3 reasons why great managers should play favorites

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The following is an edited excerpt from First, Break All The Rules, authored by Marcus Buckingham. The excerpt is provided by Gallup Press. You can buy a copy here.

If you are a manager, you may want to try this exercise.

On the left-hand side of a blank sheet of paper, write down the names of the people who report to you in descending order of productivity – the most productive at the top, the least productive at the bottom. On the right-hand side, write down the same names, but this time in descending order of “time you spend with them”: the most time at the top, the least time at the bottom. Now draw straight lines joining the names on the left with the appropriate names on the right. Do your lines cross? They often do.

Many managers find themselves spending the most time with their least productive people and the least time with their most productive people. On the surface this would appear to be an eminently safe way for a manager to invest his time. After all, your best employees can already do the job. They don’t need you. But those few employees who are struggling? They need all the help you can give them. Without your support they might not only fail as individuals, they might also drag down the entire team. Investing in your strugglers appears shrewd, yet the most effective managers do the opposite. When they join the names, their lines are horizontal. They spend the most time with their most productive employees. They invest in their best. Why? Because at heart they see their role very differently from the way most managers do.

Most managers assume that the point of their role is either to control or to instruct. And, yes, if you see “control” as the core of the manager role, then it would certainly be productive to spend more time with your strugglers because they still need to be controlled. Likewise, if you think “instructing” is the essence of management, investing most in your strugglers makes similarly good sense because they still have so much to learn. But great managers do not place a premium on either control or instruction. Both have their place, particularly with novice employees, but they are not the core: they are too elementary, too static.

For great managers, the core of their role is the catalyst role: turning talent into performance. So when they spend time with an employee, they are not fixing or correcting or instructing. Instead they are racking their brains, trying to figure out better and better ways to unleash that employee’s distinct talents: They strive to carve out a unique set of expectations that will stretch and focus each particular individual; think back to the detail and the uniqueness of [basketball player Dennis] Rodman’s contract, and remember that every other [Chicago] Bulls player will demand a similarly detailed and similarly unique set of expectations. They try to highlight and perfect each person’s unique style. They draw his attention to it. They help him understand why it works for him and how to perfect it.

As Robert T., a branch manager for a large brokerage house, explains: “My brokers don’t work for me. I work for them. If I can’t think up any new ideas to help my superstars, the least I can do is grease the administrative wheels so that nothing gets in their way.” If this is how you see your role, if this is what you are doing when you spend time with your people – setting unique expectations, highlighting and perfecting individual styles, running interference – you cannot help but be drawn toward your most talented employees. Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.

“No news” kills behavior

Conversely, time away from your best is alarmingly destructive. Graduates from the machismo school of management, with its steely-eyed motto of “No news is good news,” would be surprised by just how destructive it is. At its simplest, a manager’s job is to encourage people to do more of certain productive behaviors and less of other, unproductive behaviors. Machismo managers have forgotten that their reactions can significantly affect which behaviors are multiplied and which gradually die out. They have forgotten that they are on stage every day and that, whether they like it or not, they are sending signals that every employee hears.

Great managers haven’t forgotten. They remember that they are permanently on center stage. In particular, they remember that the less attention they pay to the productive behaviors of their superstars, the less of those behaviors they will get. Since human beings are wired to need attention of some kind, if they are not getting attention, they will tend, either subconsciously or consciously, to alter their behavior until they do. Therefore, as a manager, if you pay the most attention to your strugglers and ignore your stars, you can inadvertently alter the behaviors of your stars.

Guided by your apparent indifference, your stars may start to do less of what made them stars in the first place and more of other kinds of behaviors that might net them some kind of reaction from you, good or bad. When you see your stars acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors. So try to keep this in mind: You are always onstage. Your misplaced time and attention is not a neutral act. No news is never good news. No news kills the very behaviors you want to multiply.

In practical terms, then, great managers invest in their best because it is extremely productive to do so and actively destructive to do otherwise. However, during our interviews great managers were happy to explain the benefits in more conceptual terms. They told us that investing in their best was, first, the fairest thing to do; second, the best way to learn; and, third, the only way to stay focused on excellence.

Investing in your best is the fairest thing to do

Although great managers are committed to the concept of “fairness,” they define it rather differently from most people. In their mind, “fairness” does not mean treating everyone the same. They would say that the only way to treat someone fairly is to treat them as they deserve to be treated, bearing in mind what they have accomplished.

Jimmy Johnson, the coach who led the [US football team] Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl rings and who now manages the Miami Dolphins, captures their attitude toward “fairness.” He made this point in a speech to the Miami players immediately after taking the reins from former head coach Don Shula: “I am going to be very consistent with every one of you because I’ll treat every one of you differently. That’s the way it is. The harder a guy works, the better he performs, and the more he meets my guidelines, the more leeway he is going to have with me. By the same token, if a guy doesn’t work very hard or if he’s not a good player, he’s not going to be around for very long.”

Investing in your best is the best way to learn