The One Thing You Need to Know

Following the success of the landmark bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham offers a dramatically new way to understand the art of success.
With over 1.6 million copies of First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald O. Clifton) in print, Cambridge-educated Buckingham is considered one of the most respected business authorities on the subject of management and leadership in the world. With The One Thing You Need to Know, he gives readers an invaluable course in outstanding achievement --a guide to capturing the essence of the threemost fundamental areas of professional activity. Great managing, leading, and career success -- Buckingham draws on a wealth of applicable examples to reveal that a controlling insight lies at the heart of the three. Lose sight of this "one thing" and even the best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Readers will be eager to discover the surprisingly different answers to each of these rich and complex subjects. Each could be explained endlessly to detail their many facets, but Buckingham's great gift is his ability to cut through the mass of often-conflicting agendas and zero in on what matters most, without ever oversimplifying. As he observes, success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient theirdecisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources, including his own research data and in-depth interviews with individuals at every level of an organization, from CEO's to hotel maids and stockboys.
In every way to a groundbreaking book, The One Thing You Need to Know offers crucial performance and career lessons for business people at all career stages.

Contents

1: A Few Things You Should Know About the "One Thing"

"Get me to the core": "If you dig into a subject deeply enough, what do you find?"

A lifetime of "why"s: "What drove this book?"

The tests for the "one thing": "Why are some explanations more powerful than others?"

One controlling insight: "What is the One Thing you need to know about happy marriage?"

Part I

The One Thing You Need to Know

Sustained Organizational Success

2: Managing and Leading: What's the Difference?

A vital distinction: "Are they different? Are they both important? Can you do both?"

A view from the middle: "What do great managers actually do and what talents do you need to do it?"

A view from the top: "What do great leaders actually do and what talents do you need to do it?"

3: The One Thing You Need to Know: Great Managing

The basics of good managing: "What skills will prevent you from failing as a manager?"

Great managers play chess: "What is the One Thing you need to know about great managing?"

A walk through a walgreens: "How does one truly great manager do it?"

Great managers are romantics: "What are the benefits of individualization?"

The three levers: "What are the three things you need to know about a person in order to manage him or her effectively?"

The most useful questions: "How can you identify these levers?"

4: The One Thing You Need to Know: Great Leading

A leader wins our loyalty: "What did Giuliani say to calm our fears?"

Five fears, five needs, one focus: "What are the universals of human nature?"

The points of clarity: "Where are your followers crying out for clarity?"

The disciplines of leadership: "How do the best leaders achieve this clarity?"

Part II: The One Thing You Need to Know
Sustained Individual Success

5: The Twenty Percenters

Dave, Myrtle, and Tim: "What does sustained individual success look like?"

The early contenders: "What explanations seem like the One Thing, but aren't?"

What is sustained success?: "It's a broad term. How do we define it?"

6: The Three Main Contenders

Contender 1: "Find the right tactics and employ them."

Contender 2: "Find your flaws and fix them."

Contender 3: "Discover your strengths and cultivate them."

7: So, How Do You Sustain Success If...?

You're bored

You're unfulfilled

You're frustrated

You're drained

Conclusion: Intentional Imbalance

Acknowledgments