Sublime

With his books Now, Discover Your Strengths and The Truth About You, Marcus Buckingham is a true-strengths zealot.

First, it resolves the great manager’s dilemma. All of a sudden her two guiding beliefs — that people are enduringly different and that managers must focus people on the same performance — are no longer in conflict. They are now in harmony.

It is better to work for a great manager in an old-fashioned company than for a terrible manager in a company offering an enlightened, employee-focused culture.

The manager role is to reach inside each employee and release his unique talents into performance. This role is best played one employee at a time: one manager asking questions of, listening to, and working with one employee. Multiplied a thousandfold, this one-by-one-by-one role is the company’s power supply. In times of great change it is this ro