management

The Manager’s Dilemma by Irial O'Farrell

What would you do with an extra hour in your workday? Read The Manager’s Dilemma and find out.

Managers tend to excel at problem-solving. Team members tend to bring problems to their managers, for a variety of reasons. What happens when you bring a problem to an excellent problem-solver?

The Manager’s Dilemma – How to Empower Your Team’s Problem-Solving examines the dynamics that arise from team members bringing their issues and problems to their manager and how this undermines the team’s performance.

The book also explores the valid reasons for escalation, the problem-solving steps, identifying at what step an individual team member might be getting stuck and how to develop and coach team members from different starting points.

You’ll also examine your own problem-solving mindset, as a manager, and how to introduce the new approach. Based on the SMART framework and Manager-as-Coach, you’ll have a lot of A-HA moments while being supported to apply the framework to your own team.

The Manager’s Dilemma by Irial O'Farrell

By Bargain Book Lover Leave a Comment

The Manager’s Dilemma by Irial O'Farrell

As a manager, do you find issues regularly landing on your desk? Issues that you know, in your heart of hearts, the team member does, or should, know how to sort out themselves? Is your own work regularly hijacked by team members interrupting you, to deal with their issue? Irritated? Frustrated? At the end of your tether?

If so, The Manager’s Dilemma – How to Empower Your Team’s Problem-Solving is the book for you. Understand the dilemma every manager faces. Discover the valid and invalid reasons for escalation. Explore the steps of problem-solving. Join Lisa, as she identifies the potential step each member of her team is getting stuck on. Follow Lisa, as she designs coaching options, to empower each team member. Consider your own problem-solving mindset. Plan how you’ll introduce the new approach.

Read this book and you’ll unlock your team’s potential and free yourself up and all of you will benefit.

The Flight to Excellence by Captain William "T" Thompson

By Bargain Book Lover Leave a Comment

The Flight to Excellence by Captain William "T" Thompson

The Flight to Excellence makes a great gift for entrepreneurs and anyone running or starting a business.

Attaining the Unattainable Is Within Our Reach.

Captain William ”T.” Thompson’s accomplishments are many: US Air Force pilot, Delta Airlines captain, lawyer, award-winning businessman, and professional speaker.

But Thompson did not start out in life with any special advantages. In fact, being born and raised in segregated South Carolina meant that the difficulties he faced growing up were many. But realizing his aspiration to become a pilot and becoming the first African American from the state to be accepted into the prestigious United States Air Force Academy was just the beginning of a pattern of successes in a life that extended far beyond its origins.

Thompson uses his life’s challenges and his personal story to prove that we can all accomplish much more than we previously considered possible-and that we should strive for things that we have even considered unattainable. It doesn t take special gifts or talents either, the author insists. He credits his P4 System (Principles, People, Flight Plan, and Performance) as the foundation that enabled him to literally pilot his way to success and ultimately become a multimillionaire in the process.

With an attractive and distinctive aviation motif, The Flight to Excellence inspires and instructs executives, entrepreneurs, and anyone with a strong desire to reach extraordinary heights on how we can each build a ”Culture of Excellence” in our own professional and personal lives by applying his methodical process and concepts and our own discipline and hard work.

The proof is in the captain’s own successes.

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

By Bargain Book Lover Leave a Comment

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

Every year, millions of managers sit down with their staff, to set objectives for the coming year. Every year, the vast majority of those millions of managers dread the prospective of having to sit down with their staff, to set objectives. If this sounds like you, then meet your new best friend – SMART Objective Setting for Managers.

This book unpacks the 4 main challenges that most managers grapple with, when setting objectives:
– Defining the desired outcomes of performance
– Diagnosing team members’ individual starting points
– Defining tangible objectives for “soft” behavioural performance issues (e.g., poor communication or influencing others)
– Understanding what goes wrong during the communication of agreeing objectives

As you read through the book, your understanding of SMART, developing performance and communication builds up, culminating in Chapter 8. This chapter explores how to identify soft performance issues and how to diagnose what the real underlying issue is and provides a framework to design an objective that will deliver real performance improvement.

Reviews on Amazon rave about how easy-to-read and concise the book is while providing a whole new way to look at objective setting.

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

By Bargain Book Lover Leave a Comment

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

If you manage teams, what frustrates you the most? If you’re like most managers I’ve met, chances are it’s the way “Johnny communicates his ideas” or the way “Chrissy keeps asking you to talk to the other team, rather than just doing it herself” or how “Jamie keeps asking the same questions over and over!”. Developing these “soft” performance issues are very challenging. It can feel uncomfortable to raise the topic and many managers fear the conversation will go wrong. The 4 main struggles managers have with objective setting are:

1. Defining the desired outcomes of performance
2. Diagnosing team members’ individual starting points
3. Defining tangible objectives for “soft” behavioural performance issues
4. Understanding what can go wrong in the communication process, when agreeing objectives

SMART Objective Setting for Managers unpacks each of these challenges, culminating in a chapter dedicated to understanding how to diagnose and design objectives that address the “softer” performance issues. Being endlessly practical when it comes to the “how”, the book also provides a roadmap for preparing for and conducting objective setting meetings.

Told through stories and examples, feedback from readers include “I thought I already knew how to do this but I’ve learnt so much from this book”, “very easy to read and understand the learning points”, and “managers and employees should read this book”.

So if reducing your frustration while increasing your team’s motivation and engagement sounds like a good outcome for you, buy this book today and start finding out how to design and agree SMART objectives that will make a difference.

Summary & Analysis of The Culture Code by ZIP Reads

By Bargain Book Lover Leave a Comment

Summary & Analysis of The Culture Code by ZIP Reads

What are the three secret ingredients to a winning team? Here’s a hint: talent isn’t one of them.

Author Daniel Coyle shares his secrets to creating a successful organizational culture. Drawing from various examples, Coyle shows that everyone–from companies to comedy troupes–can have success with three simple conditions.

What does this ZIP Reads Summary Include?
– Synopsis of the original book
– A detailed overview of each section
– The 3 key components of highly successful groups
– Breakdown and analysis of each component
– Common reasons even highly skilled teams experience failure
– Editorial reivew
– Background on the original author

Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups asks the question, “What characteristics do successful organizational cultures share?” After conducting research of his own, Coyle finds that there are commonalities between groups as different as movie studios, jewel thieves, shoe companies, and basketball teams that make all of these groups among the best in their respective industries. It turns out that the most successful groups are not necessarily the smartest, biggest, or best equipped. A highly approachable read rich in insight, Coyle’s book is a guide that will prove valuable to any grouping seeking to create a more productive, enjoyable culture.

The Manager’s Dilemma by Irial O'Farrell

The Manager’s Dilemma by Irial O'Farrell

The Flight to Excellence by Captain William "T" Thompson

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

SMART Objective Setting for Managers by Irial O'Farrell

Summary & Analysis of The Culture Code by ZIP Reads

For Authors

Legal Stuff