This is a well researched book. The authors arrived at their conclusions after analyzing data collected by Gallup over 25 years - using an impressive sample size of 80 thousand managers and 1 million staff from 400 companies.

Gallup has used its expertise in survey research to link employee engagement to business performance. The concepts are well explained and presented.

The essence of the findings lie in the 4 Keys of great managers and the 12 Questions that give organizations the information they need to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.

The 4 Keys of great managers:

1. Select for talent - the authors define talent as "recurring patterns of behavior" and state that great managers find the match between talents and roles.

2. Define the right outcomes - managers needs to turn talent into performance. This can be done by defining the right outcomes and letting people find their own route toward the outcomes.

3. Focus on strengths - managers need to concentrate on strengths and not on weaknesses.

4. Find the Right Fit - managers need to assign roles to employees that give the employees the greatest chance of success.

The 12 Questions make an excellent list of questions that will be helpful to organizations as well as to employees.

The authors group the questions into various categories and explain the importance of each question and group.
I give this book 5 stars because the insights are practical and backed by empirical evidence, and the book is well presented.

I was able to apply the concepts immediately. I read this book when I was assigned the role of a team lead. I was able to improve the efficiency of the team by assigning tasks to people based on their individual strengths.

This book has a lot of substance. I am sure I will be referring to it often to make the valuable insights a part of my management style. In addition, it does a good job explaining key business terms that people often take for granted, such as talent, skills, knowledge, etc.

I also like the fact that this book has proven some of Peter Drucker's concepts with scientific research.

Here are a couple of examples that are verbatim quotes from "The Essential Drucker" :

Chapter 9 : Picking People - The Basic rules: (page 130):
" the person and the assignment need to fit each other.",
" effective executives do not start out by looking at weaknesses. You cannot build performances on weaknesses. You can build only on strengths".

"First Break" is an excellent book that I recommend as a must read to every manager and anybody interested in management.