Put this into practice

TRY · 12 MIN

Manager Mirror

TAIU

What your team would say, tested against what you would say.

What your team would say about you, tested against what you would say.

READ · BOOK

Give and Take

Adam Grant

Best for contributing in a way you can sustain.

Grant's finding that givers occupy both the top and the bottom of most performance distributions is the practical heart of this. What separates them is not generosity but whether the giving is bounded. If you have ever concluded that you should do more while quietly running out of road, read this before you add anything.

READ · BOOK

The Fearless Organization

Amy Edmondson

The original research on psychological safety, which began with the finding that better teams reported more errors rather than fewer. Read it before using the phrase.

READ · ARTICLE

The Feedback Fallacy

Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall

An argument that most feedback tells the recipient more about the giver than about themselves. Contested, and a useful corrective if you pride yourself on being direct.

READ · RESEARCH

Project Oxygen

Google People Analytics

Google set out to prove managers did not matter and found the opposite, then published the behaviours that separated the best from the rest. Behaviours, not personalities.