How to be an Even Better Manager

Michael Armstrong

Description

Don't just be a good manager... be an even better one.

For current and aspiring managers alike, this bestselling handbook from expert author Michael Armstrong provides a whistle-stop tour of the skills and techniques you need to succeed. With a focus on practical application, you will be guided through four crucial areas of management:
-Managing people
-Management activities and processes
-Management personal skills
-Business and financial skills

How to be an Even Better Manager has sold over 170,000 copies worldwide and been translated into 17 languages. Fully revised and updated, this 11th edition covers all the skills an excellent manager needs, and now includes brand new case studies to ensure you will be equipped for the modern world of management. From resolving conflict and boosting your confidence to engaging your team and improving their performance, with this trusted and popular guide you won't just be good - you'll be an even better manager.

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• Chapter - 01: How to be a better manager;

Section - ONE: Managing People;

• Chapter - 02: How to treat people right;
• Chapter - 03: How to motivate people;
• Chapter - 04: How to engage people;
• Chapter - 05: How to be a better leader;
• Chapter - 06: How to build teams;
• Chapter - 07: How to manage performance;
• Chapter - 08: How to help people learn and develop;
• Chapter - 09: How to handle difficult situations with people;

Section - TWO: Management Skills;

• Chapter - 10: How to organize;
• Chapter - 11: How to coordinate;
• Chapter - 12: How to plan and prioritize;
• Chapter - 13: How to control;
• Chapter - 14: How to delegate;
• Chapter - 15: How to make things happen;
• Chapter - 16: How to manage your boss;
• Chapter - 17: How to manage change;
• Chapter - 18: How to manage conflict;
• Chapter - 19: How to deal with office politics;
• Chapter - 20: How to manage a crisis;
• Chapter - 21: How to manage projects;
• Chapter - 22: How to manage time;

Section - THREE: Personal Skills;

• Chapter - 23: How to persuade;
• Chapter - 24: How to negotiate;
• Chapter - 25: How to make meetings a success;
• Chapter - 26: How to aim high;
• Chapter - 27: How to solve problems and make decisions;
• Chapter - 28: How to be creative and innovate;
• Chapter - 29: How to conduct a selection interview;
• Chapter - 30: How to be interviewed for a job;
• Chapter - 31: How to communicate;
• Chapter - 32: How to listen;
• Chapter - 33: How to make effective presentations;
• Chapter - 34: How to write reports;
• Chapter - 35: How to be strategic;
• Chapter - 36: How to think clearly;
• Chapter - 37: How things go wrong and how to put them right;

Section - FOUR: Business and Financial Management;

• Chapter - 38: How to be business-like;
• Chapter - 39: How to make a business case;
• Chapter - 40: How to budget;

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Sujets

• BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
• Leadership development

Informations

• Publié par: Kogan Page
• Date de parution: 03 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781789668339
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

How to Be an Even Better Manager
How to Be an Even Better Manager
A complete A–Z of proven techniques and essential skills
11TH EDITION
Michael Armstrong
Contents Preface 01 How to be a better manager Part One Managing people 02 How to treat people right 03 How to motivate people 04 How to engage people 05 How to be a better leader 06 How to build teams 07 How to manage performance 08 How to help people learn and develop 09 How to handle difficult situations with people Part Two Management skills 10 How to organize 11 How to coordinate 12 How to plan and prioritize 13 How to control 14 How to delegate 15 How to make things happen 16 How to manage your boss 17 How to manage change 18 How to manage conflict 19 How to deal with office politics 20 How to manage a crisis 21 How to manage projects 22 How to manage time Part Three Personal skills 23 How to persuade 24 How to negotiate 25 How to make meetings a success 26 How to aim high 27 How to solve problems and make decisions 28 How to be creative and innovate 29 How to conduct a selection interview 30 How to be interviewed for a job 31 How to communicate 32 How to listen 33 How to make effective presentations 34 How to write reports 35 How to be strategic 36 How to think clearly 37 How things go wrong and how to put them right Part Four Business and financial management 38 How to be business-like 39 How to make a business case 40 How to budget Index
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 The process of motivation Figure 5.1 What leaders do Figure 5.2 Leadership styles Figure 12.1 A manufacturing plan Figure 12.2 A Gantt chart Figure 12.3 Part of a basic network Figure 14.1 The sequence of delegation Figure 24.1 Negotiating range with a settlement zone Figure 24.2 Negotiating range without a settlement zone Figure 26.1 Self-assessment questionnaire Figure 29.1 Interview assessment form Figure 36.1 The difference between true and false syllogisms
LIST OF TABLES Table 9.1 Possible approaches to dealing with typical problems Table 22.1 Time analysis Table 22.2 Time-consumer’s checklist
Preface to the eleventh edition
This eleventh edition of How to be an Even Better Manager covers 40 key aspects of management and has been extensively revised since the tenth edition was published in 2017. The book is for those who want to develop their managerial capabilities and competences, and covers all the key skills that managers use. It refers to the main aspects of managing people and the activities with which managers need to be familiar, and will be particularly useful for those seeking to obtain qualifications in management.
You can dip into this book at any point – each chapter is self-contained. But it would be useful to read Chapter 1 first. This defines the overall concept of management and the areas in which managers need to be competent, thus providing a framework for the succeeding chapters that deal with the specific skills and techniques involved in managing people and processes.
01
How to be a better manager
As a manager my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone.
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL 1
To be effective is the job of the executive.
PETER DRUCKER 2
What is management?
The Management Standards Centre 3 has stated that the key purpose of management is to ‘provide direction, facilitate change and achieve results through the efficient, creative and responsible use of resources’. Managers are there to get results. To do this they have to deal with events and eventualities. They operate in a ‘VUCA’ world – one that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
Management can be described as deciding what to do and then getting it done through people. This definition emphasizes that people are the most important resource available to managers. It is through this resource that all other resources – processes and systems knowledge, finance, materials, plant, equipment, etc – will be managed.
But managers have to manage themselves as well as other people. They cannot delegate everything. They frequently have to rely on their own resources to get things done. These resources consist of experience, know-how, skill, competences and time, all of which have to be deployed not only in directing and motivating people but also in understanding situations and issues, problem analysis and definition, decision-making and taking direct action themselves as well as through other people. They will get support, advice and assistance from their staff, but in the last analysis they are on their own. They have to make the decisions and they have to initiate and sometimes take the action.
Management processes
The overall process of management is subdivided into a number of individual processes. Their purpose is to bring as much system, order, predictability, logic and consistency to the task of management as possible in the ever-changing, varied and turbulent environment in which managers work. The classical theorists of management said that it involved:
Planning – Deciding on a course of action to achieve a desired result.
Organizing – Setting up and staffing the most appropriate organization to achieve the aim.
Motivating – Exercising leadership to motivate people to work together smoothly and to the best of their ability as part of a team.
Controlling – Measuring and monitoring the progress of work in relation to the plan and taking corrective action when required.
But this view has been challenged by researchers who studied how managers actually spend their time. They observed that while, no doubt, managers did plan, etc, their work was not so orderly and disciplined as these writers described. In practice, the work of managers is fragmented, varied and subject to continual adjustment. It is governed to a large degree by events over which managers have little control and by a dynamic network of interrelationships with other people.
Managers attempt to control their environment, but sometimes it controls them. They may consciously or unconsciously seek to plan, organize, direct and control, but their days almost inevitably become a jumbled sequence of events. They carry out their work on a day-to-day basis in conditions of variety, turbulence and unpredictability. As Derek Torrington 4 observed: ‘They typically spend over half their working day in conversation and constantly switching between topics’. They are submerged by e-mails at work and after hours. Managers have to be specialists in ambiguity, with the ability to cope with conflicting and unclear requirements.
Thus management is a process involving a mix of rational, logical, problem-solving, decision-making activities, and intuitive, judgemental activities. A knowledgeable and rational approach to managing people and events and the deployment of management skills as described in this book are desirable. But to be an effective manager you need the personal qualities required to cope with uncertainty, pressure and change. These include agility, flexibility and resilience.
The essential skills
The Skills Builder Partnership 5 published in 2020 the following list of essential skills for managers and others (the chapter numbers in which these skills are described in this book are given for each skill):
Listening – The receiving, retaining and processing of information or ideas. ( Chapter 32 )
Presenting – The oral transmission of information or ideas. ( Chapter 33 )
Problem-solving – The ability to find a solution to a complex situation or challenge. ( Chapter 27 )
Creativity – The use of imagination and the generation of new ideas. ( Chapter 28 )
Staying positive – The ability to use tactics and strategies to overcome setbacks and achieve goals. ( Chapter 36 )
Aiming high – The ability to set clear, tangible goals and devise a robust route to achieving them. ( Chapter 26 )
Leadership – Supporting, encouraging and motivating others to achieve a shared goal. ( Chapter 5 )
Teamwork – Working cooperatively with others towards achieving a shared goal. ( Chapter 6 )
On becoming an even better manager
Better managers recognize that the art of management is something they need to learn. No one becomes a fully competent manager overnight. It is often said that experience is the best teacher. But is experience alone sufficient? Several writers have expressed their doubts on this score. The historian Froude wrote that ‘experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes’. Tennyson called it a ‘dirty nurse’. Oscar Wilde noted that ‘experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes’.
Experience is an essential way of learning to improve, but it is an imperfect instrument. We also need guidance from a good manager and from other sources, such as this book. These can help us to interpret our experience, learn from our mistakes and make better use of our experience in the future.
The seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon perhaps provided the best answer to this question of the role of experience when he wrote: ‘studies perfect nature and are perfected by experience’. The art of management, and it is an art, is important enough to be studied. The aim of such studies should be to help us to make better use of our natural attributes – our personality and intelligence – and to ensure that past experience is better interpreted and more fully used, and that future experience is more quickly and purposefully absorbed.
You should reflect on what you have learnt in practising management – from your successes and your failures. You need to analyse how any good managers you have come across carry out their work. You can learn from your own boss and from other bosses. There is an old saying: ‘People learn to manage by managing under the guidance of a good manager.’ This is just as true today, but to make the best use of experience it is helpful to place it in a framework that defines your understanding of