The Effective Manager, 2nd Edition

Introduction: Who This Book Is for, What It's About, and Why

If you're a manager, this book was written for you. That sounds reasonable, of course, but you couldn't tell that from the crop of management books published every year. We know—we read them.

The Effective Manager, Second Edition, isn't like most management books, because it isn't written for your CEO.

Why are management books written for CEOs? Because that's where the money is. Most management books are essentially paid marketing tools. Authors who are also consultants want to catch the eye of a CEO or EVPHR. The “target market” will read the book and hire the author and his consulting firm to come in and completely revamp their structure, or processes, to the tune of millions of dollars.

This is why, if you've read other management books, at the end of the book you're left with a vague sense of wondering what you're now supposed to do. Oh, there were a few really trenchant lines. And a story or two really resonated. But did you learn something you can actually put in practice right away?

Nope.

Because those management books weren't written for you.

This one is.

This book is going to tell you exactly what to do, in detail. We'll tell you what to say and how to say it. We'll tell you how to introduce your ideas to your team and how to counter their concerns.

Why? Because this is the book we wanted to read when we were managers, but nobody had written it. We wanted someone we trusted to tell us what to do. Not to ...