Managing Without Supervising

An illustrated step-by-step guide to successful employee management.

"Supervision is arranged with an emphasis on inquiry learning, which raises penetrating questions, shows you the key concepts in a clear and concise manner, and follows up that material with a wide variety of exercises, applications, and margin notes ..." --BOOK COVER.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Managerial styles are influenced by habit, familiarity, and workplace culture. It's no wonder that well-intentioned professionals doing their best to be good organizational leaders often repeat unhelpful supervisory practices experienced in their early careers, even if they disliked them at the time. In the DUH! Book of Management and Supervision, the author disagrees with many accepted leadership principles (unabashedly referring to them as myths) and makes new and different approaches easier to imagine. Her challenging and controversial concepts illustrated with poignant stories suggest common-sense and immediately applicable alternatives more suitable in today's workplace.

When you can delegate and supervise well, you will not believe how efficient and easy managing your team can be. Managers’ performance reviews, their salary increases, and basically their fate within the company in general are judged by the results they deliver, yet those results are usually produced by a team of employees working under them. Thus, the most important and broad-reaching aspect of a manager’s job is the ability to delegate and supervise extremely well. In this book, success expert Brian Tracy reveals time-tested ways any manager can use to boost the performance and productivity of their employees. In Delegation & Supervision, Tracy shares helpful tips including how to: Define work, assign it, and set measurable, targeted standards for performance Match skills to job requirements Use Management by Objectives to delegate longer-term tasks to trusted team members Monitor, control, and keep on top of projects with minimum effort Turn delegation into a teaching tool and build the confidence of your staff Avoid reverse delegation Free up time for higher-level tasks only you can tackle, and more When done right, delegation and supervision will allow your employees to learn, grow, and become more capable. Delegation & Supervision shows you how to impress the higher-ups with all that you and your team accomplished.

COMMON SENSE SUPERVISION is a practical manual for people who are new or experienced in supervisory positions. Written in a clear non-nonsense style, the book outlines the responsibilities of a supervisor and shows how to make the workday work.