The One Thing You Need To Know

...About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success

By: Marcus Buckingham

Narrated by: Marcus Buckingham

Following the success of the landmark bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham offers a dramatically new way to understand the art of success.

With over 1.6 million copies of First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald O. Clifton) in print, Cambridge-educated Buckingham is considered one of the most respected business authorities on the subject of management and leadership in the world. With The One Thing You Need to Know, he gives readers an invaluable course in outstanding achievement -- a guide to capturing the essence of the three most fundamental areas of professional activity.

Great managing, leading, and career success -- Buckingham draws on a wealth of applicable examples to reveal that a controlling insight lies at the heart of the three. Lose sight of this "one thing" and even the best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Readers will be eager to discover the surprisingly different answers to each of these rich and complex subjects. Each could be explained endlessly to detail their many facets, but Buckingham's great gift is his ability to cut through the mass of often-conflicting agendas and zero in on what matters most, without ever oversimplifying. As he observes, success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources, including his own research data and in-depth interviews with individuals at every level of an organization, from CEO's to hotel maids and stockboys.

In every way a groundbreaking book, The One Thing You Need to Know offers crucial performance and career lessons for business people at all career stages.©2005 One Thing Productions, Inc. All rights reserved; (P)2005 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Marcus Buckingham's insights about what matters most have been enormously helpful for our people. His grasp of the pivotal difference between great managing and great leadership, and how to act on that knowledge has proven an essential insight for key leaders at Best Buy."
-- Brad Anderson, Vice Chairman and CEO, Best Buy Co., Inc.

Well rounded, shorter book but reads a bit slower

I recently read musk and jobs buographied and the 4 dysfunctions of a team
...if you enjoyed them you'll probably enjoy this but it reads much slower. I actually put it down. a few times and had to force myself to come back to and I am glad I did bc it really shines in the last chapter.

gripping and highly applicable

from beginning to end, solid material. author uses great examples of real world applications and puts the reader immediately into a mindset of how this can apply to their lives, whether they manage people or are an individual contributor.

Three things

It's one thing each manager needs to know, one thing each leader needs to know, and one thing each person needs to know to sustain individual success. Since I'm all three. There three things I need to know. Good stuff. Nothing really profound.

Marcus Buckingham is a giant in the field

Packed full of useable advice to help you, your management team and your front lines. I highly recommend this audio

Very well done.

Took complex roles and boiled them down to the most important area to focus. Each person can excel in each of these roles if they focus on the one thing.