But as they looked at the scores of the best managers, they found something subtly and wonderfully different. The high scores of the best managers moved around—one manager would do well on questions about creating a particular ambience in the pub, say, while another would excel on questions about inventory and budgeting. There was no pattern at all. Or, rather, there was just one big pattern—the only way to predict a manager’s performance was to look at his or her total score. They had found a list of ways in which managers could excel, and they could define excellence on each of these dimensions. Yet it seemed to make no difference which of these a candidate excelled at, as long as he or she excelled somewhere.

This was not an anomaly for the role of pub manager. Every single occupation the Gallup Organization studied—salesperson, teacher, doctor, housekeeper—displayed this same pattern: those who excelled did not share all the same abilities, but instead displayed unique combinations of different abilities, strongly. Excellence in the real world, in every profession, is idiosyncratic.

Considering the dynamic feedback loop between all five choices, strategy isn’t easy. But it is doable. A clear and powerful framework for thinking about choices is a helpful start for managers and other leaders intent on improving the strategy for their business or function. Strategy needn’t be the purview of a small set of experts. It can be demystified into a set of

five important questions that can (and should) be asked at every level of the business: What is your winning aspiration? Where should you play? How can you win there? What capabilities do you need? What management systems would support it all? These choices, which can be understood as a strategic choice cascade, can be captured on a single page.

They can create a shared understanding of your company’s strategy and what must be done to achieve it.

In retaining employees and keeping them engaged, we’ll cover the five activities of great (vs. good) managers (we prefer the term “coaches” — more on this later):

• Help people play to their strengths.

• Don’t demotivate; dehassle.

• Set clear expectations and give employees a clear line of sight.

• Give recognition and show appreciation.

• Hire fewer people, but pay them more (frontline employees, not top leaders!).

5: THE MANAGERS (COACHES)

“People join companies. They leave managers. Therefore, to keep your team happy and engaged, you need one thing above all else: great managers/coaches — not free lunches or yoga classes! As Gallup notes, “Managers account for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement scores.

In the words of both Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.