The Harvard Business Review Manager's Handbook


Book Description

The one primer you need to develop your managerial and leadership skills. Whether you’re a new manager or looking to have more influence in your current management role, the challenges you face come in all shapes and sizes—a direct report’s anxious questions, your boss’s last-minute assignment of an important presentation, or a blank business case staring you in the face. To reach your full potential in these situations, you need to master a new set of business and personal skills. Packed with step-by-step advice and wisdom from Harvard Business Review’s management archive, the HBR Manager’s Handbook provides best practices on topics from understanding key financial statements and the fundamentals of strategy to emotional intelligence and building your employees’ trust. The book’s brief sections allow you to home in quickly on the solutions you need right away—or take a deeper dive if you need more context. Keep this comprehensive guide with you throughout your career and be a more impactful leader in your organization. In the HBR Manager’s Handbook you’ll find: - Step-by-step guidance through common managerial tasks - Short sections and chapters that you can turn to quickly as a need arises - Self-assessments throughout - Exercises and templates to help you practice and apply the concepts in the book - Concise explanations of the latest research and thinking on important management skills from Harvard Business Review experts such as Dan Goleman, Clayton Christensen, John Kotter, and Michael Porter - Real-life stories from working managers - Recaps and action items at the end of each chapter that allow you to reinforce or review the ideas quickly The skills covered in the book include: - Transitioning into a leadership role - Building trust and credibility - Developing emotional intelligence - Becoming a person of influence - Developing yourself as a leader - Giving effective feedback - Leading teams - Fostering creativity - Mastering the basics of strategy - Learning to use financial tools - Developing a business case




The Concise Handbook of Management


Book Description

Focusing on the pervading belief that everything a manager does must be customer oriented, The Concise Handbook of Management: A Practitioner's Approach gives you an overview of everything you need to know about managing in one practical, concise book. This plain-talking guide not only explains management theories, but also presents commonsense suggestions on the best ways to effectively manage people and things, no matter what type of business you are in. Taking a practitioner's approach of discussing management issues with customers ultimately in mind, this practical book motivates, is easily understandable, and is entertaining to boot.




The Effective Manager


Book Description

The how-to guide for exceptional management from the bottom up The Effective Manager is a hands-on practical guide to great management at every level. Written by the man behind Manager Tools, the world's number-one business podcast, this book distills the author's 25 years of management training expertise into clear, actionable steps to start taking today. First, you'll identify what "effective management" actually looks like: can you get the job done at a high level? Do you attract and retain top talent without burning them out? Then you'll dig into the four critical behaviors that make a manager great, and learn how to adjust your own behavior to be the leader your team needs. You'll learn the four major tools that should be a part of every manager's repertoire, how to use them, and even how to introduce them to the team in a productive, non-disruptive way. Most management books are written for CEOs and geared toward improving corporate management, but this book is expressly aimed at managers of any level—with a behavioral framework designed to be tailored to your team's specific needs. Understand your team's strengths, weaknesses, and goals in a meaningful way Stop limiting feedback to when something goes wrong Motivate your people to continuous improvement Spread the work around and let people stretch their skills Effective managers are good at the job and "good at people." The key is combining those skills to foster your team's development, get better and better results, and maintain a culture of positive productivity. The Effective Manager shows you how to turn good into great with clear, actionable, expert guidance.




Becoming a New Manager


Book Description

You've just been promoted to a managerial position for the first time -- congratulations! But beware: the managerial role differs markedly from the individual contributor role. Go into the job with mistaken assumptions about what to expect, and you just may be blindsided by surprising realities. This book helps you lay the foundation for succeeding in your new role, explaining how to: · Discard the "doer" role of the individual contributor for the orchestrating role of the manager · Adjust your leadership style to maximize your team's performance · Balance conflicting expectations from your boss, peers, and direct reports · Deal productively with the stresses and new emotions that come with being a manager




The Concise Handbook of Management


Book Description

Discover the practical tips to make you an effective, customer-oriented manager! Focusing on the pervading belief that everything a manager does must be customer oriented, The Concise Handbook of Management: A Practitioner’s Approach gives you an overview of everything you need to know about managing in one practical, concise book. This plain-talking guide not only explains management theories, but also presents commonsense suggestions on the best ways to effectively manage people and things, no matter what type of business you are in. Taking a practitioner’s approach of discussing management issues with customers ultimately in mind, this practical book motivates, is easily understandable, and is entertaining to boot. The Concise Handbook of Management: A Practitioner’s Approach uses succinct chapters with several real stories and case studies designed to clearly illustrate each concept and suggestion. Written with the busy manager in mind, each chapter is compact, clear, true-to-life, and is always aimed at the bottom line. The book includes a small business marketing and promotion checklist, a helpful bibliography, and a useful glossary of terms. The Concise Handbook of Management: A Practitioner’s Approach explores: the first three steps in becoming a good manager understanding the importance of customers getting the most from employees management competencies and styles organizational structures and cultures managing change managing conflict and stress managing teams and workgroups ethics leadership managing time written business communication mastering the skills of a presentation dealing with people in the workplace a small business marketing checklist project or program planning the marketing basics—product—strategy—marketing—pricing developing external and internal customers The Concise Handbook of Management: A Practitioner’s Approach proves the adage that less is more, and has already been called the undergraduate/graduate student’s or practicing manager’s best all-in-one source and reference for simplified management theory and skills.




A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics, Second Edition


Book Description

Understanding the Ground Rules for the Global Economy In this revised and updated edition of A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics, David A. Moss draws on his years of teaching at Harvard Business School to explain important macro concepts using clear and engaging language. This guidebook covers the essentials of macroeconomics and examines, in a simple and intuitive way, the core ideas of output, money, and expectations. Early chapters leave you with an understanding of everything from fiscal policy and central banking to business cycles and international trade. Later chapters provide a brief monetary history of the United States as well as the basics of macroeconomic accounting. You’ll learn why countries trade, why exchange rates move, and what makes an economy grow. Moss’s detailed examples will arm you with a clear picture of how the economy works and how key variables impact business and will equip you to anticipate and respond to major macroeconomic events, such as a sudden depreciation of the real exchange rate or a steep hike in the federal funds rate. Read this book from start to finish for a complete overview of macroeconomics, or use it as a reference when you’re confronted with specific challenges, like the need to make sense of monetary policy or to read a balance of payments statement. Either way, you’ll come away with a broad understanding of the subject and its key pieces, and you’ll be empowered to make smarter business decisions.




Managers' First Aid Kit: A Practical Guide to Remedy the Three Most Common Managerial Challenges


Book Description

The transition from line staff to management is fraught with difficulty. Sixty percent of new managers either fail outright or underperform in their first two years, while 51% of managers said they were unprepared for their first managerial role. In this quick-reference guide, Master Trainer and Professional Coach Joan Underwood shares practical insights and proven strategies for conquering the three most common challenges associated with this transition-managing self, managing others, and managing processes. This practical "how-to" guide is an invaluable resource for experienced, new, and aspiring supervisors and managers who would like to take their performance to the next level. Underwood draws from over twenty-five years of experience as a manager, lecturer, HR practitioner, consultant, trainer, and coach to craft a relatable blend of theory, practical models, proven strategies, and engaging stories. As a bonus, each chapter contains activities designed to help readers apply and reinforce the lessons learned. By implementing the strategies in this guide, you will: - Make a smoother transition from individual contributor to manager - Possess a higher level of self-awareness - Gain proven strategies for self-regulation - Have the ability to anticipate and respond rather than merely reacting to challenges - Possess an enhanced ability to get things done with and through others It's time to distinguish yourself from the majority of managers struggling to succeed in a new and challenging role. Managers' First Aid Kit is your go-to resource to master the art and science of managing, so you can become the leader your company needs and the best manager you have the capacity to be.




Making Process Improvement Work


Book Description

Software process improvement too often reflects a significant disconnect between theory and practice. This book bridges the gap—offering a straightforward, systematic approach to planning, implementing, and monitoring a process improvement program. Project managers will appreciate the book’s concise presentation style and will be able to apply its practical ideas immediately to real-life challenges. With examples based on the authors’ own extensive experience, this book shows how to define goals that directly address the needs of your organization, use improvement models appropriately, and devise a pragmatic action plan. In addition, it reveals valuable strategies for deploying organizational change, and delineates essential metrics for tracking your progress. Appendices provide examples of an action plan, a risk management plan, and a mini-assessment process. You will learn how to: · Scope and develop an improvement plan · Identify and prioritize risks and mitigate anticipated difficulties · Derive metrics that accurately measure progress toward business goals · Sell your improvement program in-house · Initially target practitioners and projects most-open to new approaches and techniques · Stay focused on goals and problems · Align the actions of managers and practitioners · Delay major policy documents and edicts until solutions have been practiced and tested · Use existing resources to speed deployment · Incorporate improvement models, such as SEI CMM® and CMMISM, into your improvement program For those managers who are tired of chronic project difficulties, constant new improvement schemes, and a lack of real progress, this easily digestible volume provides the real-world wisdom you need to realize positive change in your organization.




A Manager's Guide to Coaching


Book Description

To stay on top, companies need to do more than just tread water—they need to grow. And that means that their employees need to develop and improve their skills at the same pace. More than ever, managers are being encouraged to improve employee performance through effective coaching, but so few of them have the time—or the knowledge—it takes to do it successfully. Brian Emerson and Ann Loehr have spent years showing some of the country’s top companies how to develop their most promising employees. Now in this helpful manual they guide managers through every step of the coaching process, from problem solving to developing accountability. Readers will discover:the top 10 tips every manager should know before he starts to coach • how to handle difficult conversations, conflicting priorities, and problem team members • how to hold follow-up meetings after goals and priorities have been set • sample questions they can adapt to various situations • examples of common problems and how they can use coaching to address them.Clear, practical and straightforward, this is an invaluable tool that will help all leaders coach employees, colleagues, and themselves to excellence.




Handbook for the New Health Care Manager


Book Description

It has been nearly a decade since the first edition of the Handbook for the New Health Care Manager was published. During that time, dramatic changes have taken place in the health care industry and particularly in health care management. Written as a hands-on guide for both novice and seasoned managers, the Handbook for the New Health Care Manager, Second Edition offers a wealth of practical strategies, procedures, and methods that are designed to meet the myriad challenges of today's health care marketplace. This thoroughly revised and updated edition features new information on numerous topics.