Marcus Buckingham Quotes

That all salespeople are different, that all accountants are different, that each individual, no matter what his chosen profession, is unique.

Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in.

We need to say goodbye to the traditional methodologies of corporate universities.

Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

Always work hard. Intensity clarifies. It creates not only momentum, but also the pressure you need to feel either friction, or fulfillment.

This company didn't have one culture. It had as many cultures as it did managers. No

Second, that everyone, regardless of who they are, will want to be promoted out of the job as soon as possible.

True individuality can be lonely.

The true genius of a great manager is his or her ability to individualize. A great manager is one who understands how to trip each person's trigger.

The best strategy for building a competitive organization is to help individuals become more of who they are.

American culture is CEO obsessed. We celebrate the hard-charging heroes and mythologize the iconoclastic visionaries. Those people are important.

If you want to be clear, act.

procrastination in the face of poor performance is a fool's remedy.

If you want execution, hail only success. If you want creativity, hail risk, and remain neutral about success.

The opposite of a leader isn't a follower. The opposite of a leader is a pessimist.

A strength is what you do that makes you feel strengthened.

Any recurring patterns of behavior that can be productively applied are talents.

The difference between a pebble and a mountain lies in whom you ask to move it.

We're all filled with naturally recurring patterns that make us unique - they're called talents. And our charge is to bloody well use them.

Every time you make a rule you take away a choice and choice, with all of its illuminating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.

Americans just love convening. They are a convention-happy country and they love to get together to talk.

Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us.

Managers are encouraged to focus on complex initiatives like reengineering or learning organizations, without spending time on the basics.

Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time

People quit managers, not jobs.

Most of my work has been in corporations, studying how you build an organization that helps people to identify and work to their strengths.

It's odd that I'm a big name in America and not known in Britain.

If we have to know without a doubt that the choices we are making are the perfect ones, we risk never making any choices at all.

Every company wants to know how to find and keep highly talented women in the workplace.

Remember, what you focus on expands; results follow focus.

To get the best coaching outcomes, always have your 1-on-1's on your employee's turf not yours. In your office the truth hides.

What do we know to be important but are unable to measure?

You shouldn't take pride in your natural talents any more than you should take pride in your sex, your race or color of your hair

Clarity is the answer to anxiety. Effective leaders are clear.

No idea will work if people don't trust your intentions toward them.

You will learn and grow the least in your areas of weakness.

Great leaders rally people to a better future.

Teach your children how to identify their own strengths and challenge them to contribute these strengths to others.

Women have lives that become increasingly empty. They're doing more and feeling less.

Change the ideas and keep the forms the same, and you will have changed little.

Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it.

You cannot learn very much about excellence from studying failure.

The corporate world is appallingly bad at capitalizing on the strengths of its people.

Life's tricky for women because they have to make more choices than men. And yes, choice is good, but boy, you better be an expert choice-maker.

In most cases, no matter what it is, if you measure it and reward it, people will try to excel at it

Innovation and best practices can be sown throughout an organization - but only when they fall on fertile ground.

Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.

People leave managers, not companies

The best way to find out whether you're on the right path? Stop looking at the path.

Everyone can probably do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people.

I think a good business book has one coherent idea that is richly played out.

Focusing on strengths is the surest way to greater job satisfaction, team performance and organizational excellence.

As oblivious as we can be to our own strengths, it's even easier to ignore the particular and unique strengths of others.

You have a genius.

How can we all grow?

We live with them every day, and they come so easily to us that they cease to be precious.

You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

Authenticity is your most precious commodity as a leader.