A New York Times best selling author, consultant to Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organizations, Curt Coffman has invested 30+ years in the science of the Human side of organizations. He has studied literally hundreds of organizations, and millions of employees and customers. His work launched a new era in employee engagement and management development with First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently – one of the best selling management books of all times. He followed that up with another best-selling book, Follow This Path: How the World’s Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential. An international figure in the world of management and engagement, Curt’s work has been translated in over 40 different languages. His research and writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Chief Executive magazine, CIO Magazine, The Economist, Fast Company, Fortune, the Harvard Management Update, Inc. magazine, the International Journal of Management Reviews, Microsoft Executive Circle, The New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post, and a host of other management journals.
I was fortunate to attend a session with Curt Coffman in September this year in a small group of leadership forum in HCL. His key philosophy is that people hate to work. People like variety in their jobs and not repetitiveness. How many people would like to go bowling everyday for 8 hours a day? Outstanding development of people with right attitude leads to outstanding development of organization. Many organizations are strategizing on how to hold people. Connecting with organization is key for retaining people. Organizations are working towards creating macro level culture (at senior management and leadership level), micro level culture (at execution level) and bridge culture (people relationship with each other and their managers). In today’s economy value zone makes a difference and organizations are focused on how to make every employee focus on retention and acquisition of customers. People focus has become more critical. 60% of the time human beings make decisions on emotions and not on rules. Connecting emotionally with people is the key.