Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High-Performance Manager [Paperback]

Harvard Business School Press (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2002 | Series: Harvard Business Review Paperback Series

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.

With offerings ranging from the timeless classic "Management Time Who's Got the Monkey" to innovative, cutting edge ideas, this book provides busy managers with strategies for more effective time and stress management, and offers insights into what a manager's job really entails. This is a must read for any professional wanting to work more effectively and become a better manager.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The muddled state of thinking on the qualities of a good manager is reflected in this uneven collection of papers reprinted from the Harvard Business Review. The best of them are the most prosaic. Carol A. Walker pinpoints some of the common people-management mistakes made by rookie managers; Steven Berglas warns of the damage caused by Svengali-like executive coaches who impose superficial managerial nostrums and overlook or exacerbate deeper psychological problems; and in the collection's high point, William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass give a funny and perceptive account of the ways subordinates shift their problems onto their supervisors' shoulders. Other selections are less substantive: "The Making of a Corporate Athlete" includes tips on diet, weight-training and "spiritual capacity," while an esoteric round-table of leadership experts mixes vague talk of managerial "vision" with the latest results in primatology. Confusion reigns even on such a basic issue as managerial time wasting. A leadership researcher and a management professor blame "unproductive busyness" on a lack of "focus" and "energy;" two management consultants argue that managers' retreat into busywork as a comforting escape from their anxiety over more challenging and unfamiliar problems; while leadership guru John P. Kotter contends that wasting time on seemingly insignificant chats and socializing is actually the key to executives' success. This anthology makes it clear that being a good manager is still more art than science.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series delivers the best business thinking--both classic and contemporary--in succinct and accessible form. Individually, the titles help managers master the key ideas on specific topics; as a whole, the series creates a rare opportunity to reflect on the seminal ideas of the past, understand and apply today's most compelling business thinking, and envision the future of management

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; 1 edition (February 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591391296
• ISBN-13: 978-1591391296
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #364,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a recipe, but a collection of ideas, June 10, 2007

By 

Dr. Wilhelm Graupner "willi_graupner" (Graz) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High-Performance Manager (Paperback)

This review is supposed to tell the potential reader what to expect from this book, based on the confession that I highly recommend reading this book.

This book is NOT A RECIPE. If you look for a "recipe" as to how to become a high performance manager, I would recommend Stephen Covey's classic on the 7 habits of highly effective people.

This book IS a perfect checklist to compare your behvior as a manager to the recommendations of people who have given the topic "high performance management" much professional thought. The art of excellent delegation and time management is broadly discussed. Multiple warnings are placed concerning the "busy manager" - one of the most dangerous symptoms in management.

If you are one your way as a junior or senior manager, read this excellent checklist - the investment will pay off.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to get more and better work done in less time, with fewer distractions, May 21, 2007

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High-Performance Manager (Paperback)

This is one in a series of several dozen volumes that comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business School Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. Each volume has been carefully edited. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section that usually includes suggestions of other sources that some readers may wish to explore.

In this volume, the reader is provided with eight articles whose authors provide a variety of perspectives on how to become a high performance manager. Given when they first appeared in the HBR (1982-2002), some but remarkably little of the material is dated. Here are some of the important business issues to which the contributors respond:

How to delegate effectively so that report-to's are personally accountable for fulfilling their obligations? ("Who's Got the Monkey?," William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass)

How to focus only on what is most important? ("Beware the Busy Manager," Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghosal)

How to decide what to do despite uncertainty and an enormous amount of potentially relevant information? ("What Effective General Managers Really Do," John P. Kotter)

What is the "performance pyramid" and how can this model increase professional performance and improve quality of life? ("The Making of a Corporate Athlete," Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz)

How can executives effectively organize day-to-day activities, improve their performance under pressure, and get subordinates to become more productive? ("Managers Can Avoid Wasting Time," Ronald N. Ashkenas and Robert H. Schaffer)

What are some of "the very real dangers of executive coaching" and how to avoid them? (Steven Berglas)

Note: In another article, "All in a Day's Work," Harris Collinwood and Julia Kirby co-moderate a discussion of various leadership issues by six experts from the corporate world, the non-profit sector, and academia.

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out the recently published Harvard Business Review on Making Smarter Decisions as well as other series title in the Harvard Business Review Paperback Series such as those on Change, Corporate Strategy, Decision Making, Effective Communication, the Innovative Enterprise, Leadership, Leadership at the Top, and Measuring Corporate Performance.

Also Michael George's Authentic Leadership and True North, Jack Welch and Suzy Welch's Winning, Michael Ray's The Highest Goal, Ram Charan's Know-How, and James O'Toole's The Executive's Compass.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must read for young professionals or new Managers, January 23, 2009

By 

kld03c "kld03c" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High-Performance Manager (Paperback)

If you are a young manager or are new to management, check out the section on "Saving Rookie Managers from Themselves." I caught myself doing some of the rookie mistakes that they outline in here. It's difficult to make the transition from being an individual performer into someone that leads/directs others performance and it is also easy to alienate yourself from subordinates in the process. I found it to be insightful.