Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye: How to Get Beyond the One Word That Stand

A simple, engaging, and eminently practical guide to overcoming your weaknesses—your "Buts"—to achieve the career and personal relationships you want

Imagine a workplace where all the employees are aware of the things they do—or fail to do—that prevent them from being more productive and valuable. Imagine a company where everyone speaks openly and honestly about his or her weaknesses and is committed to strengthening and overcoming them. Imagine an environment where colleagues help one another become more efficient and less disruptive by speaking the truth about what detracts from the team's efforts and objectives. Imagine a place where the firm's most talented employees know exactly what they need to do to attain a leadership position.

This is no fantasy workplace: it can be your business if you listen to Joe Azelby and Bob Azelby, brothers and successful executives in their own right.

Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye will help all professionals find their individual BUT—whether it's a lack of skills, a distracting behavior, or a personality quirk that interferes with achieving success. Using road-tested techniques, Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye helps you examine your BUT, understand it, manage it, cover it, and most important, shrink it. It also enables managers to help their employees discover personal weaknesses and to learn how to deliver the direct, honest feedback every worker needs and deserves.

Finding your BUT can be tough medicine, but the Azelbys deliver it with a tasty spoonful of sugar. Get ready for success . . . get ready to Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye.

Joe Azelby is the managing director and CEO of the Global Real Assets Group of a large financial firm, leading a team of more than 400 investment professionals. A graduate of Harvard University, he earned an MBA in finance from NYU's Stern School of Business. While at Harvard, he was the captain of the football team and then went on to play professionally with the Buffalo Bills.

Bob Azelby is the vice president and general manager of the oncology unit of a large West Coast biotechnology firm, overseeing more than 500 sales and marketing personnel and responsible for more than $5 billion in annual revenue. He received his undergraduate degrees in economics and religious studies from the University of Virginia and his MBA from Harvard University.