What are the simple things you need to do to be a better manager?
How do you go about having more time and less stress in your work life?
In return for a little of your time, The Hour Guide to Management will give you the tools you need to be a confident, effective manager. In straightforward terms, with practical easy to follow steps, the book explores and answers the questions that challenge new as well as experienced managers:
ā¢ The things you need to do to get people to follow you.
ā¢ How to give negative feedback and get good results.
ā¢ How to go about developing a high-performance team culture.
ā¢ The key elements you might be missing that will allow you to work smarter.
ā¢ How to keep getting better, including the one big thing that could be holding you back.
The Hour Guide to Management provides a clear, basic understanding of what you should do to be a good manager. It condenses these topics into four guiding principles that you can start applying right now in your everyday work life.
What are the simple things you need to do to be a better manager?
How do you go about having more time and less stress in your work life?
In return for a little of your time, The Hour Guide to Management will give you the tools you need to be a confident, effective manager. In straightforward terms, with practical easy to follow steps, the book explores and answers the questions that challenge new as well as experienced managers:
ā¢ The things you need to do to get people to follow you.
ā¢ How to give negative feedback and get good results.
ā¢ How to go about developing a high-performance team culture.
ā¢ The key elements you might be missing that will allow you to work smarter.
ā¢ How to keep getting better, including the one big thing that could be holding you back.
The Hour Guide to Management provides a clear, basic understanding of what you should do to be a good manager. It condenses these topics into four guiding principles that you can start applying right now in your everyday work life.
āWeāre getting slammed, and every year I swear weāll be better prepared,ā the exhausted manager said. āBut every year is the same, and I end up getting sick in bed.ā Sam took a swig from his can of Red Bull. He had dark rings under his eyes and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
This was earlier this year, the manager was a new student, and weād just met. He was telling me about his business. It was their peak trading period, they were swamped, and his team wasnāt coping. We went on to chat about the organization and the causes of the difficulties he faced.
It was towards the end of our meeting that I noticed something about Sam had changed. His body language was now saying something very different from what it had an hour ago. Sure, he still looked tired, but his shoulders were no longer stooped. There was a light in his eyes and an energy in his voice.
Sam explained to me that heād been doing this job for a long time, and heād been doing it to the best of his ability, but now he realized how he could do better. He said he was going to implement some changes right away.
After our meeting, with this newfound hope, Sam took his first steps towards being a more effective manager. Instead of being controlled by his circumstances, Sam decided to act. He decided to take steps to deal with his situation in a proactive way. Somehow, in just one hour, I had been able to guide Sam to the threshold of a journey to be a better manager.
I believe this book will help all managers in their challenging roles. But, in particular, Iāve written The Hour Guide to Management for people like Sam and the workers who report to them. Managers, who, themselves, pressured and anxious due to a lack of time and knowledge, may unintentionally cause stress and unhappiness in the work-life of others.
It is common to find team members promoted into supervisory roles because of their solid technical skills. However, they are often put into these positions with little guidance in how to manage people. My job is as a workplace-based trainer. I use my management background and trainer experience to provide new and experienced managers with the skills and knowledge to better lead and manage teams.
Every day, I discuss with these students the issues they deal with in the workplace. Unfortunately, I often only have small windows of time available to provide guidance in sometimes complicated topics. In response, I developed easy-to-follow models that can be quickly explained. Methods that students can go and practice.
This book has evolved from this approach. Itās a simple guide on confidently managing people, with four key concepts you can start implementing right away. Most of the management books I read are big, and heavy with theory, but light on how to apply the principles on a day-to-day basis in the real world. This book is titled The Hour Guide to Management because it should take you about one hour to read and provide a clear, basic understanding of how to carry out the things you must do to be a good manager.
Where we live, apartment blocks are going up everywhere. It seems to take ages to excavate and prepare the substructures. But then, once theyāre in place, the buildings almost miraculously appear. This book provides the fundamentals of constructing your management ability. Just like with these multi-story buildings, you have to spend the time and effort preparing a solid base. But, once you have it, youāll be surprised just how naturally your management ability will appear and how effective and long-lasting it will be.
To assist in developing these strong foundations, I stress to my students that, to really understand the concepts, they need to be able to explain them to others. By doing this, they reinforce their own learning and pass on the knowledge theyāve gained, as I hope, after reading this book, you will do as well.
How Has It Been Determined This Book Will Take One Hour to Read?
Marc Brysbaert, from Ghent University, in his exhaustive 2019 study, came up with an average reading speed of a literate adult to be around 238 words per minute. Therefore, if we multiply 60 minutes by 238 words, that gives us 14,280 words. Not including the notes section at the end of the text, this book consists of just over 14,000 words.
Irvine offers simple, practical methods to become a better and confident leader, and still manage to have more time and less stress in your work life. Irvine also explores incidents that challenge new and experienced managers, and approaches them from different perspectives: the employee, the customer, and the manager. Subjects range from giving and receiving feedback, building a high-performing team culture, developing trust, becoming more efficient, and improving and learning continuously.
Ā
I loved Irvineās straightforward and clear approach with this book. Thereās no nonsense, rather itās very concise and rich! Irvine reverses the bureaucratic hierarchy that most organizations follow. Usually, stakeholders are at the top of the pyramid and customers are at the bottom. To Irvine, it's the complete opposite. Of course, it makes sense! Itās a very simple idea, yet, many managers forget it in the heat of stressful work life. The business is there and has always been there to serve the customers, and without them, it wouldnāt exist. Therefore, to maintain these customers, he believes managers should deliver a great internal experience with their staff so they could provide a better external experience with the customers. He, then, gives different scenarios to support his idea:
āThe quality of the internal customer service experience you provide your staff determines the quality of the service your external customers experience.ā
Ā
Another thing I enjoyed was how Irvine focused on the mindset, which I believe is the key! He highlighted that managers should have a positive mental attitude, establish boundaries, and maintain a growth mindset. He also discussed how important it is to have those qualities every day and to remind yourself of them, as the staff mirror the managersā energy. It falls under the chapter that discusses ābehavior modelingā. I highly recommend bookmarking this section; itās definitely an eye-opener.
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I suggest this book to anyone aspiring to be a leader or is a leader and wants to get better whether you are in an organization or a solo entrepreneur. I would carry this book in my bag and refer back to it whenever Iām doubting myself or need consultation. It is very simple and easy to follow, with lots of actionable advice.