About Mark Murphy

Through his groundbreaking research, Mark Murphy has created some of the biggest ideas in leadership.  He’s a New York Times bestselling author, weekly contributor to Forbes, ranked as a Top 30 Leadership Guru and the Founder of Leadership IQ.  With a reputation for brilliant, yet immediately actionable, insights about leadership, he’s trained leaders at the United Nations, Harvard Business School, the Clinton Foundation, Microsoft, MasterCard, SHRM, and hundreds more organizations.  

Mark leads one of the world’s largest leadership skills studies, and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and U.S. News & World Report. Mark has also appeared on CNN, NPR, CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, and Fox Business News.  

Mark’s most recent book was the New York Times bestseller, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More. Before that, his book Hiring for Attitude was featured in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and chosen as a top business book by CNBC. Some of his other books include HARD Goals: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be and The Deadly Sins of Employee Retention.

Some of Mark’s big ideas include…

Hiring for Attitude

When new hires fail, 89% of the time it’s for attitude, not skill! This finding is the result of Mark’s 3-year study into 20,000 new hires and is the foundation of his bestselling book Hiring for Attitude. This is also one of the most highly quoted hiring studies in the world. Read More: Why New Hires Fail (Emotional Intelligence vs. Skill)

SMART Goals Can Be Dumb (Use HARD Goals Instead)

Mark’s study of over 4,000 employees found that only 15% of people with SMART Goals believe their goals will help them achieve great things. Why? SMART Goals often act as impediments to bold action. “Hold on a minute,” SMART goals seem to say. “Don’t push beyond your resources, don’t bite off more than you can chew, play it safe and stay within your limitations.” By contrast, HARD Goals, as outlined in Mark’s bestselling book, encourage breakthrough performance, learning, passion, and more. Read More: Are SMART Goals Dumb?

Why CEOs Get Fired

It’s a commonly-held belief that CEOs get fired because of “current financial performance.” But if that were really the whole story, every CEO who ever missed a quarterly target or lost money would be immediately dismissed. So why do CEOs get fired? Mark’s research (involving interviews with 1,000+ board members) found that CEOs were removed when Boards lost confidence. And that was driven by poor change management, tolerating low performers, denying reality, and more.  Read More: Why The CEO Gets Fired (Change Management And More)

You Need 6 Hours With Your Boss

Mark’s study found that most people spend only half the time they should be spending with their boss. People who spend 6 hours interacting with their direct leader are 29% more inspired, 30% more engaged, 16% more innovative and 15% more intrinsically motivated than those who spend only 1 hour per week. However, it turns out that there can be too much of a good thing. When people spend more than 6 hours per week interacting with their leader, diminishing returns are shown in terms of building inspiration, engagement and motivation.  Read More: All Great Leadership Styles Begin By Spending Time With Employees

Why Low Performers Can Be Happier Than High Performers

Mark shocked the employee engagement industry when he discovered that in 42% of organizations, low performers are actually MORE ENGAGED than high performers. Think about that for a moment: The employees bringing you the least value are often more engaged than the folks who reliably deliver good and great performance.  Read More: Employee Engagement Shocker: Low Performers May Be MORE Engaged Than High Performers