5 Books Every Manager Should Read | brokeGIRLrich
I’m not naturally a people person, so shortly after deciding I really liked stage management, I thought it would be a good idea to make management books a regular part of my reading diet.
The thing is, whether you’ve got one person or five hundred reporting to you, in a theater or in a boardroom, it’s a good idea to learn more about management.
After a while, I realized that a lot of these books repeat the same premises over and over again – so, as long as it was well written and engaging, one was really as good as the other. Despite that, there were a few real gems I found over the years that I wanted to share with anyone else in management positions – even if some of these books don’t seem like management books at first glance.
1.) Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey has actually been the most influential book on how I manage people. This book discusses the different types of temperament that most people have and how you can recognize them. From there, it offers advice on how you’d want to interact with them to get the best possible results.
You can say what you’d like about personality tests (I already told you all I was in favor of them when I wrote this post), for me, this system has worked really well for years. Theater attracts literally every type of personality and the reason performer melt downs have never phased me is because of reading this book.
If I had a very introverted lighting technician program a gorgeous show, the best way to celebrate is to talk about how incredible the show looked and what an amazing show it was – not to tell him he was fantastic. On the flip side, a more outgoing guest entertainer should be told that they were a hit and they were terrific. Additionally, I learned that some of my employees were won over a little more if I picked up a box of cupcakes and brought it in, whereas others felt like I was there with them if I spent an hour of my time voluntarily fixing their broken equipment with them.
5.) The Art of Speed Reading People by Paul D. Tieger & Barbara Barron-Tieger is another book about how read body language and decipher how people speak to learn more about what type of person they are and how to then optimize that knowledge so you can communicate with them most effectively. I liked all it’s little scenarios and workbook questions – it made me feel a little like Sherlock Holmes.
I like “Who Moved my Cheese” It’s a quick read and covers something every job deals with “Change.”
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Ugh – I did hate turnovers and new policies. I’ll have to read that one!
Hmmm I’ve never read any of these. Thankfully, dealing with people is one thing I’m good at. Patience is where I struggle.
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Thanks for the list Mel, because I’ve actually never read any of these. Finding good business management books has been a struggle for me. I never have a problem finding a good investing book, but most business management books are too theoretical for me. INC magazine is pretty good though for boots on the ground scenarios
-Bryan
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I’ve never heard of INC – I’ll have to check it out! Thanks, Bryan!
I haven’t heard of any of these, but I would suggest any book about managing personalities or behaviors. I have a business degree and yet I use my one semester of psychology and books that I have read about personalities more than anything in my professional life. In order to manage people better, you need to understand them and what drives them, otherwise, it’s like talking to a brick wall.
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I couldn’t agree more.
Thank you for these suggestions–looking forward to diving in! Relatedly, when I was working on my MPA, I took a class on teamwork, which turned out to be one of the best courses in the entire program! It focused on the importance of team-building to successful management and how teams can foster better work environments. One of my favorite books from that course is “The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization” by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith.
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I’m bored with reading Management books so I can’t say I’ll be reading any of these. But one of my favourites, and it could have something to do with where I was in my company and career at that time was Quality is Free by Philip Crosby.
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Cool, I’ll add it to my to-read list!
I’ve never read any management book to find inspiration to be honest, except that one time in college I had to read a text book about how to structure an organization based on the people who are in it… It was rather an eye-opener but can be a bit boring after a while. Thanks for these suggestions though, they look interesting and I might pick up one or two 🙂
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Thank you for puting this together and I look forward to hearing you speak this weekend at the Symposium.
A book that I would like to suggest is Minding the Edge by Carl Menninger and Lori Hammel that was actually written for actors on to deal with the ups and downs of the industry, but I found it to be a great reference for Independant contractors as a whole, and as a bonus, it’s a quick read.