Employee Motivation – Great New Reads

Title – Unlocking Potential: 7 Coaching Skills That Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations
Author – Michael Simpson

REVIEW SCORE – 4.5/5 ****

Since last year, I’ve been involved as a mentor in my company’s formal mentoring program for women and diversity initiatives. So I was looking for a good book to “up my game”, so mentees can make the most of my (limited) time and experiences. This book came in as a recommendation, and Amazon was already offering me some ebook credits for being a voracious reader! So the timing seemed fortuitous!

So glad I bought this book!

Good leaders are those who can act both as effective managers and trusted coaches who take their employees to the next level. Unfortunately most training guides teach managerial skills focusing on results, not coaching. This book fills that cavernous gap.

Every team has diverse employees and a one-size-fits-all approach rarely brings out the best in every member of the team. Plus, most managers are already crunched for time, so 1-on-1 time is often used for getting random project updates rather than discussing career development goals and critical feedback loops. This book will help both employees and managers put that limited time to better use. Already, my manager and my mentees are responding positively as we are accomplishing more in 30 minutes than we did over weekly meetings in the entire quarter! 🙂

Improved mentoring sessions and group meetings

Whether you are a first time manager, professor/ teacher, sports coach, a seasoned manager who wants to help employees who seem “stuck”, or simply accelerate career development for the whole team. Even professional coaches will find this book useful to give better sessions with clients.

What I love about the book?

Did I mention this book has a foreword by THE Marshall Goldsmith? That alone guarantees a high quality of content, but interestingly I read the foreword only AFTER buying the book.

Aside from the halo effect of Goldsmith, I genuinely loved that the book is immensely practical – strategies that you can take action on, immediately! Some of what I’ve started to use are listed below:

Questions to ask employees to make the coaching sessions more effective, how to measure results and the SARAH model.
How to help difficult employees accept negative feedback.
Separate methods for 1-on-1 vs group/team coaching. I do both, and so will you – if you are a professional coach, or lead large teams.
How to give feedback to get employees/ clients so they are encouraged to take constructive action.

Overall, highly recommend for managers, teachers and coaches.

Title – The Truth about Managing People
Author – Stephen P. Robbins

REVIEW SCORE – 5/5 *****

I first bought this book for an MBA class on organizational behavior. Compared to the dry, and sometimes boring texts on management, this book was really unique because of the bite-sized chapter. Very similar to Seth Godin (marketing and consulting) and Avinash Kaushik (web analytics and data visualization) as I am a huge fan of both.

As a new manager, I found this a valuable resource, especially since I don’t have direct reports but supervise a bunch of contractors from our vendor-partners. I also lead a 1000+ member meetup, and inter-disciplinary projects at work, which means I often have to lead without a title and persuade people to agree on conflicting agendas.

However, even early career professionals will benefit from the book because it makes you understand what skills and behaviors will help you accelerate your career. For new and experienced managers, there will be many “A-ha” moments when you finally understand why your colleagues, peers or even executive leadership behave the way they do!

This book essentially summarized the best research on management principles into short, usable strategies. There are sections on motivation, hiring, conflict management, so the book is like an MBA-in-a-box. Similar to “Tools of the Titans”, but shorter and more focused on managerial topics. So you will want to keep a copy handy and refer different chapters at different stages and situations.

Pearls of Wisdom from the Book:

Some gems that resonated with me, and things that you will learn:
[1] People skills matter! Merit, competency and hierarchy are baselines for success, but excellent people skills will propel you like nothing else.
[2] How to conduct realistic job interviews, to hire more efficiently.
[3] Making the most of appraisals, irrespective of which side of the table you are on.
[4] I never heard the term “buddy” system, even though my company has it (called “shadowing”). I definitely attribute my success to the fact that this helped me shorten the learning curve and socialize faster with key stakeholders.
[5] Visionary leadership matters. I think women managers especially get hindered by this, but the fact is that a lofty goal motivates employees to find workarounds and creative solutions for near-impossible goals.

There are many more strategies for being both an efficient manager and a brilliant leader, but I will let you learn those directly from the book!

What I disagree:

The only point I disagreed slightly was the chapter on “mentors”. Like Sally Helgesen (Women who Rise) and Lois Frankel (Nice Girls still Don’t Get the Corner Office), we need “advocates” not mentors to get ahead in the career ladder. Mentors are important, but most corporate programs haven’t morphed these into sponsorship, which to me, defeats the purpose of mentoring. Still, I do agree that mentoring is important, especially early in your career.

Conclusion:

Overall, I love the book! Conversations with my managers and perceptions about me as a worthy leader, have improved since I started applying the principles in this book. In short, a Must read!

Similar authors – Tools of the Titans (Tim Ferris), Seth Godin’s blog , Avinash Kaushik’s blog Occam’s Razor – , Jack Welch, Robin Sharma, Carol Dweck (Mindset), Peter Drucker (Management/ Marketing), Adam Grant (Originals) .
TV shows – Not really applicable, but if you like Boston Legal and Shark Tank, you should test ride this book too!

Happy Reading!