Book Review: “First, Break All The Rules”

  • Published
  • By Maj. Justin Radford
  • 736th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
Dover Air Force Base, Del. --  The most important relationship in ensuring that we remain the world's greatest Air Force, is the relationship between a supervisor and his/her Airmen.

We spend many hours in Professional Military Education discussing this relationship, however, unfortunately, many supervisors fail to actually invest the time required to properly cultivate this relationship. Long gone are the days when I enlisted, and was "attached at the hip" to my supervisor, getting constant feedback.

Why is there a disconnect between how it should be or how it was and how it actually is now? I think there are three main reasons behind this failure: operations tempo, diminishing size of the force, and earlier promotions to our mid-tier ranks (SSgt/Major).

We have been at higher than normal operations tempo since 9/11 (you could make the point that AMC has been at war since the build-up to Desert Shield in 1990). While the end is near in Afghanistan, we shouldn't expect a lower ops tempo anytime soon because as Sun Tzu stated "...when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity."

In most cases, we no longer have the number of personnel required to pair up a brand new Airmen with his/her supervisor. Instead, we hand him/her a T.O. /AFI and expect them to figure it out while the supervisor is off putting out the myriad of fires that he/she has to deal with on a daily basis.

The years spent shaping the force has had an unintended consequence of promoting some folks into the created vacancies before they were ready. Asking them to supervise before their supervisor had a chance to mentor/develop them properly.

Did I refer to these as "reasons?" Please allow me to correct myself...these aren't reasons...they are excuses. Convenient excuses for ignoring a responsibility that is at the core of our development as Airmen. Fortunately, the book "First, Break All The Rules" provides practical tools to overcome these reasons (excuses) for failing to develop our Airmen.
"First, Break All The Rules" by Marcus Buckingham is the product of two mammoth research studies undertaken by the Gallup organization over the last twenty-five years. The first concentrated on employees, asking, "What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?"

Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. They asked them questions on all aspects of their working life, and then dug deep into the answers to discover the most important needs demanded by the most productive employees.

Their research revealed that talented employees need great managers (supervisors) and how long an employee stays with a company and how productive he/she is while there, is determined by his/her relationship with his/her immediate supervisor. This simple discovery led to the second research effort: "How do the world's greatest managers find, focus, and keep talented employees?"

The Gallup organization conducted interviews with over 80,000 managers trying to discover what, if anything, these great managers had in common. After combing the results from both studies, they made another discovery...measuring the strength of a workplace can be simplified to twelve questions. These questions measure the core elements needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees. They are:

1) Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3) At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4) In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5) Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6) Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7) At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8) Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9) Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10) Do I have a best friend at work?
11) In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12) This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

The goal is to get your Airmen to respond positively to all twelve questions. Within the 736 AMXS we added these questions to our Unit Climate Assessment and have utilized the results to help deliberately develop our supervisors so that their Airmen will respond more positively the next time they see these questions and thus putting us on a path to building a great squadron.


However, you don't need a commander's initiative to apply this to your relationship with your Airmen. As a supervisor, all you need to do is invest time in your folks and deliberately address these questions with your Airmen.

The book suggests that you should address these questions in order. Addressing the questions in the wrong order is both tempting and actively dangerous. By focusing on the questions in order, you are laying the foundation for a truly productive relationship. The book also provides tools for more effective feedback sessions which are imperative if you want to cultivate this relationship.


It doesn't matter if you are a commander, a superintendent or a recent graduate from ALS, this book provides practical tools that will assist you in developing a productive relationship with your Airmen, a relationship that is the foundation for our continued success.