Published in 2019, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World explains why many of our workplace norms and practices are flawed and, thus, prevent people and organizations from flourishing. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall argue that to build a thriving organization, today’s leader should be a freethinking leader, one who questions established systems and beliefs and who values individuality over conformity.
Buckingham is the best-selling author of First, Break All the Rules. He worked at the Gallup Organization, a US analytics and advisory company, before starting his own coaching and software company. Co-author Goodall has first-hand leadership experience at large organizations—he’s a senior vice president at Cisco Systems and previously oversaw leadership development at Deloitte. In the book’s introduction, Buckingham and Goodall explain that they consolidated their expertise to write a popular, if controversial, piece for the Harvard Business Review (HBR), in which they argued that standard performance appraisals were useless. (Shortform note: While the authors don’t name the article, this piece about redesigning performance management is the first one they worked on together for HBR, and it discusses many of the themes explored in the book.)
The article generated so much interest that it became a springboard for this book—HBR asked Buckingham and Goodall to apply the same analytic approach to other areas of work. In the book, published by Harvard Business Review Press, the authors question why many workplace practices—such as cascading goals from the top-down and giving critical feedback—were so widespread when they rarely helped boost employee engagement.
In this guide, we’ll explore nine lies that the authors identified and the truths that can remedy their damaging effects. We’ll also include tips to help leaders put the truths into practice, compare the authors’ ideas with those of other leadership experts, and discuss research that supports or counters their arguments.
(Shortform note: We’ve grouped the lies into two broad categories: lies about organizations and lies about people. We’ve also reordered the lies according to common themes.)
The typical organization has rules and processes that dictate how to evaluate, train, retain, pay, and promote employees. However, Buckingham and Goodall argue that these pervasive systems are lies, based on outdated or faulty beliefs. As a result, the majority of workers aren’t engaged at work and productivity growth is lagging. (Shortform note: Research suggests that the two are correlated. Companies with high employee engagement—meaning their employees are committed enough to the company to do their best work—are 21% more profitable.)
In this section, we’ll discuss these organizational lies and what leaders can do to address them.
According to Buckingham and Goodall, organizations emphasize building a strong corporate culture, because they believe that it can attract and retain employees. They offer perks and implement policies that reinforce the culture they want to cultivate—for example, they offer free lunches to demonstrate that they’re people-centric or install solar panels to send the message that they’re eco-conscious.
(Shortform note: People are so fascinated by corporate culture and its connection with success that the Netflix Culture Deck, made public in 2009, was a Silicon Valley sensation. It was viewed 15 million times by 2017 and garnered praise from the likes of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The deck described the company’s culture of “freedom and responsibility,” which Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings would later detail in No Rules Rules.)
However, the authors argue that an overemphasis on culture can be damaging in two ways. First, perks and policies that highlight culture may entice people to join a company, but they’re not enough to make them stay. That’s because these perks only tend to address employees’ surface-level wants and not their deeper needs. Second, companies may force employees to shed their individuality to conform to and preserve the company culture.
(Shortform note: Jim Collins argues that indoctrinating employees into the company culture isn’t about turning employees into unthinking, compliant robots, as Buckingham and Goodall suggest. Rather, Collins writes that it’s necessary to immerse employees in the company culture so that they can be given greater autonomy. In Built to Last, he asserts that when employees are aligned with the company’s core philosophy, a company can trust them to think for themselves and make decisions that are good for the company.)
The authors write that, more than having free lunches and other perks, employees seek to do meaningful work as part of a supportive, collaborative team—one that sees them as individuals with unique strengths, makes them feel like they’re a part of something bigger, and doesn’t treat them like just another cog in a well-oiled machine.
As a leader, you have the power to give your employees the team they’re looking for. Instead of immersing employees in corporate culture, the authors recommend focusing on building a strong team. To do this, get to know each member, ensure they understand their role, recognize their accomplishments, and foster trust within your team.
(Shortform note: The authors stress that strong teams are the key to employee engagement. As such, watch out for the signs of unhealthy teams, which Patrick Lencioni discusses in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: 1) the absence of trust, 2) the fear of conflict, 3) a lack of commitment, 4) the avoidance of accountability, and 5) inattention to results.)
The second lie that’s pervasive in organizations is that planning leads to success. The authors write that, in a typical company, senior leadership comes up with a strategic plan and then communicates it to their direct reports. The message is then passed down until it reaches your team, which makes its own plans based on the directives from the higher-ups.
While the authors concede that planning allows senior leaders to gain a better understanding of the challenges the company is facing, plans are largely ineffective because the senior leaders who make them tend to be out of touch with the real world. They aren’t exposed to the daily issues that your team faces, so their plans are based on assumptions and second-hand information about things that have already happened. As a result, their plans quickly become obsolete and irrelevant to the team tasked to implement them.
(Shortform note: Planning from the top-down can be such a long, drawn-out process involving out-of-touch senior leaders that companies sometimes end up acting too late or launching ill-considered projects. Case in point: In 1955, Ford planned to introduce a medium-priced car to meet a rising demand for vehicles in that price range. By the time the company released the Edsel two years later, the economy had taken a turn for the worse and—unknown to management—consumer preference had shifted to compact cars. Due to dismal sales, Ford stopped manufacturing the Edsel in 1959 and lost $250 million on the project.)
The authors contend that instead of strategic plans, organizations should have an agile system that relies on real-time, on-the-ground information. This allows the company to respond quickly, decisively, and appropriately to change. To create this system, the authors say freethinking leaders should:
1) Make as much information as possible available to your team, and encourage team members to do the same. (Shortform note: Providing team members with as much information as possible has a number of benefits. In No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings writes that this kind of organizational transparency builds employees’ trust in the company and its leaders and empowers them to make decisions without needing their higher-ups’ approval, which then enables them to respond quickly to change.)
2) Observe your team to see what kind of data is most helpful to them. Then, find ways to supply them with the information that can best help them make decisions. (Shortform note: While Netflix believes in empowering its employees to make decisions by giving them information, Hastings emphasizes that this method won’t work in every workplace. It’s only feasible in an organization that has a high concentration of talent and that values innovation over error prevention.)
3) Have short, weekly conversations with each team member to check on their priorities and progress, determine if they should recalibrate their tasks based on any changes, and ask if they need your help. The authors stress that quantity is better than quality when it comes to these conversations—the more you check in with your team members, the more engaged they become.
(Shortform note: Even informal, 10-minute conversations can revamp your interactions with your team members and transform your team, as long as you have them regularly. In The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier outlines seven questions that you can ask your team members for a quick coaching session, depending on the situation. These questions include, “What’s the central challenge for you?” and “How can I support you?”)
The third lie has the same fundamental issue as Lie #2: that orders dictated from above are rarely effective. This time, Buckingham and Goodall argue that company-imposed goals—strategic, operational, people-related, and so on—are meaningless, because they don’t reflect people’s day-to-day work.
(Shortform note: Jerry Porras and Jim Collins offer evidence to the contrary, saying that goals are one of the keys to a company’s enduring success. In Built to Last, they write that mammoth companies like Boeing and Procter & Gamble commit to “big hairy audacious goals” (BHAGs)—precise goals that are easy to understand, push the company out of its comfort zone, reinforce the company’s core philosophy, and take at least a decade to achieve. For such goals to work, the authors say that companies have to make them institutional, building them into the organization and making them exciting enough to maintain momentum.)
The writers also say that the reasons behind goal-setting tend to backfire: First, companies set goals to push people to perform, but research suggests that goals diminish performance—for example, top salespeople tend to slack off when they hit their quotas, while low performers may resort to unethical behavior to meet their targets. And second, companies rate employees’ performance based on goal achievement, but the authors argue that this is unfair as some employees’ goals are more challenging than others’.
(Shortform note: Other negative side effects of goal-setting include a narrow focus, which causes employees to neglect other areas of work, or—in the case of having too many goals—dispersed attention, which leads employees to sacrifice quality over quantity given their numerous tasks. While goals do have their place in organizations, experts say that leaders shouldn’t treat them as a generalized method to motivate employees and instead see them as a kind of “prescription-strength medication” that’s appropriate for certain situations and that should be administered carefully.)
The authors advise companies to forget about dictating goals and instead communicate the company’s mission and how each employee contributes to that mission. Once employees understand the meaning and purpose behind their work, let them set their own goals. Giving them this kind of freedom boosts performance more than company-directed goals ever can.
(Shortform note: Even when you let people set their own goals, experts say you can still be on hand to give them some guidance. Discuss whether these goals are realistic enough to achieve but also challenging enough to energize them, ask them to break down their goals into steps and set milestones, and regularly check in with them to see if they’re on track.)
The fourth lie (Lie #6 in the book) that’s pervasive in organizations is that performance ratings are objective. According to the authors, companies use these systems to grade people on specific competencies (such as “execution” and “initiative”), determine the top performers, and reward them accordingly. Companies also use these systems to pinpoint the low performers who will then be put on a performance improvement plan and eventually let go.
However, the authors state that these systems are flawed because of the human element: Raters can’t objectively rate other people’s competencies. Even with a numerical rating system, raters base their decisions on subjective rating scales (for example, two managers can have different ideas of what “collaborative” means) and unconscious biases, resulting in inconsistencies across the board.
(Shortform note: Even if you believe you can be objective when you evaluate your team members, you likely have a “bias blind spot.” Research shows that people tend to see other people as biased while being unable to see their own biases. This blind spot may lead to poor decision-making.)
The authors recommend that you change the way you evaluate team members. Instead of rating them on their competencies, rate them based on your experience with them. For example, rather than rating them on “performance,” ask yourself, “Do I go to this team member if I want quick, reliable results?” Instead of rating them on “collaboration,” ask yourself, “Would I choose to work with this team member on a difficult project?” The authors contend that questions about your subjective experience with a team member can reveal far more about that person’s performance than a supposedly objective rating system.
(Shortform note: Consider using the Gallup Q12 for an indication of what you, as the head of a team, should keep doing and what you should work on—critical to gauging the strength of the organization. This tool, which Buckingham details in First, Break All the Rules, prompts employees to respond to statements such as “In the past week, I have been recognized for strong work,” and “My opinion matters,” on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).)
The previous set of lies uncovered the flawed systems and processes at organizations: an emphasis on corporate culture, a top-down approach to planning and goal-setting, and a reliance on seemingly objective performance appraisals. In the following set of lies, Buckingham and Goodall discuss the ineffectiveness of conventional approaches to people management and development, which seek to eliminate individuality so that companies can more easily control employees. The authors’ main argument is that individuality should be seen as the main feature of human beings, not as a glitch—recognizing and nurturing what makes people unique makes them perform better and feel more fulfilled.
In the fifth lie (Lie #4 in the book), the authors describe how employees are typically evaluated on their core competencies, or specific skills required for the job. Those who are proficient at most or all of the competencies are given opportunities for advancement. Meanwhile, those who demonstrate weakness in some areas are held back from promotion, even if they have specific (though limited) strengths. These employees are then required to work on their weaknesses so that they become more well-rounded and, thus, have a chance to move up the ranks. However, the authors argue that focusing on improving weaknesses in this way erroneously equates excellence with well-roundedness.
(Shortform note: The authors write that well-roundedness isn’t something to strive for, but David Epstein champions its merits. In Range, he argues that generalists fare better than specialists in the modern world. This is because generalists can more easily pivot to keep up with rapidly changing times, while specialists have fewer transferable skills to allow them to adapt to an unpredictable world.)
The authors believe that excellence is not about becoming a jack or jill of all trades, but becoming a master of one (or a few). Thus, as a leader, you should help people develop the abilities they already have instead of forcing them to make up for what they lack.
While improving on weak areas can be helpful, the authors stress that there is much more to be gained by determining and nurturing people’s unique strengths. For example, a basketball coach won’t try to turn Steph Curry—one of the greatest shooters in NBA history—into an excellent defensive player; instead, he’ll make sure that Curry can make the biggest impact by giving him opportunities to shoot.
(Shortform note: In The 5 Levels of Leadership, John Maxwell writes that putting together people with complementary strengths can increase productivity. However, you can only do this if you know their strengths, and that comes from building a relationship with each team member. To do this, he says make the decision to like people, think of at least one positive thing about each person, and include them in your decision-making.)
As a leader, shift your mindset from improving weaknesses to prioritizing strengths by focusing on building a diverse team. To do this, the authors recommend determining what outcomes you want from your team, and then figuring out how each member can help your team achieve those outcomes given their individual strengths.
How to Turn Team Members Into Team Players
The authors stress the importance of building a team whose members have complementary strengths. However, strengths alone aren’t enough to make a team successful—cooperation is important too. To build a strong, collaborative team, Patrick Lencioni says that you should coach your team members to become team players who embody three essential qualities: humility, drive, and people skills.
In The Ideal Team Player, he gives tips to help team members develop these qualities:
Humility: Encourage them to compliment their coworkers and to admit when they’ve made a mistake.
Drive: Set specific performance goals that push them to either step up or leave.
People skills: Make them more conscious of their behavior by immediately pointing out when they did or said something that negatively affected others.
Lie #6 (Lie #7 in the book) shows how one lie can build on another lie to create an unfair, inefficient system.
In Lie #4, we discussed how companies use performance appraisal systems to gauge employees’ competencies. From there, well-rounded team members—those who are proficient at more skills—are classified as “high potential,” while team members who exhibit weaknesses are classified as “low potential.” The authors explain that companies use this segregation as a shortcut to gauge which employees to invest in. They reason that high-potential employees, who make up about 15% of employees, will give the highest returns, so they should be rewarded with more opportunities such as training, promotions, and pay increases compared to their low-potential peers.
However, the authors argue that since performance appraisals are flawed, then the practice of classifying employees as high potential and low potential based on those appraisals is also flawed. To Buckingham and Goodall, “potential” is an abstract concept that means nothing more than the ability to learn and grow, which means that everyone has potential. Furthermore, each individual learns and grows in different areas, at different speeds—nuances that the high potential/low potential labels completely ignore. As a result, companies miss out on the unique strengths and possibilities that the so-called low-potential individuals have to offer.
(Shortform note: Classifying people as high potential and low potential not only keeps the majority of employees from learning, growing, and advancing their careers, but it may also promote unhealthy competition. In Leadership and Self-Deception, the Arbinger Institute explains that employees who are pressured to prioritize their own results may sabotage others, take satisfaction in other people’s failure, and resent other people’s success. This ultimately derails an organization’s success.)
The authors say that you should stop segregating your team members based on potential and instead look at their “momentum”—their inherent strengths, what they’ve learned, and how they’ve been using these to propel them forward. By paying attention to each team member and understanding where they’re picking up speed, you can then find a way to maximize all your team members instead of just a chosen few.
Doing this requires that you throw out the appraisal form and have regular conversations with your staff to help them identify what they’re good at and what else they want to learn. From there, find ways to make those skills part of their job, so that you help them become the best professionals they can be and build a stronger team in the process.
(Shortform note: To get even more out of your team members, become a multiplier, or someone who uses their intelligence to bring out the intelligence and abilities of the people around them. In Multipliers, Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown write that such leaders are able to tap into 70-100% of their team members’ capabilities because they assume that everyone is talented (versus assuming only some employees are highly competent), full of good ideas, knowledgeable, capable of making decisions, and smart enough to work on their own. In contrast, leaders who are diminishers assume most people can’t get things done and thus end up accessing only 20-50% of their teams’ capabilities.)
As Lie #5 reveals, leaders traditionally believe that working on weaknesses leads to excellence. This means that they focus on giving team members corrective feedback to help them improve their performance. However, in this lie (Lie #5 in the book), the authors contend that negative, corrective feedback puts people on the defensive by activating their fight-or-flight response, which inhibits learning. While research suggests that negative feedback is 40 times more effective than giving no feedback at all, the authors say that delivering positive attention is much more powerful.
(Shortform note: Buckingham and Goodall address the feedback fallacy in an article for the Harvard Business Review. However, in response to this article, other experts argued that: 1) The fight-or-flight response is temporary, and recipients become more receptive to the feedback after reflection, and 2) The problem isn’t corrective feedback itself but how it’s delivered—when giving this kind of feedback, you should show empathy and a genuine desire to help team members flourish.)
Buckingham and Goodall advise acknowledging what your team members are already doing well instead of pointing out how they should improve. Doing this stimulates brain growth, greater learning, and thus, better performance. Research also shows that it’s 30 times more effective than giving corrective feedback and 1,200 times more effective than giving no feedback at all.
However, giving positive attention doesn’t mean heaping on empty praise; rather, you should make it a point to observe team members to see when they produce great results, and then immediately acknowledge the specific actions that led to great outcomes.
(Shortform note: In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath write that recognizing people in this way gives them a sense of pride, which then injects more meaning and motivation into their day-to-day life. You can motivate your team members and give them brain-stimulating positive attention by consistently recognizing their progress and celebrating their small wins.)
If a team member still insists on hearing corrective feedback, the authors recommend that you avoid defensiveness and prep their brain for learning by first asking them about what they think they’re already doing right.
(Shortform note: Take care not to fall into the trap of the “feedback sandwich”—bookending your corrective feedback with compliments. Experts say that this comes off as insincere and dilutes your message. If you’re worried about making the other person defensive, focus on the outcomes that you want from them rather than on what they’re doing wrong.)
Another pervasive lie at work is that people should strive to attain work-life balance—to toil enough so that we can have the money to support the people and the activities we love, but not too much that we burn out. Buckingham and Goodall argue that this mindset is flawed because it implies that work drains our energy and is therefore bad, while life outside of work replenishes our energy and is therefore good.
(Shortform note: Experts contend that work itself may not drain our energy, but rather three problems at the organizational level: 1) excessive collaboration, 2) limited time-management abilities, and 3) the tendency to overload the most capable workers. Streamlining organizational structures and routines can keep employees from multitasking, help conserve their energy for the most productive tasks, and prevent burnout.)
The authors say that you should change your mindset from seeking work-life balance to deliberately doing work that you love over work that you hate. This means that you should spend more time doing work that invigorates you and that gives you a sense of purpose, instead of toiling just so you can enjoy life outside of work. The authors stress that this doesn’t mean looking for a job that you love completely but incorporating what you love to do into the job you already have—they cite research that says devoting just 20% of your time to tasks that you love greatly decreases the risk of burnout. It also makes you more productive and increases your sense of purpose and fulfillment.
(Shortform note: Others contend that loving your work doesn’t make you immune to burnout—in fact, some experts say that an all-consuming love for work can lead to burnout. Those involved in purpose-driven, mission-focused work, such as non-profit employees and health care workers, are especially prone to letting their passion take over their lives. One way to prevent this from happening is to set up boundaries, making a conscious decision to switch off from work mode and resisting the urge to check your email past a certain time.)
To help you and your team members find love for your work, the authors recommend that you track the work that you do. Twice a year, spend a week categorizing your tasks into two groups: The first group should consist of the tasks that you look forward to, that you enjoy doing, that energize you, and that make time go by quickly; the second group should consist of the tasks that you tend to put off or pass on to someone else. Deliberately incorporate the tasks in the first group into your work so that they take up at least 20% of your time. Then, manage the tasks that you hate by avoiding them (if possible), combining them with something you enjoy, or working with someone to make a task less burdensome.
(Shortform note: The authors recommend evaluating what you love and what you hate twice a year, but other experts say that you should engage in continuous self-reflection and improvement. When you don’t evaluate regularly, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. Aside from taking the time to logically sort through your priorities, you should pay close attention to your emotions—negative emotions like resentment are a powerful indication that you need to make changes.)
The last lie that the authors address is that strong leaders possess a common set of attributes, including being inspirational, strategic, and decisive. Employees who’ve shown that they have these attributes and have demonstrated well-roundedness and high potential are typically put on the fast track to leadership roles. However, the authors say that some of the greatest leaders actually lack some of the textbook leadership traits—for example, Apple’s Steve Jobs was driven, innovative, and focused, but he was also known to be impatient, petulant, and controlling. On top of that, they write that no two leaders lead the same way.
(Shortform note: Leaders may lack some abilities and qualities, but Jerry Porras and Jim Collins write in Built to Last that leaders of enduringly successful companies have one thing in common: They aren’t concerned about building their own personal brand but are instead focused on building an organization that will endure even after they’re gone.)
In reality, the authors say that leaders are simply those who have followers. They write that followers don’t follow well-rounded people who’ve acquired all the leadership traits. Instead they put their faith in someone who, though imperfect, has demonstrated mastery—an outstanding grasp of their unique strengths—who knows what they’re doing and where they’re taking the team, and who builds relationships with people to understand how to improve their day-to-day experience within a team. To this end, the authors offer only one piece of advice: Know who you are, know your strengths, and use these strengths to inspire your team to achieve greater heights.
(Shortform note: John Maxwell has a similar view, writing that leadership equals influence—having the ability to get people to follow you. In The 5 Levels of Leadership, he provides a roadmap for leadership that will enable you to increase your influence, gain more followers, and develop other leaders. He stresses that you have to move beyond “positional leadership”—being a leader only in name—by building relationships, producing results, empowering people, and finally, establishing a reputation for developing other leaders and strong organizations.)
Buckingham and Goodall write that you should forget about work-life balance and find more fulfillment in your work by doing more of the tasks that you love.
List your work tasks in the past week and divide them into two categories: what you loved (something you looked forward to and that energized you) and what you hated (something you put off doing or passed on to someone else).
Look at the list of things that you loved. How can you incorporate more of these tasks into your work?
Look at the list of things that you hated. How can you do less of this type of work or make it more bearable (for example, enlist a team member to help you)?