The Effective Manager Book: Recent Episodes

Manager Tools

This feed contains podcasts which accompany The Effective Manager book, the how-to guide for exceptional management from the bottom up. The podcasts provide more detailed guidance on specific topics that didn't make it into the book. Manager Tools is a weekly business podcast focused on helping professionals become more effective managers and leaders. Each week, we discuss specific actions for professionals to take to achieve their desired management and career objectives. Manager Tools won Best Business Podcast Award in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2012 as well as the People's Choice Award in 2008. The Business Podcast Award is now named after Manager Tools. Go to http://www.manager-tools.com/testimonials to read what others are saying about the impact Manager Tools has had on their careers and lives. Our goal: Every Manager Effective (TM).

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This guidance describes how to help individual contributors handle an overload in work.

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This cast recommends simple choices for what to delegate to our directs.

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This guidance describes how to choose what to delegate using a simple Venn Diagram - the intersection between the direct, the manager, and the organization.

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Today, Mark and Mike discuss the topic of Delegation. There probably isn't a management book out there that doesn't talk about the importance of delegation. However, very seldom does the author get into the type of detail we'll discuss today. Today, we cover the "how to" ... how to determine what and to whom to delegate and specifically what specific steps to take when delegating to an individual.

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Today, Mark and Mike discuss the topic of Delegation. There probably isn't a management book out there that doesn't talk about the importance of delegation. However, very seldom does the author get into the type of detail we'll discuss today. Today, we cover the "how to"... how to determine what and to whom to delegate and specifically what specific steps to take when delegating to an individual.

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This cast concludes our discussion on how to assign tasks to your directs.

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This guidance describes how to assign tasks to your directs.

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In this cast, we complete our discussion of the Revised Manager Tools Coaching Model.

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This cast describes the Manager Tools Revised Coaching Model.

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In today's fast and flat world, ideas are becoming critical competitive advantages. Managers - and many others - need to be good at getting the most and best ideas from themselves and their teams.

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In today's fast and flat world, ideas are becoming critical competitive advantages. Managers - and many others - need to be good at getting the most and best ideas from themselves and their teams.

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This cast concludes our guidance on how to measure the amount of feedback you're delivering to your directs.

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This cast concludes our guidance on how to measure the amount of feedback you're delivering to your directs.

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Part 2 of our guidance on what to do if your direct keeps saying no when you ask if they're open to feedback.

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Part 1 of our guidance on what to do if your direct keeps saying no when you ask if they're open to feedback.

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This cast describes behaviors for managers to engage in to ensure that they deliver feedback ethically and professionally.

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We've gotten a great many questions, comments, and kudos for our show in July on the Feedback Model. Many listeners are discovering the power of feedback, of taking it out of the realm of the rare and into the stream of the every day. Not to sound repetitive, but most managers see feedback as akin to holding their breath - waiting as long as possible, and then creating a lot of sound and often fury. The Feedback Model tells us to see feedback like breathing - so regular as to become unnoticed.

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In this podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members.

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In this podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members.

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In this podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members.

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In this podcast, Mike and Mark share a technique managers can use to give feedback to their team members.

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In this show we continue our conversation on One-on-Ones. In addition to a brief review (very brief -- not a substitute for listening to the previous two shows!), we review a number of questions and finer points.

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Mark and Mike conclude their discussion on the single most effective management tool available today - the weekly One-on-One.

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Mark and Mike continue their discussion on the single most effective management tool available today - the weekly One-on-One. In the podcast, we refer to both a written summary of the key points for conducting One-on-Ones, as well as a form useful for documenting your One-on-Ones.

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Mark and Mike discuss the single most effective management tool - the One-on-One.

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This guidance tells you how to avoid the mistake of "Agenda Fascism" in One on Ones.

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This guidance addresses how personal One on Ones ought to be - should they be all about family and personal stuff, or just about work?

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The conclusion of our conversation on Skip Levels. Have you scheduled YOUR first Skip Level yet?

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Our guidance about a rarely used but powerful Manager Tool, The Skip Level.

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Our guidance on having a notebook and pen with you at all times, and what to do with it.

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This cast concludes our recommendations on why and how to meet weekly, or regularly, with your peer managers.

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This guidance recommends why and how to meet weekly, or regularly, with your peer managers.

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This cast concludes our conversation on how to run timely meetings.

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This cast describes how to run timely meetings.

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This cast describes how big to size a team when forming it.

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Today, we cover the second in a two-part series of podcasts on Time Management. If you're new to the show or you didn't listen to last week's podcast, it's probably worth while going back and listening to the previous show first. Otherwise, you'll be joining the conversation half-way through and we all know how comfortable that feels. :-(

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Time management is a fallacy, we like to say. Time doesn't need you to "manage" it - it's been getting along just fine without you for billions of years. We can't manage time. But what we CAN manage is what we do with that time. And yet, the overwhelming evidence is that managers do NOT "manage what they do with that time." There's a shocking CHASM between our behavior in this area and our knowledge of what to do. In fact, Mark recently blogged on how busy everyone says they are, which irritates him. He looks at their calendars, and there's no EVIDENCE that they're busy. There are vast swaths of unscheduled time!

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This cast describes the role of Coaching in the Management Trinity, and makes a KEY recommendation regarding development of directs and performance management.

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This show describes The Feedback Model's inclusion in the Management Trinity.

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This cast begins our series on the Management Trinity, and our reasons for each of its three (four) components: One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching and Delegation.

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This cast includes Part 4 of our discussion on how to implement the Manager Tools' Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching).

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This cast includes Part 3 of our discussion on how to implement the Manager Tools' Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching).

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This cast includes Part 2 of our discussion on how to implement the Manager Tools' Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching - and Delegation!).

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This cast describes how to gradually implement Manager Tools' Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching - and Delegation!).

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In this cast, we conclude our conversation on the origins of the Management Trinity, focusing on Coaching and Delegation.

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In this cast, we continue our conversation on the origins of the Management Trinity, focusing on One on Ones and Feedback.

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This cast describes the origins of the Management Trinity: why we preach it, and how it came to be.

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This guidance describes how to interact with a direct who resists or refuses more, new, or different work because they're "comfortable where they are" or "not interested in promotion."

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This cast prescribes asking your directs what their children's names are.

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The definition of an Effective Manager is to achieve results while retaining your team members.

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The definition of an Effective Manager is to achieve results while retaining your team members.

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Part 2 of our guidance on how to get a better understanding of what your goals are from your boss.

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Part 1 of our guidance on how to get a better understanding of what your goals are from your boss.

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Introduction to the Effective Manager book feed.