human potential.
An organization will not develop organically, unless and until their employees do not develop. So the economic dynamism is declining. The CEOs of major companies indulge themselves in cost cutting and acquiring competitor companies. As a result of this there is a decline in publically traded companies. In the last twenty years this figure has been reduced from 7300 to 3700. This has affected the stock exchanges.
Gallup recommendation says that instead of choosing the costly option of acquiring the competitors, it is advisable to implement organic growth strategies to build a fully transformed workplace culture, where employee development is optimum and there are managers and leaders, who are capable to develop every single individual in the organization .
The growth from inspiration is free and it improves culture of the organization, because it fulfills the will of the world – that of having a great job and a great life. Common employee’s definition of a great job is to have a living wage in a meaningful & fulfilling work as well as to experience real individual growth and development in the workplace.
The mindset of the people, who are having a great job, is different. They contribute towards the business growth, inspire teams, they are problem solver rather than problem creator, volunteer in their community, and have far better health and well being with little or no mistakes and no accidents.
The irony of the matter is that, when we talk about great jobs, only 15% of the total employee’s of the world are engaged in such great jobs. The remaining 85% working adults are either not engaged at work or facing some worse situations like hating their jobs, bosses and companies.
Our world is in urgent need of culture of great jobs.
It’s the Manager.
It is the Manager Gallup Book Review:– Gallup studies clearly states that for the long term success of a particular organization, the quality of the Managers and the Team leaders should be taken into consideration. They are the single biggest factor who mould the future of the organization. So the CEOs and CHROs should know where to start this journey of transformation. Gallup says 70% of variance in individual and team engagement is determined by the Managers.
If your employee strength is about 50,000, you will have atleast 5000 Managers and Team Leaders. So here the variance should be taken care of. Out of this figure if we categorize 30% to be the best, 20% to be lousy and the rest 50% are just there, then concentrate on doubling the best 30% to 60% and cut the lousy to single digit . This will zoom your stock prizes. This transformation can be created by the Managers.
So, if you induct great managers efficiently and successfully in your work force and if the majority of managers are great managers , then you are successful in delivering adequately to the new global will of having a great job and a great life.
It’s the Manager book is packed with analysis and findings of 52 studies carried out across the globe by Gallup and organized under five Business Functions – Strategy, Culture, Employment Brand, Boss to Coach and Future of Work.
These Business Functions are now explained briefly.
1. Strategy : This Consists of five chapters starting with what the CEOs and CHROs exactly need to change. It relates to change in belief and culture necessitated by arrival of Millenials, Generation Z and Baby Boomers. The new work force wants their job to have mission and purpose. They are not interested in job satisfaction. They want their bosses to be their coaches. In place of annual reviews they want ongoing conversations and most importantly conversations to highlight their strengths and not their weaknesses.
2. Culture. In the present scenario only 41% of the employees know what their organization stands for and only 27% are aware of the values of the organization.Only one in three agree that ‘Mission or Purpose of my organization makes me feel that my job is important’. Along with this the organization purpose, brand and culture need to be in alignment.
3.Employment Brand : To build a loyal customer base , the organizations spend lots of time and money on marketing campaigns. But they often neglect to develop an equally strong employment brand to attract the best talent. Millennials are electronically intelligent and highly networked. When it comes to finding a prospective employer’s brand, they believe more in to their trusted relationship in the marketplace, rather than in facebook or any other social media platforms. They will only select those jobs that fits in to their lifestyle criteria. Apart from this, in this chapter, desirable hiring and onboarding as well as development strategies are also explained.
4.Boss to Coach : Organizations have discovered that the age old Performance Management System(PMS) is not getting the desired results. Only 20% of employees agree that they gets motivated by PMS. On the other hand millennials wants their bosses to be their coaches. They want frequent communication, ongoing feedback and coaching. So Managers need to be transformed in to coaches. The five types of coaching conversation, which drives performance are mentioned here. Critical finding is that career growth and development opportunities are a prime motive for employees to stay or change the job. The 12 Elements of team success have been specified; main one being quality of Manager / Team Leader which accounts for 70% of variance in team effectiveness. Development of Managers / Team Leaders has also been discussed.
5.The Future of Work. This topic has been discussed at length. Main concerns discussed are :-
Diversity and Inclusion. This includes employee requirement of ‘Treat me with Respect’, ‘Value me for my strengths’ , ‘Leaders will do what is right’.
- Women in workplace. ‘Mee Too’ era,’ pay gap for same type of job’ and work life flexibility are relevant points of importance.
- Benefits, Perks and Flexitime. These are important to employees.
- Gig Workers ( Free Lance / Contract workers ).
- Artificial Intelligence. This is coming up in a big way that will affect manual jobs. Cost benefit analysis of these systems has been discussed. Included are the challenges resulting from arrival of these systems for which businesses should be prepared.
In the conclusion, the main text describes about the Gallup Microeconomic Path, which if followed properly, will lead to healthy organic sales growth provided the Managers / Team Leaders are well developed and are functioning properly.
Appendixes.
There are five appendixes :-
- Appendix 1. Deals with leading with your identified strengths among Clifton Strength themes.
- Appendix 2. Discussion on 12 Employee Engagement Elements – what it takes to build most engaging and productive work culture.
- Appendix 3. Relationships between Engagement at work and Organizational outcomes.
- Appendix 4. The relationship between strength based employee development and organizational outcomes.
- Appendix 5. Gallup Meta Analytic Study of Managerial Hiring and Development Profiles.
Final Thought
The book is data driven and therefore the scientific study of last three to five decades across the globe carried out by Gallup has been discussed extensively
Global economic slowdown has been correctly analyzed covering all aspects of business behaviors.
All the chapters are very crisp and clear and have been described in a very simple language in just 2-3 pages each. Authors have done well by covering relevant points for today’s businesses scenario. I strongly recommend this book for all CEOs, CHROs, Mangers / Team Leaders to read, assimilate and implement for their upward growth.
If you really want to upscale your leadership skill then this It is the Manager gallup book review will help you
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