Marcus Buckingham

What sets great companies apart? Survey data gathered over decades’ worth of interviews with thousands of managers and workers around the world reveals one simple truth: there are no great companies. Every company is made up of separate teams, and the performance of those teams, no matter how successful the company may be, varies widely. What makes the difference? The manager.

Managers play a significant role in creating an environment within which individuals can thrive, discover their talents and use their best selves daily. Great managers help people to identify and leverage their unique strengths.

Buckingham will discuss the four key demands a manager must fulfill in order to provide the kind of environment that enables people to achieve peak performance on a regular basis: Select the right people for the right roles; Clarify expectations of the manager and of the employee; Engage team members by paying constant attention; and Accelerate performance by maximizing strengths and neutralizing weaknesses. In short, his presentation will address how great managers turn talents into performance.

The many facets of great managing and great leading could be detailed endlessly, but Marcus Buckingham draws on a wealth of examples to uncover the single controlling insight that lies at the heart of each. Lose sight of this “one thing” and even your best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources, including his own data and in-depth interviews with individuals at every level of an organization, from CEOs to hotel maids and stock boys. He cuts through the thicket of often-conflicting possibilities and zeroes in on what matters most, revealing the surprisingly different keys to great managing and great leading.

In the four decades since the beginning of the modern women’s movement, women have secured greater opportunity, greater influence, greater independence, more free time, and more money. Despite all those important gains, however, recent longitudinal research indicates that women have become more unhappy, anxious and stressed during that same time period, and that they get sadder as they get older (while men, in contrast, get happier as they age). Marcus Buckingham will explore the data behind the startling findings on women’s happiness and discuss the lessons to be learned from happy, successful women who buck the statistical trends.