Martha I. Finney - The Truth About Getting the Best From People

Martha I. Finney

2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Publishing as FT Press
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
07458

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Printed in the United States of America

First Printing February 2008

ISBN-10: 0-13-235491-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-13-235491-2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Finney, Martha I.
The truth about getting the best from people Martha Finney.
> p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-13-235491-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Employee motivation. 2. Personnel
management. 3. Teams in the workplace. 4. PerformanceManagement. I. Title.
HF5549.5.M63F56 2008
658.314dc22
2007014119

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All my thanks go to Colleen Cayes.
This book is for you.

Finally, a no-nonsense primer for leaders on how to buildand keepextraordinary talent. This book should be in the briefcase of every exec in the world and should be pulled out every day for a refresher on how to be a real leader.

Dan Walker , Former Chief Talent Officer for Apple, Inc.

A fun and easy-to-read blueprint on understanding and creating engagement within a team. No high falootin business jargon hereMartha Finney tells it like it is. She helps supervisors and managers uncover the secrets of employee engagement through behavioral examples, successes at top companies, and her charming storytelling.

Kirsten Clark , Senior Director, Organizational Capability Group, Starwood Hotels and Resorts

Martha succeeds in reducing one of the business worlds most sought-after but amorphous conceptsemployee engagementinto 49 digestible truths.

Christopher Rice , President and CEO, BlessingWhite

A must-read for new supervisors and managers, with lots of essential lessons and tips.

Tom Mathews , Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Time Warner Cable

Easy-to-read stories and useful truths about leading. I wish I had this book when I first became a manager. I had to learn some of these truths the hard way!

Scott Shute , Senior Director, Xilinx

The book is outstanding! Very easy to read.great examples, great advice, and the corporate world would be a better place if just 50 percent of the managers would follow your advice!

Peg Wynn , Former SVP/HR, Adobe

I started reading and found myself grabbing for a highlighter. I got to the following line Getting the best is about building a culture of trust, connection, growth, and service. I had to drop a box around that one.

Tiane Mitchell Gordon , Senior Vice President, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, AOL

Finney has gifted us an important compendium of accessible and eminently actionable insights about employee engagement. Using The Truths as a guide, generations of managers will find infinite opportunities to unleash, inspire, and leverage the inherent talent in their people. My advice? Seize it! It will enable you to dramatically affect the future of your team, your organization, and your own career.

Jane Creech , Founder and Principal, Strategic Business Systems (Organization Consulting & Leadership Coaching), Former Sr. Director, OD, eBay

If you are looking for a great way to deliver Management 101, just distribute this book. It has everything that someone new to management needs to know. Savvy, and sassy, and smart, this is an easy but important read!

Beverly Kaye , Coauthor, Love Em or Lose Em

Just when I thought one truth was as good as it could get, the rest lived up to it! I loved the anecdotes and the final truth, Youre still the Boss.

Ed Martin , Vice President, Global Human Resources, Atheros Communications

The subject is important, pragmatic advice told in an entertaining way. Front line managers need this for perspective. This book has some great keys to bringing out the best in people!

Jim Wiggett , President & CEO, Jackson Hole Group

As a people leader, your job is simple: You are the link between organizational mission-critical objectives and the effort your employees invest in achieving those objectives. And you just have to keep those two pieces working together smoothly. See? Easy.

Yeah, right. As a people leader, your job is to inspire your employees to bring their personal greatness to work every day and to invest their best in your business. And thats a hard job. Its an emotional roller coaster. You experience the exquisite highs of engagement and teamwork when everyone is pulling together. Your heart breaks when you have to make really tough decisions that negatively affect the personal lives and well-being of people you truly care about. And it can be absolutely frightening when you deal with hair-trigger personalities who dont belong in a safe workplace.

But even more routinelyand just as challenging, if not more soyou have to deal with yourself and your beliefs about life, about people, and about motivation and trust. Every day. Even on the ho-hum days. And thats when we get down to some pretty simple principles. Although this book by no means trivializes all the behaviors and beliefs that go into bringing out the greatness in your employees, the material you discover in these pages is based on a few very accessible assumptions:

People leaders discover that leading is impossible when they forget that theyre people first. It may be paradoxical, but nothing makes a person come face to face with realor perceivedlimitations faster than a promotion into a managerial spot. On the outside you may be projecting, Can do! (or at least hoping you are), but on the inside you may be saying, Uh oh, what have I gotten myself into? Your first managerial assignment? Manage yourself into keeping in mind that youre not expected to be perfect. Youre just expected to reach a little further for some brand new stretch goals.

Most people want to do good work in a job they love. Marketing consultant (and former Senior Vice President of Marketing for Starbucks) Scott Bedbury speaks about what he calls the Five Human Truths. We need to be understood, feel special, feel as though we belong, feel that were in control, and know that we have the chance to reach our potential. Although these feelings may not necessarily be what we want from a cup of coffee, theyre certainly what we want almost universally from the work we do. (But ask me at 4 in the morning when Im cranking against deadlines, and I may have a different answer for you.)

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