This is a book for upper management in medium to large corporations and organizations. I'm in the midst of applying the many ideas in this to our management transitions/passages within our organization. The book is helpful on identifying different skills, values and time allocation to each level, as well as assessment and development tools.

Very long but really helpful perspective and framework!

This book was recommended to me by a co-worker I asked to mentor me. I’m glad she recommended this book and I wish I had read this book ten or twelve or even twenty years ago.

This is an excellent book for people at all levels within an organization and especially those that want to become managers or rise to the executive level within an organization.

I highly recommend this book.

a bit outdated and more for rigidly hierarchical larger company settings, but helpful in thinking abt the nuances of skill-value transitions needed between each varying types of management contexts, esp at executive levels that I don't usually think abt (what should be communicated abt leadership priorities at each tier)

My main takeaway is to consider career progression as a journey along a twisted and progressively narrowing pipeline as opposed to a ladder. People get clogged up along each bend in the people line for a variety of reasons like skill gaps, improper time allocation, not recognizing the values needed at the new level, or falling back to old strengths applicable for the previous level. I liked that metaphor. The book has good examples to illustrate the key points though the writing style is a bit long-winded.

Whether you've just been promoted into front-line management or you're now heading up a function or a business, and you haven't read this book, stop everything and order a copy now. This book sets out how the role of management changes, as we move up the various ranks of management. It sets out how a manager's mindset needs to shift and, as a result, what tasks they should focus on and what skills are needed to succeed.

I have yet to come across an industry that doesn't promote based on being technically good at the job. Doing the job is very tangible. There are tasks to be done that lead to outputs that we can acknowledge. Then we move into "management", which is a lot fuzzier and intangible. This book brings a tangibility to each level of management and the related tasks, outputs and outcomes of management.

I'll give it 3 stars because I tend to agree with the major tenets of the book. However, the content is fairly general. I'm none the wiser as to what I could practically do. Maybe this is written more for HR.

Each chapter about the passages does serve as a reminder to not do the work the same way as you did at the previous level.

One of the best management books I have ever read. Very informative and practical. Relevant for anyone who wants to climb up the corporate ladder.

I liked this book. It is a much more thoughtful approach to leadership and leadership development than similar books I have read or been exposed to. I also anticipate it will have re-read value as I progress through my career.

The idea of a pipeline could be most helpful to corporate boards grappling with CEO succession. Applied properly the right people will ask the right questions at the right decision making levels.

Nothing is more disabling to a corporation than a CEO who can't parse time and concept appropriately. Met one who was so ill-placed that his weekly top team meetings lasted days simply because he hadn't evolved beyond the operational logic of the technician he was when he first joined the company. He'd been vaulted, in three moves, from bottom to top over scarcely a decade.

He exited a few years later. Strapped into a golden parachute he glided safely down to early retirement while the corporation posted record losses. Expensive and angry-making.

One gripe: Pity the authors didn't credit the late Dr. Elliot Jaques, the brilliant, under-celebrated Anglo-Canadian physician and psychologist whose General Theory of Bureaucracy (1976) is the original source of their ideas. All they've done is shift the emphasis from work levels to the passages between them.

In their defence: they've hatched a lovely turn of phrase, simplified executive succession and possibly resurrected the in-house management development programme. Not bad for one book.

If the rich conceptual detail behind the idea of the pipeline appeals, consider exploring Jaques on 'requisite organisation' and stratified systems theory.

Good take aways in this one.

Audiobook