This short book by Mark O'Sullivan is an excellent evidence-based guide to what works for the best managers. Mark has an academic background in organisational psychology and draws on his extensive experience in the Civil Service, in local government and in the private sector, as well as recent academic research, to offer sensible and highly practical advice relevant to all modern managers.
You can download individual chapters or the whole book.
Chapter1 - Why you need this book
Key Message:- Selection methods for recruitment, promotion, training and redundancy have been robustly evaluated. You cannot expect always to get your decisions right, but you can be confident whether the methods you are using are good ones or bad ones.
Key Message:- Skill acquisition is well understood. Not everyone can acquire all skills, but mistakes in imparting them can be avoided.
Key message:- Motivating people is tricky. Setting goals is established as an effective motivator; there has been recent progress with issues of trust and stress; money can be a great deceiver.
Key message:- Communication is vital and underrated. It is also much studied, but more work is needed to get to really concrete results.
Key message:- Conflict is both bad and good, but is not well understood. Few people know how to deal with it, and others need help – which is available.
Key message:- Leadership is much studied, but is an art rather than a science, and we are clearer on what is bad leadership than on what is good.
Key message:- Take care not to jump to conclusions about what you need to do to respond to a management problem. Organisations are littered with managers who instinctively knew how a problem ought to be resolved, and who are now anxiously trying to clear up the mess before they can be identified as responsible.
Follow this link to download the complete book.