Recently I came across this AMAZING book on management – everyone should read it whether you are a manager or not. Making some notes so I can refer quickly later on:

After this the book says: employees don’t leave their company. They leave their manager.

The book distills down the job of a manger is to reach out within each employee and extract the maximum performance out of them. It sounds a bit evil but phrased differently its saying to help each individual reach their full potential. I think this used to be Microsoft’s mission statement at one point – one that I loved.

The book also makes it important to distinguish and differentiate a manager from a leader. Managers took inwards within a company. Leaders look outward.

The book identifies and differentiates 3 things we are made of:

• Skills: the ability to do something well; expertise (dictionary definition)
• Knowledge: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. (dictionary definition)
• Talents: natural aptitude or skill. (dictionary definition)

Skills can be taught e.g., cooking. Knowledge can be accumulated over time and persistent practice. But talent cannot be taught or accumulated. It is your innate ability that you were born with. You either have it or not as part of how your brain is wired. The dictionary definition of talent makes a reference to skill. I think this is no coincidence – the two are related. The difference between talent and skill is that talent can be thought of as that skill which you just cannot acquire because your brain isn’t wired that way.

Anyway what’s the upshot? The upshot is that stop trying to fix your non-talents and instead capitalize on the talents you do have. If everyone could acquire every skill, knowledge and talent then everyone could be perfect. But reality is that every person is unique and not everyone can keep on rising and become company CEO.

Also this: https://karwin.com/blog/index.php/category/management/