Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

Leadership is widely praised and poorly practiced. Worse, we often equate leadership with management, a serious mistake. Buckingham and Goodal do a superb job of exposing what many of us already suspected -- all that corporate mumbo-jumbo about culture, planning, performance reviews, and other attempts to exert control aren't just baloney; they're counter-productive. What is actually effective are teams, and leading a team doesn't require as much magic as is commonly believed. In fact, these guys present an almost step-by-step roadmap for successful leadership, and do so in an easily readable and fun book. Importantly, their prescription is backed up by an almost obsolete concept: facts based on research. What they don't cover are the basic traits required to be a superb leader, but Marcus has addressed those in his previous books. Will this book change the dismal way in which corporations treat employees? Nope. But it might result in more highly successful teams. As the authors point out, that turns out to be far more important than the corporate PR nonsense.

“Lie” is quite a strong & exaggerating word which is used in this book. However, the author has perfectly brought this to our attention. This book will challenge your belief, and all so-called classic theories/ best advice in all-time best-selling books. At first I was confused, but the more I read, the more I realize it is so authentic & practical in this real world. Warnings: This book can give you a slap in your face, for your wake-up.

I was a Supervisor/Principal in a past company and am seeing my current Supervisor/Principal struggle aimlessly on a day to day basis. I therefore bought this book to see if I was out of step with a current work place or if my supervisor/company culture was out of step with what I had come to expect from a modern work place. After reading this book, it turns out my ideas of how competency models, evaluations, supervisor attitude and workplace morale are used and evaluated for the betterment of the company were right! There are obviously many untrained, out of date, cynical and un-mentored directors and supervisors in many work places. Unfortunately, they are also the most prideful who cannot accept help, when offered. Knowing what is helpful for a workplace is great knowledge, however being able to inculcate this into an existing culture with stagnant, obstinate and experientially inbred supervisors can be very frustrating. The only think lacking in this book is teaching people how to improve a workplace they are not a current leader in. My next purchase will need to be one on ways to manipulate someone (in a good way, of course!) to do something they may not do otherwise. This book is a great addition to my workplace skills library-now if only my boss would accept my offer of loaning to to him to read!

Since moving from independent practice of clinical psychology to the corporate world, I have been involved in various aspects of leadership development. I have been a fan of Marcus Buckingham’s work and have probably read all of his earlier books. I just finished reading Nine Lies About Work and believe this is an absolute “must read” for those of us who live in the work world and more importantly for those who are leadership positions and/or provide leadership development programs. I have shared my enthusiasm for this book with many of my colleagues and have also included a warning: Buckingham’s book (and research) challenges many of the ideas believed to be “sacred” in the world of work. For example, he emphasizes the importance of focusing on strengths rather than the need to be “well-rounded” (Lie #4). He presents data indicating that people cannot reliably rate others (e.g., performance reviews, certain assessments and surveys, etc.; Lie #6). And these are just two of the nine lies. I take notes in the back of books and by the time I finished there was no space left for entries secondary to so many key points I want to remember. When I travel I can typically read an entire book. Full disclosure: it has taken me several flights and some dedicated time to read “Nine Lies.” For me, there is much to be consumed and processed and I would encourage slow reading. If there were more than 5 Stars this book would get them! Ed Nottingham, PhD, PCC Consulting and Clinical Psychologist Author, It's Not as Bad as It Seems: A Thinking Straight Approach to Happiness

Fantastic book that challenges the cliches usually used to describe perfect (unreal) leader. And offers instead fresh new concepts to help leaders explore, nurture and grow their team members “spiky”, “not-well-rounded” strengths and authentic ‘love for work” to build highly engaged teams. Deeply human and thought-provoking. Very well written with beautifully told examples and touching stories.

Wish I could make this required compliance reading for our huge organization, which is just now in the throes of decimating reorganization based on several of these lies (notably coercive cascaded goals, constant feedback about deficits, and peer reviews). I will retire in a few years, probably before the well-researched truths of this entirely engaging and highly readable book become accepted concepts. Too bad, because the changed corporate world will be much livelier and worthy of loyalty then.

Practical book which questions the way we do things and the results that we get. Useful as we think about how to build organisations where employees are engaged and aligned to organisational goals.

I really enjoyed the book. It introduces very interesting questions about work and it made me reconsider some aspects of my management style. Authors use various interesting examples from business to sports.

Nice book to challenge some process in the companies. Maybe a little redundant, but with many advices

Finally back to the roots! If you are overkilled with all that organizational multibillion business of performance assessments, competence assessments, 360-degree assessments....this book restores you to default settings. It is structuring 9 lies we are living every working day (People care which company they work for; The best plan wins; The best companies cascade goals; The best people are well-rounded; People need feedback; People can reliably rate other people; People have potential; Work-liefe balance matters; Leadership is a thing). But more then a definition of a lie it is about theoretical concept behind. Concept of misleading belief that we can set exact objective "one-size-fits-all" tools for human diversity, complex inter personal interactions, joy, recognition seeking drive or moving people to follow. Great thing is that this book is going beyond this concepts bringing us to real mechanisms behind.

Está lleno de reflexiones trascendentales.

9 lies well proved with data/facts and not opinions. I've applied with my team and the results were fast perceived. Strongly recommend if you want to implement some new management techniques