When They Win, You Win
Being a Great Manager Is Simpler Than You Think
Book Edition Details
Summary
In the bustling corridors of corporate ambition, where joy often bows to profit, Russ Laraway's "When They Win, You Win" champions a radical shift in leadership ideology. This compelling guide exposes the myth that misery fuels success, instead unveiling a harmonious trifecta: clear direction, continuous coaching, and engagement with personal career dreams. Laraway, a seasoned leader with roots in Google, Twitter, and beyond, crafts a blueprint for nurturing workplace happiness—a strategy proven to ignite both employee potential and bottom-line triumph. Here lies the secret to transforming any team into a powerhouse of productivity and satisfaction, where victories are shared and success becomes a collective endeavor.
Introduction
In boardrooms across America, executives grapple with a startling reality: employee engagement sits at a dismal 15 percent globally, with the United States only marginally better at 33 percent. Behind these numbers lies a profound truth that most organizations have yet to fully grasp - managers explain 70 percent of employee engagement, and engagement directly drives business results. Yet despite this critical connection, we continue to promote our best individual contributors into management roles without proper preparation, leaving them to sink or swim in one of the most challenging transitions of their careers. The cost of this misalignment extends far beyond frustrated employees. Companies in the top quartile of employee engagement deliver 17 percent better productivity and 21 percent higher profitability than those in the bottom quartile. This represents billions of dollars in untapped potential, lost not to market forces or technological disruption, but to a fundamental misunderstanding of what great management actually requires. The path forward isn't complicated, but it demands a systematic approach that focuses on the few things that truly matter.
Direction: Setting Clear Expectations
Direction represents the foundation upon which all great management is built - the art of ensuring every team member understands exactly what is expected of them and when it is expected. This goes far beyond simple task assignment; it requires creating a comprehensive map that connects individual daily activities to larger organizational goals, providing the context that transforms routine work into meaningful contribution. Consider the story of Joe, who took over the Pittsburgh office of a Fortune 500 company in 2011. For years, Pittsburgh had been among the company's biggest failures - culture was toxic, and sales were plummeting. Rather than immediately implementing top-down changes, Joe recognized that solid talent existed within the team. His first priority was ensuring every team member understood not just what was expected, but why those expectations mattered and how they connected to the broader mission. Joe spent countless hours with each team member, both tenured and new, but his approach was fundamentally collaborative. He didn't dictate expectations; instead, he gave people a substantial voice in defining them. He sat alongside his team daily, helping them see how their individual contributions created ripple effects throughout the organization. When someone struggled with prioritization, Joe helped them understand not just what to work on, but more importantly, what not to work on. The transformation was remarkable. Less than two years later, the Pittsburgh office achieved top results in sales revenue, operations, staffing, employee retention, and profitability. For the first time in the company's history, it won the Office of the Year award. This success wasn't built on revolutionary strategies or cutting-edge technology - it was built on the fundamental principle that people perform extraordinarily when they understand exactly what's expected and why it matters. To implement effective direction-setting, begin by establishing your team's purpose - why you exist as a unit. Follow this by creating a clear vision of where you're headed, then break that vision down into quarterly objectives with measurable key results. Finally, help your team prioritize ruthlessly, focusing on the few things that truly move the needle while eliminating everything else.
Coaching: Enabling Success Through Feedback
Coaching stands as the most powerful tool in a manager's arsenal - the cheapest, most available, and most effective way to enable team success. Yet it remains one of the most underutilized management practices, often avoided due to discomfort or misunderstood as merely pointing out what's wrong. True coaching encompasses two essential elements: helping people continue what they're doing well and helping them improve what they can do better. The story of Russ Laraway's experience as a Marine company commander illustrates the profound impact of direct, caring feedback. When one of his marines was arrested in Mexico for punching a police officer, Laraway's initial reaction was to blame the marine's poor decision-making. However, his battalion commander delivered a stark reality check: "What I want to know is why your leadership is so weak that your marine thought it was okay to go to Tijuana, get drunk, and punch a Federale in the jaw." This feedback hit like a thunderbolt. Laraway realized he had been delivering the same boring safety briefings week after week, essentially background noise that his marines tuned out completely. The feedback forced him to examine his own role in the incident and take full responsibility for everything his organization did or failed to do. He revolutionized his approach, bringing in a Medal of Honor recipient who had been paralyzed in a post-service DUI accident to deliver a deeply personal safety message to his marines. The results were immediate and lasting. For the remaining eight months of Laraway's command, there were zero alcohol-related incidents among his marines. The key wasn't the specific intervention, but the willingness to receive difficult feedback, take ownership, and make fundamental changes to his leadership approach. This experience taught him that great leaders don't just give feedback - they actively seek it out and respond to it with action. Effective coaching requires creating a culture where feedback flows in all directions. Ask your team regularly how you can help them be more successful, listen with genuine curiosity, and follow up with concrete actions. When providing feedback to others, focus on specific behaviors and their impact, always connecting your observations to how changes could increase their success.
Career: Investing in People's Growth
Career development represents the most overlooked yet critical element of exceptional management - the practice of helping people grow toward their long-term dreams rather than simply their next promotion. This investment demonstrates the deepest form of care, showing team members that you value them as complete human beings with aspirations that extend far beyond their current role. The transformative power of career conversations is exemplified by Larry, a high-performing Google director who regularly expressed frustration about his career progress despite having significant responsibilities and recent promotions. Rather than addressing his immediate complaints about compensation or advancement, his manager took a different approach: "Where do you think this is all heading?" This simple question unlocked a conversation that changed everything. Larry revealed his dream of becoming a CEO, specifically of a midsize consumer tech company focused on video. Through careful questioning, they explored what appealed to him about the CEO role: clear accountability, variety of activities, and the symphony conductor aspect of managing diverse functions. This conversation provided the lighthouse that would guide all future career decisions. They identified the skills Larry needed to develop - product management and global operations - and created a concrete action plan with specific timelines and owners. The impact was immediate and lasting. Larry stopped his anxious hand-wringing about fairness and compensation because he now had a clear path forward. He moved into product management under a leader who understood his long-term goals, and his manager actively supported this transition despite losing a high performer from his own team. Years later, Larry continues to progress toward his CEO vision, making career decisions based on that original lighthouse rather than reactive moves or short-term opportunities. To implement effective career development, conduct three structured conversations with each team member over three weeks. First, explore their life story to understand their core values and motivations. Second, help them articulate their dream job with specific details about industry, company size, and role. Third, create a concrete action plan that includes changes to their current role, skill development opportunities, identification of their next position, and network activation.
Summary
Great management isn't about having all the answers or being the smartest person in the room - it's about providing three fundamental elements that enable others to do their best work. When managers ensure clear direction, provide consistent coaching, and invest genuinely in people's long-term careers, they create the conditions for extraordinary performance and deep engagement. As one Qualtrics executive observed after implementing these practices, "You have successfully created a distinguished leadership culture." The path forward requires courage to move beyond traditional management approaches and embrace a model that puts people at the center. Remember that "when they win, you win" - your success as a manager is inextricably linked to the success of every person on your team. This isn't soft leadership; it's the hardest kind of leadership because it demands consistent attention to what matters most: the human beings who do the actual work. Start immediately by having a career conversation with one team member this week. Ask about their life story, help them articulate their dreams, and begin building a plan to get them there. This single action will demonstrate more care and create more engagement than months of traditional management activities.
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By Russ Laraway
