NINE LIES ABOUT WORK NINE LIES ABOUT WORK MARCUS BUCKINGHAM ASHLEY GOODALL Harvard Business Review Press Boston, Massachusetts HBR Press Quantity Sales Discounts Harvard Business Review Press titles are available at significant quantity discounts when purchased in bulk for client gifts, sales promotions, and premiums. Special editions, including books with corporate logos, customized covers, and letters from the company or CEO printed in the front matter, as well as excerpts of existing books, can also be created in large quantities for special needs. For details and discount information for both print and ebook formats, contact
[email protected], tel. 800-988-0886, or www.hbr.org/bulksales. Copyright 2019 One Thing Productions, Inc. and Ashley Goodall All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to
[email protected], or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163. The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the book’s publication but may be subject to change. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buckingham, Marcus, author. | Goodall, Ashley (Author of Nine lies About work), author. Title: Nine lies about work : a freethinking leader’s guide to the real world / Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall. Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, 2019. Identifiers: LCCN 2018046989 | ISBN 9781633696303 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Organizational effectiveness. | Industrial management. | Organizational change. Classification: LCC HD58.9 .B84 2019 | DDC 650--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046989 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-63369-630-3 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63369-803-1 eISBN: 978-1-63369-631-0 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992. To Chris and Graeme, who taught us to start with what’s knowable. Contents Introduction LIE #1 People care which company they work for LIE #2 The best plan wins LIE #3 The best companies cascade goals LIE #4 The best people are well-rounded LIE #5 People need feedback LIE #6 People can reliably rate other people LIE #7 People have potential LIE #8 Work-life balance matters most LIE #9 Leadership is a thing Truths Appendix A: The ADPRI’s Global Study of Engagement Appendix B: Seven Things We Know for Sure at Cisco Notes Index Acknowledgments About the Authors NINE LIES ABOUT WORK Introduction It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure, that just ain’t so.* —MARK TWAIN Here’s who we are. Marcus is a data geek. He loves figuring out how to measure things you can’t count, such as personality, performance, and engagement. He spent much of his career doing this at the Gallup Organization. He then built his own coaching and software company devoted to helping people do their best work, and he now leads the ADP Resea