Essential Managers: Motivating People [Paperback]

Robert Heller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1998

Learn how to instill the traits of an inspirational leader in your employees ---- and reap the rewards! Learn all you need to know about motivating people, from learning how to bring out the best in people by understanding basic human needs to encouraging individual initiative and rewarding achievement. Motivating People shows you how to increase production and job satisfaction, and it provides practical techniques to try in different situations. Power tips help you handle real--life situations and develop the first--class motivation skills that are the key to a productive and informed workplace. The Essential Manager has sold more than 1.9 million copies worldwide! Experienced and novice managers alike can benefit from these compact guides that slip easily into a briefcase or a portfolio. The topics are relevant to every work environment, from large corporations to small businesses. Concise treatments of dozens of business techniques, skills, methods, and problems are presented with hundreds of photos, charts, and diagrams. It is the most exciting and accessible approach to business and self--improvement available.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's become trendy for business books to exhort managers to "empower" their people and imbue them with a sense of workplace "ownership"--still, it all comes down to the vexing question of how to motivate people to do their best work everyday. In its 72 sprightly and well-designed pages, this hardworking pocket-sized book shows you how to do just that. First, you'll learn how to tap into what it is your people really want from their jobs (other than a paycheck and paid holidays); then, how to act on those needs to get them really psyched (by improving communication, encouraging initiative, and creating a "no-blame" work culture); and fire them up to give their best, both individually and in groups, by preventing or resparking "demotivated" workers, enriching each job's potential and scope, and helping them build their career profiles. More importantly, you'll learn how to reward employee achievement by motivating through change, recognizing exceptional performance, and keeping motivation at a constantly high level. On every page, boxed tips, quick-reference checklists, vivid mini case studies, and easy-to-follow flow charts make the motivation process not only clear and simple to activate, but even rather fun. Granted, if you're looking for very specific or in-depth guidance, you might find this book too cursory and general in its approach. But, if you're looking for a thumbnail guide to the basics, it'll do just fine.

It's worth mentioning that the book is part of the "Essential Managers" series by reference publisher Dorling-Kindersley--a series comprising 20 itty-bitty books on business and career topics that range from communication, leadership, and decision-making to the management of time, budgets, change, meetings, people, projects, and teams. Combining the talent of the "For Dummies" book series for breaking down a lot of information into bite-sized bits and sidebars with Dorling-Kindersley's signature design style of crisp, classy graphics on a gleaming white backdrop, the books don't represent the cutting edge of business thinking or reflect necessarily any unique individual perspective. Instead, it's as if someone had collated the best general thinking on these 20 topics, and rolled them out into 72 brightly designed and easy-to-read pages--studded along the way with boxed tips, color shots of a multiracial cast of "coworkers" animatedly hashing through the workplace issues of the day, and, on the last few pages of each volume, a self-test of one's skills in the topic at hand. Again, they're not for anyone who's looking for more in-depth or focused help on any of the covered subjects, but they're perfect as a quick general-interest reference; and, let's face it, they're so damn cute, and look so smart in a neat little stack or row, that probably you'll want to buy a whole bunch to give as gifts to your entire staff or department. --Timothy Murphy

Review

It hits all the bases... -- Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789428962
• ISBN-13: 978-0789428967
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,259,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Concise yet useful handbook, July 13, 2000

By 

John Varady (Lake Placid, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential Managers: Motivating People (Paperback)

This is a great little handbook. The little motivational tips throughout are things that can easily be done in the workplace on a daily basis with little effort, yet act as motivators for employees. A lot will seem simple and common sense but those little things are sometimes lacking in the work environment.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What does it take to Motivate People?, May 8, 2001

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Managers: Motivating People (Paperback)

Robert Heller is a leading authority on management consulting. He was the founding editor of Management Today. He has written this book to teach you all you need to know about how to motivate people. Motivating people will show you how to increase production and job satisfaction. It will provide you with practical techniques like rewarding achievement.

Are your employees overloaded with work? Are they clearly demotivated? When you start to see the negative signs you might also see absenteeism is increasing. You could try a employee survey or you can analyze your own talks with your employees to find out what they are feeling.

Some of the power tips I enjoyed reading:

"Praise work well done, even if some targets are missed." -pg. 24 "Provide training in small, regular doses rather than one long course." -pg. 45

Very practical and I think the points in this book will help you to create a more positive work environment for your employees.

~The Rebecca Review

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good travel book, February 16, 2007

By 

Dirk J. Willard "Dirk Willard" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Managers: Motivating People (Paperback)

I bought this book for an interview trip. It fits nicely in your coat pocket and is durable. This book is a good review of the best of American and Japanese management ideas for motivating people. As promised on the backcover, the presentation is excellent. The text is a good review no new material is presented. That is why I give it only 4 stars.

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