More than 11,000 business books are published every year—an overwhelming choice for busy professionals. Therefore, in partnership with getAbstract, Training brings you June’s top three business books recommended to our readers.
“Managing for Success. Practical Advice for Managers” by Steven R. Smith (Cambridge Hill Press, 2014, 150 Pages, ISBN: 978-0989748803; $14)
Calling upon his more than four decades of management and executive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Steven R. Smith presents a clear, intelligent, highly useful manual for all modern managers. Smith covers every area of responsibility—with a focus on hiring—and begins from a compelling position: Most managers who are promoted due to their skills and achievements in various areas of business performance are ill-prepared for management jobs and could benefit from any guidance they can get. Smith’s pragmatic—if mainstream—advice provides concise basic management training while offering worthwhile insights into employee-manager and manager-boss relations. getAbstract recommends Smith’s unpretentious, valuable primer to managers who could use a refresher and to those who are mostly winging it for now.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 7
Style: 8
“Fearless Performance Reviews. Coaching Conversations that Turn Every Employee into a Star Player” by Jeffrey Russell and Linda Russell (McGraw-Hill, 2013, 240 Pages, ISBN: 978-0071804721; $13.23
Performance reviews shape employees’ pay and promotions and affect their sense of self-worth. Managers detest performance reviews and have as much on the line as their staffers due to their overall responsibility for performance. The way most companies structure performance reviews brings out the worst in everybody. The more managers turn into posturing “my-way-or-the-highway” dictators, the more employees become surly, defensive obstructionists who feel threatened by evaluations they reject. Fortunately, you can take a better path to performance reviews by facilitating “performance-coaching conversations” instead. Organizational experts Jeffrey and Linda Russell explain how to conduct performance reviews that actually improve performance. Their “fearless performance review” construct is a solid contribution to this process, even if some steps still sound a little scary. getAbstract recommends this productive path to those charged with review policy, HR professionals, and all supervisors and managers.
Rating (out of 10): 7
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 7
Style: 7
“The XX Factor. How Working Women Are Creating a New Society” by Alison Wolf (Profile Books, 2013, 420 Pages, ISBN: 978-1846684036; $13.95)
Though society is still working to achieve gender equality, women make up a significant portion of the workforce and hold elite positions in organizations worldwide. Alison Wolf presents studies and statistics on how women’s decisions to work or not to work affect everyone. Wolf’s comprehensive book includes snapshots of society in North America, Europe, and Asia. She also describes coffee shop discussions among her female friends and colleagues about their working lives. Her research uncovers the interesting and surprising consequences of the growing female workforce. Although Wolf shoehorns in some ideas, she proves to be an engaging writer. getAbstract especially recommends her treatise to young professional women and to all women deciding whether to work, raise a family, or try to do both.
Rating (out of 10): 6
Applicability: 7
Innovation: 6
Style: 6
For five-page summaries of these and more than 10,000 other titles, visit http://www.getabstract.com/affiliate/trainingmagazine
