by Emil K. Kalil, Ph.D

In the best selling book, “First, Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, they said that “talented employees need great managers.” Excellent front-line managers had engaged their employees and these engaged employees had provided the foundation for top performance. After looking at 25 years of data, they said that great managers don’t follow the rules of conventional wisdom and summed up their motto in these phases:

  • People don’t change that much.
  • Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out.
  • Try to draw out what was left in.
  • That is hard enough.

The first line says that each person has their own special gifts and talents, which they bring to this world. They are born with these talents, which can not be taught, whereas skills, like typing, and knowledge, like programming, can be taught. You can not teach talent, you can only select for talent.

Using True Colors (refer to “Follow Your True Colors To The Work You Love” by Carolyn Kalil) as my frame of reference, your talents are expressed in your primary color. It doesn’t have to be a mystery what your talents are, although 60% to 80% of the workforce are not using their talents in their work or they wouldn’t be so unhappy with their jobs. True Colors gives you many hints to your special talents.

Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out — and – Maximize or try to draw out what was left in. Your first two colors are your strengths, the last two are your weaknesses. Good managers bring out a person’s strengths and work to increase these. When you work in your strengths or talents, the work comes easy and time seems to fly. You feel energized at the end of the day instead of being exhausted. When you work in your weakness, the work seems difficult and draining.

When it comes to annual review time, most conventional managers grade their employers on what was left out. They critique on the person’s weaknesses and set goals to improve these. There is never enough energy devoted to praising the person for their strengths.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your manager praised you for the work you do using your talents and then said, “Let’s devise a plan, a strategy, to use your talents even more. Your success will bring us both success and profitability for the company. I know you have weaknesses and let’s manage around those.” Draw out what’s left in, don’t worry about what’s not there. With this kind of review who would not want to excel, who wouldn’t look forward to each day of work joyfully.

Managing weaknesses might mean for a person who has a hard time filling out expense reports, to get this task delegated to someone who loves doing them, instead of demanding that the employee set aside two hours at the end of the day to complete this mundane task.

So great managers recognize the natural talent, our True Colors, and bring this out. They don’t worry about the weaker colors. They know people don’t change. You are born with your talents, they can not be learned. You just use them naturally and get great satisfaction when using them. Great managers recognize this talent in an individual even before the individual does.

Great managers don’t worry about the employee’s weaknesses. They have learned to build a team where the skills needed in your last color are provided by others where this is their strength. How do great managers hire? They look for talent and see how the candidate is using their gifts.