Crisp: Managing Upward: Strategies for Succeeding with Your Boss (A Fifty-Minute Series Book) [Paperback]

Susan Schubert (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Fifty-Minute Series Book | Publication Date: April 23, 1992

An excellent guide if you’re wishing to position yourself for upward professional mobility. This book introduces techniques for developing positive working relationships with those above you in the organization. It’s not easy to “manage your boss,” but the tips provided will help you handle and offer both praise and criticism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Crisp Learning; 1 edition (April 23, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560521317
• ISBN-13: 978-1560521310
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Go ahead, get this book! It's an easy read and insightful., September 3, 2002

By 

Carl Dawson "carlotis" (New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crisp: Managing Upward: Strategies for Succeeding with Your Boss (A Fifty-Minute Series Book) (Paperback)

`Managing Upward' A practical step by step guide for learning, or reminding of the many nuances of effective communication. It does this by focusing on the characteristics of good relationships, communication gaps, and misaligned goals and expectations between a worker and a boss. It strikes me, there doesn't seem to be many books as concise, quick to read, and solely dedicated towards addressing this single challenging issue.

The book includes many exercises designed to aid with self assessment with regard to understanding one's own ability to communicate and to comprehend the many facets of effective communication. If you are having difficulty in your relationship with your boss, all is not lost. This book can help you put matters into perspective and assist you in understanding the parts which may be missing, but are essential to good communication. I felt, depending on the scenario, some of the exercises may not be realistic to practice as described. One example was an exercise designed to be completed jointly by the worker and the boss - this might seem like a near impossible task in light of a serious communication issue. A worker may prefer taking a bone away from a ravenous dog, rather than handing their boss a questioner to fill out. All kidding aside - I do agree, regardless of the scenario, the exercises are all well suited to help build insight towards the particular facet of communication it addresses.

One insight I had about this book - it seems by it's title and design to imply it was written to cater to the worker's perspective towards understanding how to better communicate with their boss, thus enabling them to `Manage Upward'. I feel the the book is much more versatile - the concept of `Managing Upward' is a desirable dynamic for all involved. Managers who better understand the common road-blocks and essential elements to enable effective communication are better poised to produce it in their environment. If you are a boss and detect communication challenges among you and your staff, or you are just interested in fine tuning communication practices within your department, you'll enjoy this guide-book - a combination of unique and tried and true communication concepts. Don't be afraid to hand them out to your staff!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Succeeding with My Boss, May 6, 2002

By 

david p. manchester (riverton, wy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisp: Managing Upward: Strategies for Succeeding with Your Boss (A Fifty-Minute Series Book) (Paperback)

I received and read this book with much anticipation, as I have felt for sometime now, that I am not succeeding with my boss.

While reading this book I quickly saw many comparisons, not only in my own attitudes and behaviors, but those of my boss, too. It is amazing when you see some of these things put in writing, just how much they fit what you are dealing with.

Some areas I found most interesting were:

· How Well Do You Express Yourself? - Not only did this help me evaluate myself, but I could also use them to evaluate my boss.
· Communication Gaps - This section really emphasized what I have believed for many years -- many people do not "hear" what is being said, - they may "listen," but lack the ability to hear. Listening and hearing are two completely different things. I liked the way this was illustrated in the sentences "...that if you rearrange the letters in the word 'listen,' you get 'silent.' and 'You cannot listen when you are talking."
· Criticizing Your Boss - Reading this section made me realize that my past experience of being a supervisor and manager sometimes makes me too quick and/or comfortable in providing criticism to my boss.
· How to Read Your Boss - One of my favorite sections. I will try my very best to put this to good use - although being 300 miles away from my boss, this is going to be difficult. This section also made me realize that the fact we are both "Perfectionists" may be part of the reason we don't always communicate well.
· Managing Time Management Monsters - Some of the barriers mentioned contribute to my situation - particularly "Lack of Information - I routinely find myself having to tell my boss to give me/us all of the facts", and "Unavailable Boss - due to changes in management structure we have gone from having a dedicated Unit Supervisor to only having a Manager, who not only has direct supervison of our Unit but also now must supervise another Unit and function as department manager at the same time.", and "Disorganized Boss - this is becoming more of an issue all of the time, because she has too many irons in the fire."

Perhaps two lines at the end of this book sum it up best: "It is your right and responsibility to manage your manager. It is part of your job." I now have more tools to help me manage my manager and in the process "Succeed with My Boss!"

Thank you Patti and Susan for a most insightful and interesting book. I highly recommend it to anyone having a struggle in their relationship with their boss. I am going to recommend it to many of my co-workers and my boss!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Manage your boss!, March 13, 2002

By 

Jane Compeau (South Holland, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisp: Managing Upward: Strategies for Succeeding with Your Boss (A Fifty-Minute Series Book) (Paperback)

The name of this book intrigued me. It was very easy to read and had some very good insights on how to work with your supervisors. Starting from very basic skills of setting goals (personal and company), and effective communication it moves into more advanced skills such as reading your boss, your boss's work style, and "the Care and Feeding of a Boss." I particularly liked these more advanced chapters giving tools to review and recognize your boss's working method, evaluate and categorize behaviors he uses, and you use in response, and approaches to use that will mesh the two working styles into a team. Learning what bosses want, (and what they don't want) was also very helpful and gave me several items to implement in my own job: communicating about completed assignments, praising my boss to encourage specific behaviors, and how to improve in needed areas. I am grateful that I do not need the chapter covering dreadful bosses, but it was very enlightening and a very good review of choices that can be made in those circumstances. I think this book would be useful for anyone wanting to improve their working relationships and their own life.