We have all experienced this: we research a job we’re interested in, we talk to people about it, we read employee reviews, we interview for it, and we get our first impressions. However, the true nature of our work is impossible to gauge until we’re hired and actually start doing the job. In fact, the more experience we attain, the more we notice the gap between the myths and realities of what we’ve chosen to do.
Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall’s Nine Lies About Work explores the assumptions we make about our jobs. Too often we’re leaning on expectations that aren’t necessarily true, and not meeting them affects our outlook and performance. Dispelling each one by one, this book gives any business professional—regardless of their field—some much-needed clarity about what counts while on the job, instead of depending on common myths.
Here is the summary on Amazon:
“You crave feedback. Your organization's culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. Your competencies should be measured and your weaknesses shored up. Leadership is a thing.
“These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they're lies. As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies—distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking—that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact. They cause dysfunction and frustration, ultimately resulting in workplaces that are a pale shadow of what they could be.
“But there are those who can get past the lies and discover what's real. These freethinking leaders recognize the power and beauty of our individual uniqueness. They know that emergent patterns are more valuable than received wisdom and that evidence is more powerful than dogma.
“With engaging stories and incisive analysis, the authors reveal the essential truths that such freethinking leaders will recognize immediately: that it is the strength and cohesiveness of your team, not your company's culture, that matter most; that we should focus less on top-down planning and more on giving our people reliable, real-time intelligence; that rather than trying to align people's goals we should strive to align people's sense of purpose and meaning; that people don't want constant feedback, they want helpful attention.
“This is the real world of work, as it is and as it should be. Nine Lies About Work reveals the few core truths that will help you show just how good you are to those who truly rely on you.”
