Top 98 Marcus Buckingham Quotes

#1. Gen Y is really quite distinct from Gen X; it's really self-involved and very narcissistic - their cameras are filled with pictures of themselves; Facebook, it's about me. It's a generation that's been pampered by their parents and their schools, given prizes for just taking part.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #13616
#2. We're all filled with naturally recurring patterns that make us unique - they're called talents. And our charge is to bloody well use them.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #47066
#3. Second, that everyone, regardless of who they are, will want to be promoted out of the job as soon as possible.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #99679
#4. procrastination in the face of poor performance is a fool's remedy.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #114183
#5. We need to say goodbye to the traditional methodologies of corporate universities.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #132388
#6. We dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning? We don't have to dream about doing the work, because doing the work is always within our grasp; the dream, in this sense, is to attain the goal without the work.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #142671
#7. As a manager your job is not to teach people talent. Your job is to help them earn the accolade "talented" by matching their talent to the role. To do this well, like all great managers, you have to pay close attention to the subtle but significant differences between roles.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #215596
#8. Simply put, this is one insight we heard echoed by tens of thousands of great managers:
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.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #233008
#9. Women have lives that become increasingly empty. They're doing more and feeling less.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #289770
#10. You will have your own examples of a work environment that seems to be firing on all cylinders. It will be a place where performance levels are consistently high, where turnover levels are low, and where a growing number of loyal customers join the fold every day.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #291845
#11. The world you see is seen by you alone. What entices you and what repels you, what strengthens you and what weakens you, is part of a pattern that no one else shares. Therefore, as Mr. Wilde said, no two people can perceive the same "truth," because each person's perspective is different.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #330308
#12. You can find energizing moments in each aspect of your life, but to do so you must learn how to catch them, hold on to them, to feel the pull of their weight and allow yourself to follow where they lead.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #377822
#13. Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #378680
#14. No idea will work if people don't trust your intentions toward them.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #389222
#15. The best strategy for building a competitive organization is to help individuals become more of who they are.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #394140
#16. Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #401255
#17. This can be both a blessing and a curse. You are blessed with a wonderfully unique filter but cursed with a systematic inability to understand anybody else's.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #420669
#18. Change the ideas and keep the forms the same, and you will have changed little.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #427736
#19. You cannot learn very much about excellence from studying failure.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #436744
#20. Great managers know they don't have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them . A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #438418
#21. The best way to find out whether you're on the right path? Stop looking at the path.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #464903
#22. Every time you make a rule you take away a choice and choice, with all of its illuminating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #480987
#23. How can we all grow?

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #485433
#24. Life's tricky for women because they have to make more choices than men. And yes, choice is good, but boy, you better be an expert choice-maker.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #516786
#25. Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #535450
#26. Americans just love convening. They are a convention-happy country and they love to get together to talk.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #550363
#27. Men have the choice to arrange their schedules so they can pick up the kids from school twice a week. And they have the choice not to, and then to feel guilty about this choice.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #552684
#28. In fact, over the last twenty years, authors have offered up over nine thousand different systems, languages, principles, and paradigms to help explain the mysteries of management and leadership.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #555574
#29. Any recurring patterns of behavior that can be productively applied are talents.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #615720
#30. Companies don't have one culture. They have as many as they have supervisors or managers. You want to build a strong culture? Hold every manager accountable for the culture that he or she builds.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #616657
#31. My career expertise is as a psychometrician - somebody who builds tests to measure personality. Companies would employ me to build interviews to measure the talents of people before they were hired.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #629623
#32. People quit managers, not jobs.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #660280
#33. If you want to change your life so that others may benefit from your strengths, then change your values. Don't waste time trying to change your talents.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #675529
#34. Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #739354
#35. In most cases, no matter what it is, if you measure it and reward it, people will try to excel at it

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #749515
#36. You won't find a CEO who doesn't talk about a 'powerful culture' as a source of competitive advantage. At the same time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a CEO who has much of a clue about the strength of that culture.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #753577
#37. You shouldn't take pride in your natural talents any more than you should take pride in your sex, your race or color of your hair

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #763360
#38. The true genius of a great manager is his or her ability to individualize. A great manager is one who understands how to trip each person's trigger.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #776361
#39. It's odd that I'm a big name in America and not known in Britain.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #780291
#40. There's something unique and different that makes a leader, and it's not about creativity or courage or integrity ... A leader's job is to rally people toward a better future.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #786807
#41. The difference between a pebble and a mountain lies in whom you ask to move it.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #828069
#42. There has to be a way to redirect employee's driving ambition and to channel it more productively. There is. Create heroes in every role. Make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #850321
#43. CEOs hate variance. It's the enemy. Variance in customer service is bad. Variance in quality is bad. CEOs love processes that are standardized, routinized, predictable. Stamping out variance makes a complex job a bit less complex.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #850996
#44. Focusing on strengths is the surest way to greater job satisfaction, team performance and organizational excellence.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #865899
#45. Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #872605
#46. It's a special person - and personality - who can lead a start-up to soaring success and sustain that success for the long term. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are star examples.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #877584
#47. Every company wants to know how to find and keep highly talented women in the workplace.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #955142
#48. People leave managers, not companies

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #961006
#49. If you are innately skeptical of other people's motives, then no amount of good behavior in the past will ever truly convince you that they are not just about to disappoint you. Suspicion is a permanent condition.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #966982
#50. You have a genius.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #988345
#51. In the minds of great managers, consistent poor performance is not primarily a matter of weakness, stupidity, disobedience, or disrespect. It is a matter of miscasting.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1002890
#52. To encourage people to take responsibility for who they really are. And it is the only way to show respect for each person. Focusing on strengths is the storyline that explains all their efforts as managers.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1006106
#53. MICHAEL: Maybe just this: A manager has got to remember that he is on stage every day. His people are watching him. Everything he does, everything he says, and the way he says it, sends off clues to his employees. These clues affect performance. So never forget you are on that stage.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1009147
#54. Focus on each person's strengths and manage around his weaknesses. Don't try to fix the weaknesses. Don't try to perfect each person. Instead do everything you can to help each person cultivate his talents. Help each person become more of who he already is.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1076981
#55. As oblivious as we can be to our own strengths, it's even easier to ignore the particular and unique strengths of others.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1087025
#56. This company didn't have one culture. It had as many cultures as it did managers. No

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1115568
#57. When you feel as though you can't do something, the simple antidote is action: Begin doing it. Start the process, even if it's just a simple step, and don't stop at the beginning.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1118133
#58. Great leaders rally people to a better future.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1202936
#59. I think a good business book has one coherent idea that is richly played out.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1210777
#60. The only truth is your own. The world you see is seen by you alone. What entices you and what repels you, what strengthens you and what weakens you, is part of a pattern that no one else shares.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1221698
#61. Sir, I'm afraid that the quality of this airline is partly measured by on-time departures. And unfortunately, on-time departures are measured by when we left the gate, not by wheels-up.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1241805
#62. You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1276079
#63. Most of my work has been in corporations, studying how you build an organization that helps people to identify and work to their strengths.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1285831
#64. Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy. Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1315829
#65. Remember, what you focus on expands; results follow focus.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1317781
#66. Innovation and best practices can be sown throughout an organization - but only when they fall on fertile ground.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1318143
#67. I do still get extremely nervous before speeches. My biggest fear is that I'll be standing there in front of hundreds of people and be incapable of talking. I'm afraid that I'll make a complete fool of myself and be unable to go on.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1327890
#68. If you want to be clear, act.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1365755
#69. We live with them every day, and they come so easily to us that they cease to be precious.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1395267
#70. Clarity is the answer to anxiety. Effective leaders are clear.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1401218
#71. True individuality can be lonely.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1423830
#72. That all salespeople are different, that all accountants are different, that each individual, no matter what his chosen profession, is unique.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1443424
#73. To get the best coaching outcomes, always have your 1-on-1's on your employee's turf not yours. In your office the truth hides.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1443761
#74. But the best managers have the solution: Ask. Ask your employee about her goals: What are you shooting for in your current role? Where do you see your career heading? What personal goals would you feel comfortable sharing with me? How often do you want to meet to talk about your progress?

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1462948
#75. American culture is CEO obsessed. We celebrate the hard-charging heroes and mythologize the iconoclastic visionaries. Those people are important.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1514352
#76. Teach your children how to identify their own strengths and challenge them to contribute these strengths to others.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1520291
#77. Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1526831
#78. Everyone can probably do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1548041
#79. You will learn and grow the least in your areas of weakness.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1549644
#80. The secret to living a strong life is right in front of you, calling to you every day. It can be found in your emotional reaction to specific moments in your life.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1573264
#81. Many of us feel stress and get overwhelmed not because we're taking on too much, but because we're taking on too little of what really strengthens us.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1577163
#82. Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're actually doing every day.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1581718
#83. If we have to know without a doubt that the choices we are making are the perfect ones, we risk never making any choices at all.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1590504
#84. A strength is what you do that makes you feel strengthened.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1639937
#85. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1662623
#86. Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1669395
#87. The corporate world is appallingly bad at capitalizing on the strengths of its people.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1669568
#88. The opposite of a leader isn't a follower. The opposite of a leader is a pessimist.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1670326
#89. Managers are encouraged to focus on complex initiatives like reengineering or learning organizations, without spending time on the basics.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1698402
#90. Strengths are not activities you're good at, they're activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you're doing it you look forward to doing it; while you're doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you've done it, it seems to fulfill a need of yours.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1718531
#91. Authenticity is your most precious commodity as a leader.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1718989
#92. What do we know to be important but are unable to measure?

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1739363
#93. In a war, no matter the outcome of a certain skirmish or battle, the winner is the party whose attitudes, behaviors and preoccupations come to dominate the postwar landscape. By this measure, the outcome of the gender wars, if wars they were, is clear: women won.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1745186
#94. "Freedom, individualism, authenticity and being yourself so long as you don't hurt another's physical person or property: Sustained success comes only when you take what's unique about you and figure out how to make it useful!"

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1754936
#95. If you want execution, hail only success. If you want creativity, hail risk, and remain neutral about success.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1759940
#96. Always work hard. Intensity clarifies. It creates not only momentum, but also the pressure you need to feel either friction, or fulfillment.

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Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1775803
#97. The greatest managers in the world do not have much in common. But despite their differences, these great managers do share one thing: Before they do anything else, they first break all the rules of conventional wisdom.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1775819
#98. Google and Facebook, each in their own way, have revolutionized the delivery of advertising based on search and social networking, creating a sort of anti-Spam: targeted, relevant ads that a consumer might actually welcome rather than spurn.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham Quotes #1847849

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