What Great Managers Do

The Marcus Buckingham HBR article is based on the concept of finding and activating strengths in team members/employees, etc. The Buckingham article shares several stories of how leaders and managers have accomplished this. In particular, Buckingham refers to circumstances where a person, who previously had struggled in a setting, was more successful when they were asked to ‘focus on just one key thing’ and use that strength to their best advantage. In sports, we see this often on championship teams; a person who has struggled in a previous environment changes their team or employer and with new leadership and a better defined role, sees tremendous success. One example, was NBA player Dennis Rodman. Mr. Rodman had saw some famous highs and lows in his early NBA career. After struggles with his role, Mr. Rodman joined Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Mr. Rodman was asked to focus on one particular skill, a strength of his, which was rebounding. In that role, Mr. Rodman had tremendous success and extended his basketball career. This is an example of a leader, Bulls coach Phil Jackson, finding the right role for a player and allowing him to excel. The task is to find an athlete/person who struggled in a previous setting similar to Rodman’s, only to move organizations and find success by focusing on their particular strength and propelling their organization to success. You can find many examples if you think about all forms of sports: men’s & women’s, professional and amateur. For the assignment, please identify the person, the organization, and the leader at the time the person had their particular success. What was that strength? How did it complement the rest of the team, or organization?