Balance and Control

Balance and Control: On Managing Subordinates, Peers, and your Manager was taken, in large measure, from the Parent Book, Balance and Control: A Guide to Managing Human Beings by Understanding Human Nature and Human Interactions. Here, the author walks the reader through three of the four management competencies; managing subordinates, managing peers and managing your superiors. Self-management is the fourth competence and is thoroughly explored throughout the parent book. The author emphasizes the importance of maintaining a degree of cerebral control and emotional balance when attempting to successfully manage either group. Your key to success in taking up these management challenges is to stay focused on your objectives and gain and maintain control of the human dynamics that are replete in every interaction. You'll have to stay aware of human nature and the motivational drivers of the human animal. You'll have to become an objective tactician and not allow vanity, ego, and emotions to cloud your judgment as you try to move the work, projects, and your careers forward. At the end of the day, the choices are yours. You can choose to become an effective manager and leader, a respected peer, and a valued employee, or to be driven by pride, egotism and blinded by power and fail. The author provides directions that are situational based and which he believes would be intuitive to the confident manager. But because many of us lack that level of confidence, the author helps by explaining the rationale for each approach. And while the author strongly recommends a thorough read of the parent book by new managers, the more experienced managers should greatly benefit from a read of the current book.