Some time ago, Cisco’s Illuminate initiative (an internal programme focused on personal and professional growth) proposed to send us a book… always interested in a free book, I’ve just filled in the form, not knowing what to expect.
Good timing, the book got delivered a few weeks later, just in time for the Year End shutdown.
The book was written by Marcus Buckingham. It didn’t ring any bell until I realised he is actually the guy behind our StandOut assessment…
I had filled in that survey a couple of years earlier and got categorised as Advisor Equalizer. At the time I found it matched pretty well my personality, so far so good. And even better, since then I periodically receive various tips by email that I always find surprisingly appropriate and to the point. I was pretty thrilled to read a book from the man behind that…
Mixed impressions #
Well, I have been relatively disappointed. This is clearly an easy-to-read book, but I’ve found the signal-to-noise ratio to be relatively low. Yet there are still a few pearls to discover inside. Here is what I personally take out of it…
The Wyrd and the Red Threads #
The first part introduces two main concepts:
- The “wyrd”: basically, everyone is unique
- The “red threads”: the activities we love doing and we excel at
These shouldn’t be confused with activities we are good at but loathe doing, which Marcus considers weaknesses. He also mentions activities we love but aren’t particularly good at, which he’d simply categorise as hobbies.
From there, he explains how the education system and the business world try to negate our uniqueness and make us fit a mould. He argues we should actively look for our red threads and try to use them more and more…
The Seven Devils #
“The devil’s greatest power is that he doesn’t know he is the devil”
The most provocative devil is about feedback. His argument is that feedback is usually just “you would do better at this if only you did it more like I do”. Since we are all unique, what works for someone else might not work for us.
He does make a useful distinction between feedback and reaction:
“The only time someone’s feedback or advice will prove helpful is when they are correcting a fact you got wrong.”
If we follow that logic strictly, that would be the end of mentoring… I personally still think there is value in learning what works for other people, even if you can’t apply it directly. It can still serve as a source of inspiration or something to adapt. But the point about not blindly following feedback is well taken.
Another devil is about classical evaluation:
“By comparing us, they render us invisible, they use standardized criteria as a measure of us. Which is how they hide us.”
Obviously, he has much better to offer… though the alternative is a bit light on specifics.
The Practical Bit #
The third section is supposed to be more practical. One piece of advice that genuinely resonated:
“There is a great deal that you can’t control at work, focus on what you can control”
Hard to disagree. If something bothers you and you can’t change it (in my case, this would be filling in my timesheet), there is no point trying to fight it. It will only bring frustration. Just go along with it…
The example in the book is:
“Getting rid of job descriptions and job leveling and job competencies is not a hill you need to die on”
He builds on this with a reflection on people who seem to have a job that fits them perfectly. How did they get such a job?
Well, they deliberately and gradually fashioned it so that it focused more and more on the activities they loved. Almost all of us have some room to manoeuvre there. I’ve the feeling it is easier to do the higher your grade is… or as an architect!
I also appreciated how he values experience:
“Most successful people choose a path and stay on it for a decade or more”
“Anyone who ended up getting really good at something had devoted a significant amount of time to their craft”
And a genuinely useful tip for when you’re evaluating a new manager: ask them about the span of control, how often they do 1-on-1s, ask them to describe a couple of team members individually, what motivates each of them, how they prefer to receive recognition. That tells you pretty quickly whether that leader actually sees their people or is just managing headcount.
The Last Chapters #
Essentially a rant against the US education system. Not particularly useful for a global audience…
The actual discovery #
The greatest thing about this book was that it pointed me to a study made by… Cisco. Not immediately relevant (it was about “spiky leaders”), but the fact that we had people within Cisco doing that kind of research was a real surprise to me.
That’s how I discovered our People Research & Intelligence team.
I now better understand how close the relationship is between Cisco and Marcus Buckingham. Ashley Goodall, the previous leader of that team, actually co-authored Nine Lies About Work with him. They also have a SharePoint where they share their research and findings. Their work is pretty impressive, but that is definitely a topic for another post…
Worth reading anyway? #
If you have an O’Reilly subscription, I’d suggest also having a look to Nine Lies About Work. That one has a much better signal-to-noise ratio. Love + Work is the book I received and reviewed above. And StandOut 2.0 is worth a read if you want to understand the background behind the weekly check-ins framework.