What are the Details of the Book?

By By Deanne Rosenberg, Publisher: Tate Publishing (September 19, 2014), Paperpack: 380 pages, Language: English, ISBN-10: 1631852892, ISBN-13: 978-1631852893

‘Managers do not motivate employees by giving them higher wages, more benefits or new status symbols. Rather, employees are motivated by their own inherent need to succeed at a challenging task. The manager's job then is not to motivate people to get them to achiever; instead, the manager should provide opportunities for people to achieve so they will become motivated’. - Frederick Herzberg

If you want to update your knowledge on coaching, feedback, motivation, delegation and goal setting, read this book. If you want to acquire tools and techniques to praise and provide constructive feedback, read this book. If you want to improve your performance and leadership behaviour, read this book. DeAnne Rosenberg's authored book, Management's Fatal Flaw advocates a new foundation for the relationship between manager and employee, one which is based on coaching.

What is Inside?

The book begins with a questionnaire with answers to evaluate. It differentiates between standards of performance and goals as follows:

A standard of performance is a statement of results that will exist when the job is being performed satisfactorily.

Standards state specifically how well the duties and responsibilities are to be performed.

For both the employee and the manager standards answer the question, ‘How will I know it when I see it?’

Standards provide a yardstick and a basis for meaningful discussions of performance expectations and results.

Goals are set with the employee for the purpose of challenging him/her to exceed the standards.

The book unfurls that the key to coaching for better performance without criticism is to encourage people to learn from their own experience by utilising a questioning strategy. This is done with a seven-step process as follows: observe behaviour; discuss it immediately after it occurs with the person; revisit the situation with the person by asking questions that cannot be answer with yes or no; build on and utilise the person's own date (‘Your presentation was probably the best presentation I have ever seen’) as much as possible; don't make the person wrong (the sales trainee calls the customer stupid, but the boss did not criticise, instead, he restates the observation as unsophisticated.); allow the employee to discover his own answer. (In this way, he will feel powerful enough to try again, knowing that next time, he will succeed.); and end with the employee's commitment to do something different next time. It outlines the steps in the coaching (questioning) process as follows:

Do not tell the employee anything. Ask question and listen.

Present actual data.

Suggest the employee analyse the actions which created that data.

Advise the employee to evaluate the actual results of those actions against the desired results.

Ask: ‘what are you willing to do to create a more effective outcome next time?’

Both of you decide on an action plan for improvement.

Urge the employee to begin working on the action plan immediately.

Set up a definitive time for a follow-up conversation.

The book describes the basic purposes of performance feedback as follows: to increase employee effectiveness; to ensure that only the best performers are promoted; to provide feedback for career development efforts; to secure a legal foundation for personnel actions; to create a financial connection between performance results and compensation; to excite people about their work and motivate them to higher levels of performance; to uncover and resolve problems that are preventing optimum productivity; and to clarify expectations of employee performance and illuminate managerial objectives.

The book outlines the truth about ‘constructive criticism’ as follows: criticism is not a motivational technique; it is designed to focus the employee's awareness on something you believe is important; criticism does not teach or show the employee how to correct or change or do anything; the employee cannot correct or change something unless he/she fully understands what the problem is and the effect it is having on co-workers, the department and themselves; the employee's perception of the issue is his/her reality; and criticism overpowers all other forms of feedback.

The book distinguishes between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation with examples as follows: the extrinsic motivators are: salary, benefits package, working conditions, company policies and rules, supervision, security and interpersonal relations. The intrinsic motivators are: challenge, achievement, recognition for achievement, interest in the job, responsibility for the work, personal and career growth and promotion and advancement. It describes some ideas for minimising those extrinsic pressures that kill intrinsic motivation as follows:

Solicit input from your people when setting deadlines.

Encourage your staff members to focus on the work rather than on each other.

Promote collaboration. Avoid competition, between staff, departments or teams.

Allow staff to have choices in determining how the work for which they are responsible should be accomplished.

Demonstrate trust in the staff's capability by reducing the amount of time you spend overseeing their work. (Assume that if they require your input or guidance, they will ask for it.)

Prevent organisational administrative baloney from impacting your staff.

Encourage self-evaluation.

Promote peer coaching.

Be certain that each task you assign challenges the staff member to whom it is given.

Give new employees work that tests the boundaries of their capability.

Rotate employees through a variety of tasks, jobs, departments and teams.

Encourage employees to use their expertise to redesign their own jobs.

The book explains that most people hate work, passionately, completely and very intelligently. Yet on the other hand, they love achievement. If you make a list of the differences, you will find that there is a great disparity between the terms work and achievement. Work is drudgery. It has no end; it just goes on and on and on. Achievement, by definition, has an end. Work gives us a sense of plodding through life; achievement gives us a sense of purpose in life. Work is how we earn a living; achievement makes us feel our efforts are worthwhile. Work often lack meaning or direction; achievement is what gives our work life meaning and direction. Work is often imposed by others, whereas achievement is something we embrace for ourselves. Work is a process and a means to an end. Work lacks motivational power. Achievement fills us with incredible amounts of motivation. Achievement is the end. Work helps us measure the passage of time; achievement helps us measure our successes. The difference between the two concepts is dramatic. The difference between work and achievement is goals.

Leadership Takeaways

Improvement does not come from forms but rather from the dialogue the manager has with that individual, one-on-one, and the commitments that are made as a result of that conversation. This dialogue should be based on the issues and problems both employee and manager see as limiting the employee's ability to get the job done.

What counts, in the final analysis, is not what you tell the employee, but rather what the employee accepts.

The difference between hearing a criticism and hearing valued advice is often a difference in understanding and timing.

What we have to do does not involve choice; what we want to do is all about choice.

Motivation is not triggered by external factors but rather by internal ones. As a manager, you have to find a way to excite people about their work rather than bribe them into doing it.

Ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they have to. A parent will rush into a burning house to save a youngster; a small child will bring a car to a safe halt when a parent has a heart attack. The capacity for extraordinary effort is there. The crisis is the catalyst.

Managing people is not rocket science nor does it require a PhD in psychology (Although that might certainly help).

As a person in a leadership role, you must alter your mind-set regarding a person's potential. Instead of believing that you and the organisation are providing an employee with the potential for greatness, you must understand that the potential is already there.

Delegation makes it possible for a manager to take vacations, secure in the knowledge that things will not fall apart in his/her absence. ‘Delegation is also an expression of trust by the boss that the employee can handle a particular assignment. In this way, the act of delegation nurtures self-confidence in the employee and his/her ability to take on something new and succeed at doing it’.

Leadership maturity is about recognising that you, as a boss, are not actually in control of anything; your employees are. You may believe that your title gives you a certain amount of power over your staff. However, it is critical to understand that such power must be carefully implemented.

What is the Recommendation?

This book outlines coaching, motivation, delegation, goal setting and feedback to improve your performance and behaviour. It contains diagrams and presents ideas and insights in bullet points. It elaborates on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. It offers lots of tools and techniques on motivation and shares secrets and strategies on goal setting. The book is written in a conversational tone. The author uses humour and wit in her examples to make her points. This book is useful for learners, leaders and coaches. You can gift this book to your friends to inspire them to grow as leaders. Enjoy reading this book!