Really excellent demonstration of great management and the benefits it can bring to any team, group or organization. Highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be managed, to manage or is managing.

This is an outstanding book on managing teams of people and managing priorities. I recommend it for anyone who is in charge of others in the workplace.

One-on-ones are crucial if you want to develop your subordinates.

Consistent with the best I've heard from great managers in my past, podcasts, and Manager Tools podcasts.

Read this.

Meh. I finished it, but didn't really take away anything useful, and not much of it stuck. However, the book managed to stay reasonably engaging by showing a fictional worked example of a mid-level manager's first few months on the job ... and that's not a career path I ever plan to take. I think the right thing to do would be to reference the book when struggling with a particular scenario that it discusses, rather than reading it straight through.

One of the most useful things I got was realizing that a lot of the skills I learned for running meetings at UTIG fall under "facilitation" ... so rather than thinking of it as "meeting mode", think of it as a bunch of different skills that can be used to make meetings more useful without requiring total buy-in to a rigid methodology.

This is an absolute must- read for every manager. The book was an interesting discovery for me - it‘s 19 years old however all the points are very modern in the context of a people-centric management. The authors speak about facilitation and coaching in 2005 while not every manager is aware of these words today in 2024. I need to make all my managers to read it - maybe then we all will become happier with our jobs.

This book is a good summary of many diversified books (about management, meetings, retrospectives, ...). It's a good start for a technical person who will have a management role soon, but if you're serious about management you also really need to read more complete books, like "First break all the rules" and "The art of possibility". This book help you choose these other ones with a lot of references.

Regarded by many as the best book about being an efficient manager and understanding your managers if you aren't one yourself.

Johanna follows the story of Sam Morgan who has just taken the new position of Director of Development in a high-tech organization. Sam is experienced and wants to help his new colleagues.

During the course of 'Behind Closed Doors' there are many scenarios where Sam interacts with his department's managers - Ginger, Kevin, Jason and Patty. Each of them have their pros and cons. Sam serves as the textbook example of a perfect manager and his interactions with the managers and how he handles different situations are teaching us the right manager behavior.

However Ginger, Kevin, Jason and Patty each have personalities everyone can relate to and understand their judgement. They aren't bad people. They have the potential for growth and Sam helps them..


The last chapter - 'Techniques for Practicing Great Management' is a summary of the techniques Sam used in his department. If you're limited in time, this is the chapter where you would learn the most. Still I suggest reading the whole book when you have time. It's really easy to read by non-managers.

Condensed and essential starter pack for any manager.

Nice and entertaining read.
Contains tips and checklists on various topics, supported by a feel-good narrative, which actually turns this book into a page-turner.

I found the first chapters - on holding one-on-ones and team meetings, and on introducing and using a project portfolio - the most helpful. Later chapters covered topics such as coaching, delegating and developing career paths, which are better covered elsewhere.

Apesar de eu não concordar com algumas opiniões das autoras, o livro é um excelente resumo sobre o que é o papel de um gestor. O conteúdo aborda, ainda que de forma superficial, os principais temas que um bom líder e gerente precisa conhecer. Estou dando cinco estrelas justamente por entender que o livro tem um propósito claro e é efetivo em cumpri-lo: dar uma visão geral sobre o tema, principalmente para leitores que estão começando nessa área, de forma clara e objetiva.

According to PMI PMBOK the area for "Communications management" is the most important one among all the knowledge areas. This book is an excellent communications management guide. This book is structured and targeted for beginners and intermediate skilled managers and serves its purpose completely offering paramount help in moving from a chaos and ad-hoc management to a structural and organized approach that builds a strong team of allies and creates a good rythm in the project. An easy reading style makes this book clear and expressive. This helps most of the beginner managers in understanding the substance of good communication. Needless to say those techniques were proven great by many beginner and senior managers and actively discussed on the management blogs.
Personally I like that this book:
- addresses multiple aspects of management and leadership
- explains coaching in easy 1-2-3 steps
- offers an approach of building trust in the team
- contains references and "now try this" section in each chapter
- it's not a big book!! (only about 160 pages)
Overall this book is worth reading multiple times. I wish it would be available on Nook or Kindle.