How Well Do You Know Your Team?

Insights that separate good managers from great ones

People are weird.

That’s one of the main lessons I’ve learned in decades of management and leadership. Is it a revolutionary insight? Maybe not. But it has fundamentally changed how I work with employees, especially my direct reports.

What do I mean by “weird”? I mean that everyone is extreme in at least one or two dimensions of their personality. We’re all in the 90th percentile in some aspect of the way we behave and think.

Because people have these variations, you have to figure out exactly what flavor of weird they are. If you want to help them succeed at work long-term, you need to understand all their quirks and peculiarities. Deploying the same approach on everyone just isn’t going to work. It’s like trying to eat cereal with a fork. You can try it, but switching to a different tool gets you a lot better results.

The maxim I share in CEO training is this:

Each employee is a unique collection of behaviors, preferences, and strengths. Only by understanding this mix for each person ca…