The best Human Resources & Personnel eBooks: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

The New One Minute Manager is a great book. In it the book talks about finding employees doing something right. We always look for and reprimand employees for doing things wrong. But never enough of complimenting them when they are doing it right. We just expect that and it's unfair.

It's a good short read.

China just manufactured their first ball point pen last year. Up until then, they lacked the ability to manufacture a high quality ball point tip. Meanwhile Toyota literally wrote the book on lean manufacturing. There is a reason those stereotypes exist.

The Managers Path is a great resource. It walks you from being an IC, a tech lead, EM, director, and a VP of engineering by describing the people responsibilities for each level and describes tools you can use to be effective at each.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XP3GJ7F/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_M1GQTXJHQ04HABWPT6RT

Best of luck on your journey!

Sounds bloody horrible!

I'm a "head of engineering" and i don't "order anybody around", and would be horrified of any of my leads or managers did that. Their job is to enable people, ensure they have what they need, are adequately trained and mentored... Not to boss them around!!

Have a read of this to see how a proper manager should behave

https://www.amazon.com.au/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth-ebook/dp/B06XP3GJ7F

I found this to be an excellent overview about the key responsibilities, attitudes and strategies for dealing with the increasingly senior positions that you might hold in your career:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XP3GJ7F/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

For me, the sections from tech lead onwards was critical in understanding not only my own role, but that of those above me from my manager right up to the CTO.

I'd recommend this book to everyone, and it's one of the few books that I can say has genuinely changed how I look at my career.

Manager's Path is a really good book about different levels of management, and Debugging Teams is a series of examples from the author's histories that can easily apply to your new position.

Don’t Work Stupid, Coach Yourself: 40 Things Managers Won’t Tell You. A Step by Step Guide to Coach Yourself

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q5DN87N

FREE until April 11th

> It's about ALL THE THINGS YOUR MANAGER WILL NOT TELL YOU! Learn how to survive, thrive, and succeed in the workplace, while avoiding office politics troubles and managers that can’t manage anything. You will learn decades of career secrets and build a life and profession of your choosing

>The workplace has transformed in the last 20 years because of technology, shifting social and political forces and generational differences. This book will show you how to survive, thrive, and succeed while avoiding office politics troubles and managers that can’t manage anything.

Thanks - sounds great! Just to be clear is this the book you are talking about?

https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Leadership-What-Takes-Take-ebook/dp/B002T18VF4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530895978&sr=8-1&keywords=preparing+for+leadership

I've worked with accredited chefs with 4 year degrees who were incompetent and had huge gaps in their food knowledge. They maintained their positions the way any incompetent con artists keep their jobs, through a combination of misdirection, bluster and brownnosing.

I've worked with chef without accreditation or degrees who were competent and reliable.

If you're a good worker and are ambitious, you can rectify any gaps in your knowledge. There are books that can help you, and Youtube can be a vital resource for learning techniques (for instance, teaching yourself how to hand toss pizza dough or part out a chicken for frying). A good start would be <em>The Non-Commercial Food Service Manager's Handbook</em>. The ebook version is $36.

I'd recommend reading the book Managing to Change the World by Allison Green and Jeffrey Hauser. It's largely about effective management within non-profit organizations, so it's not broadly applicable to the work that you do, but there are some very high quality chapters on things like managing your schedule, setting expectations, providing feedback to your boss/re-working expectations with your boss.

As you grow in your skills, you're going to be expected to provide broader and deeper insight into the work of your coworkers. That's just how getting better at your job works - you can only work so fast, so the best way to become more effective is to use force multipliers. As such, you need management skills, even if you're not in a management position. MTCTW is the best book I've read about picking up those skills and moving them forward. I highly recommend it.

<em>The One Minute Manager</em> remains relevant and useful. It sure helped me when I was new.

For the hospitality industry, <em>Setting the Table</em> by Danny Meyer is outstanding. I think it has applications for any business that has a customer base.

• Who: The A Method for Hiring
• Scaling Up

Why do you think he's incorrect? The dude runs a multibillion dollar company and wrote a very good book (imo) about how to manage people.

Edit: I do agree that some arrogant assholes are just arrogant assholes. But there are definitely some ambitious people out the who aim for the corner office from the day they start working in the mail room. And they succeed.