The Root to Success

The Fryeburg Fair is Maine's premier autumn social event. Admittedly, I dawdled in the pig barn. But it was the tree-felling lumberjack who truly enthralled me.

I'm fairly certain this Down East Paul Bunyan didn't need Marcus Buckingham's The One Thing You

Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success to help him focus. Nonetheless, I'm convinced that as he drove his razor-bladed ax through a log with a single thud, he executed its message: Get to the core.

Buckingham, of First, Break All the Rules fame, advises us that to thrive in today's world, we must know how to focus-to filter-to apply laser-like precision to what he defines as "controlling insights." Controlling insights, though counterintuitive, are precise actions that can be the vanguard of exponential improvement and results. They are "emotions or facts or events that really matter." We learn that managing, leading and sustained individual performance (career success) each have a single controlling insight that, when practiced, can propel us to success.

In a venture to help us distinguish between "what is merely important and what is imperative," Buckingham details clear and specific directions about how to apply the single compelling insight-the one thing we need to know-to be a winning manager, leader and individual. Through in-depth interviews with people from every level of the organization and authoritative research, we recognize how we can take action in both our professional and personal lives.

Leading, managing and career success could each be explained and rehashed ad nauseam. But like my burly lumberjack, Buckingham chops to the core. One Thing wins the blue ribbon.

-Judith Kolva, Ph.D., assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, International College