Customer Reviews

Managing by Influence

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I learned a lot from reading this book. It puts several things into perspective about being a manager and how to best get your employees to follow you as a leader. It discourages force and harshness as well as complacency. Instead, it asks that you look to yourself to see what you could have done differently in a given situation with a negative or detrimental outcome.

While I do feel the book had lots of valuable information I felt the stories and examples felt phony and forced. While I was not reading the book to investigate and research other companies and can't say for sure it felt that about half of the companies and executives mentioned were nonexistent, fictional creations. It made it tough to get through certain parts of the book.

The best example from the entire book, however, is when the authors describe the president of a college with a litter problem. A new president of a college noticed that there was lots of litter and no one seemed to be picking it up. He made it a habit that where ever he went, whatever he was doing, to stop and pick up any trash along the way. Within several days the staff and students noticed and began to pitch in, as well. The litter problem was eradicated shortly afterwards and the president never had to issue a single instruction or make one request. He looked to himself and asked, "What can I change about myself to help this situation?" From there, he was able to influence his staff (and students) to follow his lead and accomplish what needed to be done.

Rent it from the library.