Coming soon · Book Profile
Nine Lies About Work Buckingham
Nine widely accepted 'truths' about work are actually lies born of organizations' desire for control, and freethinking leaders who ground their practices in evidence about teams, strengths, and human individuality can build higher-performing, more engaged, and more human workplaces.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Drawing on decades of rigorous data from ADP, Gallup, Cisco, and Deloitte, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall dismantle nine commonly held beliefs about the workplace—about culture, plans, cascaded goals, well-roundedness, feedback, ratings, potential, work-life balance, and leadership—and show how each begins as a narrow truth before spreading into a controlling lie. Written for the 'freethinking leader' who values emergent patterns over received wisdom and findings over philosophy, the book replaces each lie with an evidence-based truth: people care about their team, the best intelligence wins, companies should cascade meaning not goals, the best people are spiky not well-rounded, people need attention not feedback, people can only reliably rate their own experience, people have momentum not generic potential, love-in-work matters more than balance, and leadership is really about creating followers. It arms readers with practical tools—weekly check-ins, strengths-based coaching, reliable self-report measurement, and red-thread weaving—to unlock the unique contribution of each person on their team.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A team leader—often a first-time or freethinking leader—who wants to build an extraordinary team and get the best from each unique person.
- The problem
- Flawed, controlling workplace systems (cascaded goals, competency models, ratings, feedback rituals, culture initiatives) that fight against expressing individual uniqueness. Feeling confounded, stymied, and quietly certain that the 'settled truths' don't match reality, yet pressured to enforce them.
- The plan
- Know the answers to the eight engagement questions for your team, one person at a time.
- Build an intelligence system: liberate information and hold frequent weekly check-ins asking 'What are your priorities?' and 'How can I help?'
- Cascade meaning through expressed values, rituals, and stories rather than imposing goals.
- Get into the outcomes business: fit roles to each person's strengths and weave team members' weirdness together.
- Give frequent positive attention, replaying winning plays, and use reliable self-report measurement.
- The payoff
- A high-performing, highly engaged team whose members trust you and stay. · People who play to their strengths daily, feel recognized, and are challenged to grow. · A leader who remains true to who they are while unlocking each person's unique contribution.
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Additional reading
- Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization · Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
This is the authors' previous book, which provides a deep dive into the ITC framework that is presented as a key tool in Chapter 6 and used by the fledgling DDOs in Chapter 7.
- In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life · Robert Kegan
This book lays out the foundational theory of adult development and mental complexity that underpins the entire DDO concept, explaining the 'adaptive gap' that DDOs are designed to address.
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success · Carol Dweck
The book explicitly references Dweck's work, contrasting the 'fixed mindset' (prevalent in ordinary organizations) with the 'growth mindset' that is fundamental to a DDO's culture.
- Organizational Culture and Leadership · Edgar H. Schein
Mentioned in the book, Schein's work provides a foundational understanding of organizational culture, which is the primary medium through which DDOs operate.
- The Functions of the Executive · Chester Barnard (1938)
Chapter 10 identifies this book as providing the seminal concept of 'willingness to contribute to the cooperative system,' which forms the theoretical foundation for the modern construct of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).
- The Psychology of Careers · Donald E. Super (1957)
Chapter 3 cites this as a foundational work that established the concept of career stages, a model that has profoundly influenced career development theory and research for decades.
- Decision-making in the employment interview · E. C. Webster (1964)
Chapter 6 highlights this as the key report from the influential McGill University studies, which revealed the cognitive biases inherent in unstructured interviews and shifted the focus of research toward understanding the interviewer's decision process.
- Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures · Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
Multiple chapters (e.g., 13, 15) refer to this document and the related AERA/APA/NCME 'Standards' as the authoritative professional guidelines that define best practices and core concepts, like the modern unitarian view of validity, for the entire field of personnel selection.
- Managing Human Assets · Beer, M. et al. (1984)
This is a seminal book that introduced the 'Harvard framework' of HRM, emphasizing a multi-stakeholder approach that considers the interests of employees, not just shareholders. It provides a foundational 'soft' HRM perspective.
- Strategic Human Resource Management · Fombrun, C. J., Tichy, N. M. and Devanna, M. A. (1984)
This book introduced the 'Michigan framework,' which advocated for a 'hard' HRM approach focused on tightly matching HR strategy to the business strategy (vertical fit). It is a foundational text for the strategic alignment concept.