Buckingham was born on 11 January 1966, and was brought up in the village of Radlett, north of London. His father was the Personnel Director at Allied Breweries. Buckingham had a stammer which he initially struggled with, and said he was unable to speak until the age of 13. He learned to manage it when asked to formally address other boys at his prep school, and pretended he was speaking to just one person, rather than 300. It proved a success: "At my prep school, everyone knew I had a stammer. At my boarding school, nobody knew". Buckingham was educated at Edge Grove School, a boys' preparatory independent school in the village of Aldenham in Hertfordshire in Southern England, and then Aldenham School, a boarding independent school for boys, which he left in 1984, followed by Pembroke College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a degree in Social and Political Sciences, in 1987.
Career
While studying at Cambridge, Buckingham was recruited by educational psychology professor Donald O. Clifton, the founder of Selection Research, Incorporated. Clifton had co-founded SRI to develop interviews that would allow businesses to identify talents in individuals, to match people to the right roles. SRI acquired The Gallup Organization in 1988, and took on the Gallup name. As part of Gallup, Buckingham became a member of a team working on a survey that measured a broad range of factors that contribute to employee engagement. Based on those surveys and on interviews with thousands of managers, Buckingham published First, Break All the Rules. According to its subtitle, the book describes "what the world's greatest managers do differently" The book became a New York Times best-seller and has over a million copies in print. It was also chosen by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten as one of "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time" in their book of the same name.
The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC)
In 2006, Buckingham started The Marcus Buckingham Company to create management training programs and tools. The company helped him to launch a coordinated series of products in conjunction with the publication of Go Put Your Strengths to Work. Most notable was Trombone Player Wanted, involving a young boy who wants to abandon playing the trombone in favour of the drums. Together, the book and the film series became the basis of a TMBC workshop called Simply Strengths. TMBC was acquired by ADP, LLC in January 2017
Buckingham and the American author Jane Rinzler married in 1996 and divorced 2017. They have a son, Jack, and a daughter, Lilia, who is an actress on the Brat network.
