Bøger i Harvard Pocket Mentor serien

Presents strategies for creating and guiding work teams. This book instructs readers how to: organise a team with complimentary skills; clarify team goals, roles, and responsibilities; foster trust, creativity, and risk-taking; get teams back on track after a setback; and, collaborate to achieve team objectives.

Tough objectives require more than smart thinking; they require effective follow-through. This book helps you understand what strategy is and how to translate that knowledge into the elements of a strategic plan. It helps you to execute those plans and ensure that they remain aligned with corporate strategy in the long term.

Your career is not a one-time decision made early in life. Rather, you refine or redefine it as you grow professionally. This volume helps you: recognise when it's time for a change; articulate the business activities that interest you most deeply; assess your skills and values; and update your skills to remain competitive in the workforce.

Offers suggestions to help you - define unit and individual goals and express them according to five crucial criteria; set the stage for successful achievement of the goals you've defined; surmount obstacles and monitor progress toward your goals; and, extract lessons you can use to define and achieve future goals.

Laying Off Employees

As a manager, you make countless decisions every day. Some are straightforward, such as assigning a team member to a project. Others are far more complex, such as determining how to handle an under-performing product line. How can you boost the odds of making the best decisions for your organization? Treat decision-making as a process. This volume reveals key strategies for handling each step in the process. You'll find out how to: - Generate a diverse set of alternative courses of action for the decision at hand- Assess the feasibility, risks, and ethical implications of each alternative- Select the best course of action- Communicate your decision and carry it out

You've just been promoted to a managerial position for the first time - congratulations! But beware: the managerial role differs markedly from the individual contributor role. Go into the job with mistaken assumptions about what to expect, and you just may be blindsided by surprising realities.This book helps you lay the foundation for succeeding in your new role, explaining how to discard the "doer" role of the individual contributor for the orchestrating role of the manager, adjust your leadership style to maximize your team's performance, balance conflicting expectations from your boss, peers and direct reports and deal productively with the stresses and new emotions that come with being a manager.

Effective business writing rests on a foundation of basic principles. Master them, and you'll know how to handle the many different writing tasks that come your way. This book will help you organize and edit your message for maximum impact.

When faced with packed schedules, endless emails, and towering in-boxes, it's easy to become overwhelmed and ineffective at work. This guide will put readers back in charge of their time and workload by showing how to: - Set goals and prioritize tasks - Utilize appropriate scheduling tools - Control distractions and interruptions - Delegate wisely

Is your in-box always full? Are you constantly working overtime on tasks that "only you" can do? This volume shows you how to: identify which tasks to delegate; decide whether to delegate based on employee, task, project, or function; identify the skills required for each delegated assignment; and, make an assignment and monitor the work.

Most managers coach employees by giving them feedback and evaluating their performance, right? Wrong. Coaching differs markedly from other managerial functions. With its tips, worksheets, and self-assessments, this guide shows managers how to use coaching - not only to strengthen direct reports' skills but also to rev up their performance.

In challenging times, companies must serve their customers faster and more efficiently. This book helps you learn key steps for carrying out a business process improvement initiative, including how to: plan a business process improvement initiative; analyze and redesign a current process that needs improvement; and, more.

How do you lead a team scattered across the globe? How do you keep members you can't see organized, communicative, and productive? This book offers advice on forming virtual teams, assessing their communication and technology needs, and ensuring that they produce high-quality work.

A budget is a financial action plan for an organization. This guide will teach you how to: - Forecast future business results, such as sales volume, revenues, and expenses - Reconcile those forecasts to organizational goals - Obtain organizational support for your proposed budget - Fine-tune your budget over time

The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to the challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness.

While no one likes to be the bearer of bad news, managers are sometimes faced with the difficult task of having to dismiss an employee. This title shows you how to effectively manage a dismissal - including making key decisions before, during, and after the critical event.

Good feedback is essential to helping employees perform better at work. It lets people know when they are meeting or exceeding expectations, and when they need to get back on the right track. This practical guide shows managers how to develop and refine this necessary skill.