Marcus Buckingham Quotes

You see the assets of your actors and you see their strengths and you try to play into them. It's like I feel part of my job is as a coach. I'm putting a team on the field and you want to formulate how to make the best game out of these players.

My favourite thing is to discover what someone does well and say, 'Do that for me.'

Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business - and you can leverage that knowledge.

I have a good eye for talent, and my talent performs the best.

When you're a manager, we sometimes speak too much about tactics, but the most difficult thing for a manager is to get the best from his best players.

If you can utilize a guy's talents and not let other parts of the game suffer, you've got a winning mix.

There are many players with talent, but it is important to find a coach who knows how to make the most of that.

Great leaders have an ability, a characteristic of analyzing very good talent, and empowering that talent.

Leading is a skill, not a gift. You're not born with it, you learn how.

Every step by which men add to their knowledge and skills is a step also by which they can control other men.

Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.

I'm a natural-born boss, I have to say. I just like to be good at things. Even as a child, I was boss of my family.

I feel dominant - I feel the triangle offense utilizes all my skills.

All resources are not obvious; great managers find and develop available talent.

Any fool can buy talent; only real leaders develop it.

The sign of a great player is how much he elevates his colleagues' performance.

The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments

I'm always surrounded by smart talented people. I had talented partners. Stan Latham for one. Talent scouts.

Sometimes, when you work with mediocre talents, they feel entitled. They act like stars. Genuinely talented people don't.

Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I'm master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell's own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.

Entertainers wrongly assume that their fame, money, and influence arise from broad knowledge rather than natural talent, looks, or mastery of a narrow skill.

I've always been able to stay focused on trying to recruit good players and trying to develop those players.

Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy

If your business is to grow and prosper, as a leader, you need to focus on people development.

In any new situation, whether it involves an elevator or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other. Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform.