How to Become a Great Boss: Winning Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees - Softcover

Jeffrey J. Fox

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091935431 ISBN 13: 9780091935436

Publisher: Vermilion, 2010

Synopsis

The workplace is now smarter and more competitive than ever, so it pays for managers to be alert to the ways that good staff can be attracted and motivated. Bestselling author Jeffrey J. Fox has created "How To Become A Great Boss" for anyone who manages staff and wants to inspire excellence and loyalty. It demonstrates how fostering teamwork within a network of support will create the workforce you want and help you to stay on top. The great boss simple success formula includes: hire only top-notch people; put the right people in the right job; listen to your staff; remove frustration and barriers that fetter the people; and, say 'thank you' publicly and privately. Jeffrey J. Fox, renowned for his innovative approach to business, has pondered the problem of acquiring great workers and motivating them to excel, and come up with this pithy and effective collection of rules to achieve these aims.

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Fox is the bestselling author of How to Become CEO and How to Be a Rainmaker. He is a Harvard MBA and founder of Fox and Co. Inc a premier marketing consulting company in Connecticut. His success has made him the subject of a Harvard case study, thought to be one of the most widely taught marketing case studies in the world.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I

Mr. Hart

The great boss stirs the people. The great boss elevates, applauds, and lauds the employees. The great boss makes people believe in themselves and feel special, selected, anointed. The great boss makes people feel good.

Great bosses are memorable. In sixty seconds, this boss created a memory to last over sixty years.

The employee was twenty-four. It was his first real job. He was in the fifth week.

That morning there was a knock on the six- foot-tall glass wall that framed his "office." "Excuse me, Mr. Godfrey, my name is Ralph Hart," said a courtly, exquisitely dressed man in his sixties. "Do you have a minute?"

"Of course," answered the young employee, who recognized the name, but not the face, of the company's legendary Chairman-of-the-Board.

"Thank you," said Mr. Hart. "Mr. Godfrey, may I tell you a few things about your company?" To the employee's nod, Mr. Hart continued: "Mr. Godfrey, your company is a first-class company. We have first-class products. We have first-class customers. We have first-class advertising. In fact, sometimes we even fly first-class because the airlines are some of our first-class customers."

Extending his hand to the new employee, Mr. Hart paused, and with eyes riveted on Godfrey, he concluded: "And Mr. Godfrey, we only hire first-class people. Welcome to Heublein."

If you believe that able and motivated people are the key to an enterprise's success, then Mr. Hart just taught you a lot. If you don't believe able and motivated people are the key to an enterprise's success, then stop reading and give this book to someone else.

II

The Great Boss Simple Success Formula

1. Only hire top-notch, excellent people. 2. Put the right people in the right job. Weed out the wrong people. 3. Tell the people what needs to be done. 4. Tell the people why it is needed. 5. Leave the job up to the people you've chosen to do it. 6. Train the people. 7. Listen to the people. 8. Remove frustration and barriers that fetter the people. 9. Inspect progress. 10. Say "Thank you" publicly and privately.

III

Companies Do What the Boss Does

People take their cues from the boss. The boss sets the tone and the standards. The boss sets the example. Over time, the department, the office, the store, the workshop, the factory, the company begin to do what the boss does.

If the boss is always late, punctuality becomes a minor obligation. If the boss is always in meetings, everybody is always in meetings. If the boss calls on customers, customers become important. If the boss blows off customer appointments, the salesforce makes fewer sales calls. If the boss is polite, rude people don't last. If the boss accepts mediocrity, mediocrity is what she gets. If the boss is innovative and inventive, the company looks for opportunities. If the boss does everyone's job, the employees will let him. If the boss gives everyone in the organization a World Series ring, then everyone wants to win the World Series. If the boss leads a charge, the good and able employees will be a step behind.

Great bosses understand this phenomenon. Great bosses position the organization to succeed, not with policies, but with posture and presence. If the great boss wants a policy of traveling on Sunday or practice before presentations, he or she travels on Sunday and practices presentations. If the boss doesn't want little snowstorms to make people late to the office, he gets in early the day of the storm and makes the coffee . . . and serves coffee to the stragglers as they arrive.

Some bosses lead purposefully, others innately. Whether intentional or not, the great boss shapes the organization. Because the company does what the boss does, the boss better perform, or the company won't.

Copyright (c) 2002 Jeffrey Fox

About this edition

• Publisher: Vermilion
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0091935431
• ISBN 13: 9780091935436
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 167