Synopsis
This book will permanently change the way you run your business. Combining his years of IBM management training with some critically important management templates for the new Millennium, he takes you through real life situations in a narrative style. It’s fun reading and very moving at times. Spiced throughout the book are bold-type statements that all begin: "Here's the Rule:" The most critical rule is for managers to focus on WHAT vs. HOW. Real executives know "what" to do. Annoying bosses focus on personalities and "how" people are acting. Crossing the bridge from the annoying world of "how" management to the productive world of "what" management takes a bit of education and lots of examples. This newest version has a section on Millennials that may change your approach. It’s all counterintuitive and you need to understand how that works. The Millennial challenge is forcing us to rethink how we have been approaching the treatment of people for the last two hundred years. Perhaps the most important addition to this book is the chapter at the end which lists 60 summary concepts – his Lefthander’s Guide to Managing. Here are some examples: • A manager’s job is to create problems for your employees to solve, not solve them all yourself. • A proper vision statement doesn’t tell you where you’re going to be in 5 years; it changes who you are right now! And if you know who you are, you will know what to do. • You must earn the right to criticize, even if you’re the boss. Performance must become a third-party element that you discuss objectively and collegially. • If the list for improving morale has more than two elements, you’re reading from the wrong list. • Make the decision, then clean up the mess. Quit hedging or waiting until it’s all fixed in advance. We leaders need to view ourselves as the head of a tribe because our employees view themselves as members of a tribe, instinctively. They don’t want to see themselves as replaceable parts in some organic machine. When we treat them that way, we hurt not only them but everyone around them because we disrupt an instinctive, tribal sense of what should be. Any short-term gain achieved by removing that one part is greatly outweighed by the systemic damage done by creating an environment that is not secure for all. That’s the practicality and the humanity of it. The sad thing is, most managers have no training and therefore no way of forming a basis to determine truly good management. A Guide to Managing Earthlings tries to make up for the fact that most companies don' have a management culture. It's a book that will help create the basis for such a culture and success in business will follow. It's an enjoyable book to read, even if you don't plan to manage Earthlings or anyone else.
About the Author
An IBM executive and high tech CEO turned relief worker to the third world, Charles Herrick is a Seattle native and resident. His education was in the health sciences as a pre-medical student. Due to family issues, he set aside plans for medical school and took a position with IBM's large system division. Though successful, for 16 years he felt like an oval peg in a round hole. So he headed for the mud huts of Kenya and the slums of Bombay. He wrote a book, Breath of Kenya, which has sold worldwide but is a particularly well circulated book in the Pacific Northwest, where Charles speaks about his time in Africa and India. After teaching a crippled woman to walk again after 33 years, he has decided to dedicate his life to helping the poor and writing books. You can see his video of his work with the crippled woman in the high mountains of India by entering Indian Woman Learns to Walk on YouTube. He has performed relief work in Africa, India, Romania and Nepal. He is also on the board of directors to relief agencies to Sudan and he works with a relief team for Morocco. At home, he paints, writes books and plays, consults, designs, rock climbs and scuba dives. He and his wife Kristy have reared three delightful children and continue to raise llamas on their suburban farm in Issaquah, Washington. Bullard is his bulldog. He is very unattractive (the dog).
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