AMA Business Boot Camp

by Reilly, Edward T.

• ISBN13: 9780814420010
• ISBN10: 081442001X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-12-05
• Publisher: Amacom Books

Summary

Professionals today, whether they are new or seasoned, need a solid foundation of essential skills in order to keep pace with the speed of change. The American Management Association, the preeminent provider of business education worldwide, trains the majority of the Fortune 500 companies in competitive business skills. Now, for the first time, AMA has assembled the most critical, must-have skills for managers and leaders in one handy volume. AMA Business Boot Camp paves the way for readers to: Motivate, increase morale, and enhance productivity Manage organizational change Improve their ability to communicate and influence others Screen, evaluate, and select corporate strategies Conduct effective performance reviews Protect themselves against the pitfalls of intra-organizational politics And much more Covering everything from management and leadership to project management and strategy, this one-of-kind reference serves as a crash course in the fundamentals required for lasting success.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
A Guide to Using This Book	p. xiii
Essential Management Skills	p. 1
Basic Management	p. 3
The Roles of Manager	p. 3
Creating the Right Environment	p. 6
The Nature of Decision Making	p. 7
Characteristics of a Healthy Workplace	p. 7
Effective Communication: Honing the Key Skill	p. 8
The Content of Business Communication	p. 9
Communication Process	p. 10
Questioning Styles	p. 12
Elements of Communication	p. 14
Purposeful Communication-The Skill in Service	p. 17
Using Communication to Manage Up	p. 17
Communicating Organizational Goals	p. 18
Running Effective Meetings	p. 18
Performance Management	p. 25
The Process of Managing	p. 25
Tools of Managing	p. 31
Fundamentals of Motivation	p. 32
Herzberg's Model	p. 33
Countering Workplace Dissatisfaction	p. 36
Uncovering Employees' Motivators	p. 39
Delegation for Growth and Development	p. 40
Two-Way Benefits of Delegating	p. 40
The Process of Delegating	p. 42
When to Delegate-and When Not To	p. 44
Coaching to Boost Performance	p. 45
Occasions for Coaching	p. 46
The Process of Coaching	p. 47
The Mechanics of Coaching	p. 47
Managing Staff Changes	p. 53
Dealing with Change	p. 53
Reasons for Hiring	p. 55
Right Fit	p. 55
Fluctuating Economy	p. 57
Variable Skill Levels	p. 59
Loyalty and Commitment	p. 59
Outsourcing	p. 60
Personnel Expectations	p. 61
The Hiring Process-Recruiting	p. 64
The Hiring Process-Interviewing	p. 72
General Competency	p. 74
Job-Specific Competency	p. 76
Interview Format	p. 85
Active Listening	p. 87
Selection Guidelines	p. 88
Managing Projects	p. 91
The Triple Constraints	p. 92
The Project Team	p. 94
Project Flow	p. 94
Differentiating Operations from Projects	p. 96
Initiating a Project	p. 97
Planning a Project	p. 109
Executing a Project	p. 123
Completing a Project	p. 130
Moderate Complexity Project	p. 132
High-Risk Project	p. 133
Action Items	p. 137
Senior Management Skills	p. 139
Strategic Thinking	p. 141
Why Managers Need to Think Strategically	p. 141
A Strategic Frame of Reference	p. 143
Elements of the Strategic Frame of Reference	p. 145
Understanding the Operational Mission	p. 149
The Anatomy of a Strategic Vision	p. 153
Understanding Customer Sensitivities	p. 153
Creating a Strategic Advantage	p. 155
Making the Vision a Reality	p. 159
Leadership	p. 163
Leadership Self-Assessment	p. 164
Behavior of a Leader	p. 167
Measures of Success	p. 174
Leveraging Your Leadership Style	p. 176
Leadership Image	p. 181
Building Power and Influence	p. 184
Your Power Potential	p. 185
Your Power Profile	p. 187
Group Leadership Qualities	p. 188
Influence	p. 190
Enlightened Office Politics	p. 192
Motivating Difficult People	p. 202
The Staller	p. 202
The Emotional Hothead	p. 202
The Complainer	p. 202
The Backstabber	p. 203
Ms. or Mr. Perfect	p. 203
Action Items	p. 208
Self-Assessment of Comfort Level with Delegation	p. 211
Coaching Planning Worksheet	p. 213
Project Management Planning Template	p. 215
Glossary	p. 219
Index	p. 223
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

<html><head></head><body><p style="margin-top: 0">Preface </p><p style="margin-top: 0"></p><p style="margin-top: 0">For the past ninety years, the American Management Association has been devoted to the development of managers and leaders throughout their careers. During that time, literally millions of managers and leaders around the world have benefited from AMA’s carefully developed seminars, workshops, and books produced by the outstanding faculty and authors who come together to form the backbone of AMA’s ability to help people grow in their professional skills. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">AMA currently teaches over 160 different seminar topics, covering much of the management landscape. We provide hundreds of webinars, webcasts, podcasts, newsletters, and of course books, which add to the richness of the information available to help managers develop their skills and become more effective. We customize hundreds of individual pro-grams for companies around the world, which ties our insight, experience, and content directly to their business circumstances and helps the entire enterprise move toward a more efficient, effective performance. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">This is an important time in the evolution of the business community in the U. S. and around the world. Economic challenges brought about by the financial collapse in 2008 have caused a great deal of disruption that will have a lasting effect for many years to come. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">Now, more than ever, we need to relearn and revisit the basics and finetune our skills. We face circumstances that require virtually flawless execution, and we hope you will look to AMA and all of its resources as the perfect place to help you revitalize your own skills and those of your organization. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">It is my hope that this book will be an introduction to the principles of effective, efficient management and leadership for some of the people we don’t yet touch and that the collective skills they begin to develop through the exposure to these ideas will help them and their organizations. It is our intention to help people become more effective in contributing to the economic engine, which is so essential to our society, prosperity, and security. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">For many people, this may be their first exposure to the principles included in this book. For others, it will serve as a comprehensive checklist of the many tasks we must master and execute in the process of becoming successful managers and leaders. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">In any case, I hope people will refer back to these pages frequently, as it has been my experience that we all need to be consciously mindful of the many principles of leading and managing people and processes we use on a daily basis in order to be effective. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, management is neither an art nor a science, but rather a practice. </p><p style="margin-top: 0">As with all of our work at AMA, it is my hope that this book will be a helpful tool in the development and refinement of your career. </p><p style="margin-top: 0"></p><p style="margin-top: 0">Edward T. Reilly </p><p style="margin-top: 0">President and CEO </p><p style="margin-top: 0">American Management Association </p><p style="margin-top: 0">' </p><p style="margin-top: 0">Excerpted from AMA BUSINESS BOOT CAMP, Edited by Edward T. Reilly. Copyright © 2013 by American Management Association. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org. </p><p style="margin-top: 0"></p></body></html>