Bare Knuckle People Management

I got an early copy of "Bare Knuckle People Management," this week from one of the authors, Sean O'Neil. Sean, along with co-author John Kulisek, have created a fantastic resource for managers.  I started reading it on a cross-county flight this morning and couldn't put it down.

The subtitle of the book is "Creating success with the team you have - winners, losers, misfits, and all."  Their focus is to help you identify the traits, strengths, weaknesses, etc. of the folks on your team and then come up with individualized management / coaching approaches that map to each person's strengths and weaknesses.

The book is written in a very direct, "in your face" style that is clearly rooted in real-world experience.  What do I mean?

What's your Cast of Characters?

The authors discuss people in terms of 16 "Character Profiles" that I clearly recognize from people I've worked with.  For example, one of the "people types" they talk about is "Needy Ned," described as follows:

"Although he has the tools it takes to make the starting lineup, Needy Ned's anxiety and constant need for approval and assistance keep him on the bench.  He has an insatiable appetite for your attention, is afraid of everything, and requires kid glove treatment in order to avoid a display of tears.  If you can manage his anxiety and resist the urge to kill, perhaps you could boost his productivity."

I know that guy - I used to manage one back in the 90's, and I thought of them as "high maintenance" (or more politly, "high touch.")  The other 15 types conjured up specific people in my mind, as well.

This book not only helps you identify the types of folks you are dealing with, it also offers good, practical advice on how to better manage them, tap into their strengths, and manage around their weaknesses (which will help you and them in the long run).

It also deals candidly with the subject of whether you should really try to coach them, or just manage them out of the team.  And yes, there are some comments on whether you are really a good manager if you can't get more out of some of these folks - worth thinking about, for sure.

Get the Team right

Another thing this book does well is discuss team dynamics.  For each of the 16 Character Profiles, they discuss who you should (and shouldn't) pair people up with, with regard to helping both individual and team effectiveness.

The book gets you to think in terms of:

• Your "Starting Five," which are your go-to people for "wow" results.
• Your "Utility Players," which are predictable - the bedrock of the team.
• Your "Benchwarmers," who have potential but should be coached up or out.
• Your "Trading Block Candidates," that really ought to be off the team.

This model helped me frame my thinking very clearly and I like how it's discussed in the book.

The last section of the book is more about the chemistry of teams, and how to use your team of Characters most effectively.  There is a good discussion of 5 team types, ranging from awesome to has-been, and I picked up a lot of good tips along the way.

This book is a great tool box for managers.  Some of my team members are actually combinations of the 16 Character Types, but I have some practical, immediately applicable tools I can use in my next coaching sessions.

My Recommendation

I recommend "Bare Knuckle People Management" to anyone who's responsible for managing a team, but especially to those who are new managers or have just inherited a new team.

Connecting Top Managers

A couple of months ago, I received a copy of "Connecting Top Managers: Developing Executive Teams for Business Results," written by Lisa Haneberg and Jim Taylor.  I read it weeks ago but am just getting around to posting this review due to a busy schedule.

"Connecting Top Managers" is a tremendous resource for any organization that wants to build a more effective management team, or would like to address dysfunction or ineffective teamwork at the managerial level.  One of the things that makes this book particularly impactful is the research behind the text.  Haneberg and Taylor engaged with a variety of organizations through direct observation, project work, surveys, and other means and learned a lot about the ins and outs of executive teams.  Those learnings fed the recommendations and techniques presented in this book.

Be and be perceived

One aspect of the book I really liked is that it not only deals with how executives interact with their peers in the management team, it also addresses how the management team can improve or repair its image with the rest of the company.  Of course, some of the root causes of poor perceptions of management are a direct result of ineffective relationships within the management team, so it's not surprise both of these are dealt with in the book.

One of the sections in the book, "Dysfunction Reverberates," sums it up nicely: "...leaders [can't] expect their management and employees to be any more committed and passionate about the business than they demonstrate through their own actions. The same goes for teaming. You cannot expect the rest of the organization to work well together if the leadership team itself does not seem to care enough to work well together."

This book contains a lot of practical advice and strategies that you can apply within your own team, as well as some techniques you can apply personally to effect change even if the rest of the exec team is not on board.

Change begins at the top

Another element that is discussed very effectively in the book is how to influence the culture of the organization overall.  Much of this comes through willingness to address conflict rather than avoiding it, and setting a tone of constructive engagement and accountability throughout the organization.

Of course, all of this works best when there is consistent "tone at the top," which begins with the executive team. In other words, leading by example is not just a saying - it's a mandate.

Another notion in the book with which I am in enthusiastic agreement:  the most effective organizations are open to learning, and encourage learning as a part of how they do business.  What better way to make this real than to embrace learning as an executive team and tackle the challenge of becoming a more effective, high-functioning team?

I loved this book.  If you want to improve your executive team's effectiveness, I highly recommend Connecting Top Managers as a tremendous resource.

Shift: 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be

I've just finished a new book called "Shift," by Takumi Yamazaki.  I hadn't heard of the author before, but apparently he is a very well-known Japanese author who's sold over 800,000 books and is a self-made millionaire.

The subtitle of Shift is "13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want To Be," and I think that's a very appropriate description of what you'll find inside.  This book is essentially a set of guided thought sessions to help you identify your goals and set specific plans in motion to achieve them.  In each section of the book, you will find a set of stories and advice, accompanied by short (but very deep) exercises to focus your mind and get you to write your thoughts down.

SHIFT

Each section is described in terms of a "Shift," through which you change your outlook on life.  For example, the Shift 2 deals with thinking about how your perspective and preconceived notions can limit your success.  Shift 2 is accompanied by an exercise in which you examine situations in which you feel you weren't able to do something - one example given in the book is:

• "I had plans so I wasn't able to go to the party on Sunday."

You then rewrite the statement in which you describe it in as a choice:

• "I didn't want to go to the party - I chose not to go."

Pretty simple, right?  This exercise is similar to ones I've done before, and I always find it a bit jarring, yet empowering to realize I really do choose what I will or won't do over 90% of the time in my life.  This reminded me of a saying from a friend of mine: "Pretend you create everything that happens to you. Now, decide you will create better things for yourself."  It really changes how you approach life to think of things this way.

The other 12 Shifts are compelling, too.

Exercise your mind

The point of Yamazaki's book is to help you reframe your approach and (hopefully) achieve better outcomes that align with what you really want.  I have been trying to get back on the Getting Things Done (GTD) bandwagon, and I find that Shift puts me in a frame of mind where I'm able to come up with better Next Actions.

Also, this book is a good reminder that you don't have to go it alone - one of the cool things about this book is that many of the exercises include special instructions on how to apply the Shifts in this book as part of a group.  I think this would be a fun book to explore with a book club or a group of friends.

Shift is easy to read and has a lot of interesting visuals.  The exercises are the main attraction, though, and I highly recommend Shift to anyone who wants to take control of what's going on in their life.

Get It Done, by the book

The other day I got my hands on Stever Robbins' book, "Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (Quick & Dirty Tips)," which is a great collection of tips & tricks to be more productive.

When I picked up the book, I was wondering how this aligned with David Allen's "Getting Things Done."  Turns out it's very complementary - GTD is focused mostly on how to collect, capture, and organize the things you want to do so you can pick your activities based on context, energy, importance, etc - you still need that, even with Robbins' book.

So what is Robbins' book about, then?  While it does have some overlap in terms of defining life goals, priorities, and "purpose" stuff, much of Robbins' book deals with tactics to help you free up more time to be productive - how to overcome procrastination, how to get better at saying "no," how to block out distractions so you can focus, and those sorts of things.

Practical and fun to read

Robbins' style is very conversational, making it an easy read.  He also has a lot of quirky stories and memes going on (hint: zombies abound).  In the midst of the quirkiness, there are a lot of sound ideas - and he illustrates them with stories from his life.  For example, there is a section on "baby chunks" which is a strategy to break daunting tasks down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  He discusses how he used this approach in writing his book, and I found it easier to understand the techniques involved because of this concrete example.

Likewise, he illustrates most of his concepts with real stories you can identify with (except for the zombies, of course).

So, you may be wondering, "What are the 9 steps?"  Let me fill you in:

• Step 1: Live on Purpose, deals with identifying you top-level life priorities;
• Step 2: Stop Procrastinating, offers tips to get your butt in gear and do the things you're avoiding;
• Step 3: Conquer Technology, which helps you figure out ways to prevent technology from hijacking your productivity, as well as how to use technology to help you get through your tasks more quickly;
• Step 4: Beat Distractions to Cultivate Focus, is perhaps my favorite chapter, and it deals with how to establish an environment / habits that will help you focus more (you might also want to look at my post on how to focus in a cubicle environment, if you have trouble focusing on your tasks);
• Step 5: Stay Organized, which helps you implement systems to support a more organized life;
• Step 6: Stop Wasting Time, which is mostly about how to identify your leverage points - the 20% that's most important in your 80/20 life;
• Step 7: Optimize, which has some very interesting tips to help make time-consuming or mundane tasks more efficient, and even "outsource" them to others if you can;
• Step 8: Build Stronger Relationships, which is about doing the care & feeding of relationships to make your life more meaningful and create a network that can support your efforts when you need help;
• Step 9: Leverage, which is partially about automating things to give you more power over getting them done, but also a lot about how to use your skills to their best advantage to increase your personal value.  Leverage is also about how you can tap into the strengths of others to move past your own limitations.

In summary, I got a lot out of this book and found it to be very practical.  Through this book, I also discovered the "Get-It-Done Guy's Tips & Tricks" site, which is loaded with great ideas.

If you're looking for a good way to refocus your energy on being more productive, you won't go wrong with this book.

Be Bodacious: Improve your career with cowboy wisdom

Just finished reading Steven D. Wood's "Be Bodacious: Put Life In Your Leadership" and I must say I am impressed.

This book is solid theory for personal leadership development, presented in the form of a story about a guy who learns  some powerful lessons from his boss.  The boss is a colorful character nicknamed "Cowboy," who teaches through a series of stories from a Journal he's assembled during his life.

To be transparent, I avoided this book for a little while because I'm kind of tired of these "leadership fables" - there have been a lot of them in the past several years, and they sometimes take too long to get to the advice.  Now, I wish I'd jumped right in.

I'm happy to report that "Be Bodacious" doesn't waste time in getting to the point - with just a little story setup, you get to the meat of the learning pretty quickly.

This is an easy, entertaining book to read and it goes quickly (it's only 150 pages).  In this book, you'll learn:

• How to get out of crappy jobs and into jobs you really enjoy and feel passionate about;
• How to lead a team by igniting their drive and spirit;
• How to get to know your team as individuals so you can give them what they need to be challenged and successful;
• And a whole lot more.

Some other things you'll learn are just as important - like how to get out of the trap of comparing yourself to others, which can really mess with your confidence and limit what you can achieve.  Closely related to this are some good techniques to help you identify when you are hanging on to old habits that are preventing you from being successful (the chapter "Rocket Fuel" was very relevant to me).

The book also deals with some proven "sharpen the saw" techniques to make sure you spend time on yourself, so you can improve your own skills.  There are some thought-provoking elements on this topic.

This book is a quick read, and I think it's perfect for anyone who's a business leader or aspires to be. You can find out more at Be-Bodacious.com including seeing the "Be Bodacious" movie (it's short, but good), and you can download a sample chapter.

You might also check out Wood's blog, where you can get a taste of his writing style, philosophy, and leadership mojo.

So, 'nuf said - Be Bodacious, and put some life in your leadership.