Description:
Dale Carnegie, step aside--this sharply designed, itty-bitty handbook aims to give you, in 72 pages, all the key strategies you need to get along with and manage people in the workplace... and sometimes even succeeds! Here, with the help of lots of snappy sidebars, graphics, checklists, and charts, you'll learn how to develop basic people skills like understanding human behavior, building people's confidence, and gaining their trust; develop the people you manage in the workplace by providing training, improving their skills, nurturing talent, motivating progress, and teaching by example; find solutions to thorny "people problems" like how to build positive work environments, open closed minds, handle conflict, and deal with "difficult types"; and assess your people's performances and reward them accordingly. Granted, if you're looking for very specific or in-depth guidance, you may 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 you just fine.It's worth mentioning that the book is also part of reference publisher Dorling Kindersley's Essential Managers series--20 itty-bitty li'l books on business and career topics ranging from communication, leadership, and decision making to the management of time, budgets, change, meetings, people, projects, and teams. Combining the For Dummies book series's talent for breaking down a lot of information into bite-size bits and sidebars with Dorling Kindersley's signature design style of crisp, classy graphics on a gleaming white backdrop, they don't represent the cutting edge of business thinking and they don't necessarily reflect any unique individual perspective. Instead, it's as though someone 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 a self-test of one's skills in the topic at hand on the last few pages of each volume. Again, they're not for anyone looking for more in-depth or focused help on any of the subjects they cover, but they're perfect as a quickie general-interest reference... and let's face it, they're so damned cute and look so smart in a neat little stack or row that you'll probably want to buy a whole bunch to give to your entire staff or department. --Timothy Murphy
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