Quotes from Marcus Buckingham

We have said that an employee may join a company because of its prestige and reputation, but that his relationship with his immediate manager determines how long he stays and how productive he is while he is there.

people leave managers, not companies. So

Roads with the most traffic get widened. The ones that are rarely used fall into disrepair.

You'll see, as well, that the strongest force pushing back against the lies, and the force that we all seek to harness in our lives, is the power of our own individuality—that the true power of human nature is that each human's nature is unique, and that expressing this through our work is an act, ultimately, of love.

employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

important outcomes from taking the StandOut assessment is simply that you remember your results.

Don't helicopter in at seventeen thousand feet, because sooner or later you and your people will die on the mountain.

Partnership is not the crutch of the imperfect, but the secret of the successful.

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

the only truth is your own. The world you see is seen by you alone. What entices you and what repels you, what strengthens you and what weakens you, is part of a pattern that no one else shares.

You have a genius.

The greatest managers in the world do not have much in common. But despite their differences, these great managers do share one thing: Before they do anything else, they first break all the rules of conventional wisdom.

Conventional wisdom tells us that we learn from our mistakes. The strengths movement says that all we learn from mistakes are the characteristics of mistakes.

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

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

When was the last time … … you lost track of time? … you instinctively volunteered for something? … someone had to tear you away from what you were doing? … you felt completely in control of what you were doing? … you surprised yourself by how well you did? … you were singled out for praise? … you were the only person to notice something?

Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

Those of us who do this best—who find what we love about what we do, and cultivate this love with intelligence and discipline—are the ones who contribute most. The best people are not well-rounded, finding fulfillment in their uniform ability. Quite the opposite, in fact—the best people are spiky, and in their lovingly honed spikiness they find their biggest contribution, their fastest growth, and, ultimately, their greatest joy.

And the only reason that "running around your backhand" has become an idiom for avoiding a weakness is that this is exactly what we see great tennis players do, time and time again, whether it's Juan Martín del Potro, Rafael Nadal, or countless others. The phrase describes the act of avoiding a weakness in order to play to a strength, and the lesson from the best is that this leads toward high performance, not away from it.

People don't change that much. Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.

You will have your own examples of a work environment that seems to be firing on all cylinders. It will be a place where performance levels are consistently high, where turnover levels are low, and where a growing number of loyal customers join the fold every day.

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

In a war, no matter the outcome of a certain skirmish or battle, the winner is the party whose attitudes, behaviors and preoccupations come to dominate the postwar landscape. By this measure, the outcome of the gender wars, if wars they were, is clear: women won.

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