The best managers work smarter, not harder After conducting a unique global study of over 9,000 people, analysts at the world-leading sales research firm Gartner identified four distinct types of manager. Incredibly, they found one type consistently performs far better than the rest, and it wasn’t the one they were expecting. Connector Managers understand that it’s not enough for managers to just encourage and teach employees themselves, and that providing constant coaching to employees can actually be detrimental to their independent development. Instead, by connecting employees to others in the team or organisation, Connector Managers can help their employees develop a range of skills beyond their own areas of expertise. Although the four types of managers are more or less evenly distributed, employees with Connector Managers perform significantly better than others. Employees with Always-on Managers who provide constant feedback and coaching perform significantly worse. Drawing on their ground-breaking data-driven research, as well as in-depth case studies and extensive interviews with thousands of managers, you’ll discover what behaviours define Connector Managers and how you can use them yourself to build brilliant, powerhouse teams.

Newly updated and backed by decades of research, this classic guide will equip leaders and team members alike to unleash the power of teamwork. Never before in the history of the workplace has the concept of teamwork been more important to the functioning of successful organizations. Ken Blanchard, bestselling coauthor of Raving Fans, The One Minute Manager® and Gung Ho!, teams up with Donald Carew and Eunice Parisi-Carew to explain how all groups move through four stages of development on their way to becoming high performing teams—orientation, dissatisfaction, integration and production. The authors then show how a manager can help any group become effective quickly and with a minimum of stress.

There are four distinct types of managers. One performs much worse than the rest, and one performs far better. Which type are you? Based on a first-of-its-kind, wide-ranging global study of over 9,000 people, analysts at the global research and advisory firm Gartner were able to classify all managers into one of four types: Teacher managers, who develop employees' skills based on their own expertise and direct their development along a similar track to their own. Cheerleader managers, who give positive feedback while taking a general hands-off approach to employee development. Always-on managers, who provide constant, frequent feedback and coaching on all aspects of the employee's performance. Connector managers, who provide feedback in their area of expertise while connecting employees to others in the team or organization who are better suited to address specific needs. Although the four types of managers are more or less evenly distributed, the Connector manager consistently outperforms the others by a significant margin. Meanwhile, Always-on managers tend to see their employees struggle to grow within the organization. Why is that? Drawing on their groundbreaking data-driven research, as well as in-depth case studies and extensive interviews with managers and employees at companies like IBM, Accenture, and eBay, the authors show what behaviors define a Connector manager, and why they are able to build powerhouse teams. They also show why other types of managers fail to be equally effective, and how they can incorporate behaviors of Connector managers in order to be more effective at building teams.

If you're like most managers and things keep you up at night, now you can turn to a book that's designed especially for you! But you won't find talking rabbits or princesses here. (There is a cow, but it doesn't jump.) Henry Mintzberg has culled forty-two of the best posts from his widely read blog and turned them into a deceptively light, sneakily serious compendium of sometimes heretical reflections on management. The moral here is this: managers need to leave their castles and find out what's actually going on in their kingdoms. And like real bedtime stories, these essays have metaphors galore. So prepare to grow strategies like weeds and organize like a cow. Discover the maestro myth of managing, find the soft underbelly of hard data, and learn why downsizing is bloodletting and your board should be a bee. Mintzberg writes, “Just try not to be outraged by anything you read, because some of my most outrageous ideas turn out to be my best. They just take a while to become obvious.”

Leadership has for too long been treated as a function and not as a relationship. Zina Sutch and Patrick Malone argue that successful leadership must be based on love (altruism and empathy) and laughter (positive emotions and joy). Science tells us that humans are deeply wired for empathy and compassion and that our emotional selves help us make better decisions and motivate others. However, the tactics we use to train leaders bear little reflection of these advancements; we're still creating competent but emotionally distant leaders who “manage human assets” and lead by setting goals, deadlines, and deliverables. Zina Sutch and Patrick Malone hope to flip a light switch and illuminate, above all else, that leadership begins with heart and soul. Too many training programs reduce leadership to an equation, matrix, or acronym. But leadership is a relationship. It's one human helping another. The most successful leaders show they genuinely care about their employees and are, well, fun. It's just like any relationship. In seven succinct chapters, the authors show that people lead best when they tap into their genetically driven human nature to love and nurture, connect and trust. Leading with love and laughter offers powerful dividends: tighter teams, stronger performance, improved morale, greater trust, more creativity, and even better health. While Sutch and Malone cite the science and offer examples, tips, and practices, their larger purpose is to reintroduce the warmth of human interaction and emotion as the foundation of what leadership is all about.

In a time of increasing disconnection and uncertainty, Leading with Joy shows how leaders can reclaim their purpose and embrace joy in service of social transformation. Leadership that connects people and centers compassion and trust instead of competition and disconnection is needed more than ever before. There are plenty of manuals that show people how to manage organizations, but what is really needed in this moment is a book that shows us how to include kindness and inspiration within leadership. Leading with Joy promotes a courageous and compassionate approach to leadership that can sustain purposeful action and social change. This book takes the form of a series of vignettes about the authors' insights and stories, with reflection questions at the end of each one. Through these stories-which address topics such as workplace triumphs and lessons, family relationships, and even near-death experiences- Akaya Windwood and Rajasvini Bhansali illuminate different aspects of leadership, such as humility, forgiveness, and kindness, and invite leaders to respond to the current moment. The book draws on the authors' lived experiences as leaders, including their encounters with oppression, and their wisdom in principled leadership. They demonstrate how leaders can create conditions of abundance and well-being, which are necessary for long-term social transformation.

Learn the relationship-building secrets that lead to lifelong clients, repeat customers, and endless referrals In today's commoditized marketplace, no matter what product or service you sell, there's probably someone somewhere able to offer it cheaper, faster, and maybe even better. So how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? The Connectors shows that the only thing that truly sets you apart is the quality of your relationships with your clients and customers. Everyone knows that relationships are important in business. Yet most people would admit that their relationships could be better—but don’t spend time working on the underlying skills. This book explains how to develop better, more profitable connections—as illustrated proven by some of the world’s most successful professionals. Even if you're not a “people person,” you can dramatically grow your business or your career through a few simple approaches to relationship-building. The Connectors presents a five-step methodology that lead to lifelong clients, repeat customers, and endless referrals. Inside, you'll learn how to: Stop networking and start truly connecting Create an avalanche of referrals and an army of happy customers Become a "connector," even if you’ve never been a "people person" Find your social IQ—and improve it Put relationship-building principles to work daily Focus on others and reap the rewards yourself Ask the right questions—and sell without selling Differentiate yourself through the impact you have on others In The Connectors, Maribeth Kuzmeski, founder of Red Zone Marketing, LLC, and consultant to Fortune 500 firms, shows you how to build profitable, long-lasting business relationships.

Previous books of the Leadership Horizon Series showed unequivocally how both leaders and followers play an equally important part in the co-production of leadership outcomes, and how leader and follower identities are fluid, so that the same individual can enact both at different times. This book stretches the notion of leadership a step further by exploring the co-enactment of both roles, identities, and positions of leader and follower by one same individual. This individual is defined as a connecting leader, as in this co-enactment he/she functions as connector between different leadership relationships. The concept of connecting leader emerges from the observation that most individuals in organizations engage in the leader-follower role co-enactment: managers, pulled between executives and reportees; CEOs, between the board and the head of departments; or employees involved in cross functional teams, leading and following in different degrees, subject to their expertise. Yet, despite its pervasiveness this concept is at best under theorized by the literature, which, dominated by dyadic and romanticized views, mostly presents the roles as enacted by separate individuals facing each other. To advance our understanding of connecting leaders the editor proposes to shift our focus on leadership in three ways: to unpack the interconnectedness and interplay of leader and follower identities; to investigate the tensions arising from the co-enactment and how these can be overcome; to widen the way in which we study leadership, through new configurations (e.g. leadership triads) and ontologies; and finally to consider the similarities between leading and following. The book chapters are organized to mirror these areas of exploration. Understanding leadership from a perspective that acknowledges that many individuals in organizations are not just leaders or followers, but both, democratizes the way we theorize leadership, and moves us further away from the temptation to romanticize it.

Create a personal "power grid" of influence to spark professional and personal success "Other people have the answers, deals, money, access, power, and influence you need to get what you want in this world. To achieve any goal, you need other people to help you do it." -- JUDY ROBINETT As anyone in business knows, strategic planning is critical to achieving long-term success. In How to Be a Power Connector, super-networker Judy Robinett argues that strategic relationship planning should be your top priority. When you combine your specific skills and talents with a clear, workable path for creating and managing your relationships, nothing will stop you from meeting your goals. With high-value connections, you'll tap into a dynamic "power grid" of influence guaranteed to accelerate your personal and professional success. Robinett uses her decades of experience connecting the world's highest achievers with one another to help you build high-value relationships. She reveals all the secrets of her trade, including proven ways to: Find and enter the best network "ecosystem" to meet your goals Reach even the most unreachable people quickly and effectively Get anyone's contact information within 30 seconds Create a "3-D connection" that adds value to multiple people at the same time Access key infl uencers through industry and community events Subtly seed conversation with information about interests and needs Use social media to your best advantage Robinett has based her methods on solid research proving that social groups begin to break up when they become larger than 150 people, and that 50 members is the optimal size for group communication. As such, she has developed what she calls the "5+50+100" method: contact your top 5 connections daily, your Key 50 weekly, and your Vital 100 monthly. this is your power grid, and it will work wonders for your career. Nothing will stop you when you learn How to Be a Power Connector. PRAISE FOR HOW TO BE A POWER CONNECTOR: "Unlike many books in this genre, this one is written by a woman who has lived it.. . . Judy Robinett offers guidance on how to form authentic relationships that bring mutual benefits." -- ADAM GRANT, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take "How to Be a Power Connector is like an MBA in networking: an advanced course in finding and developing quality relationships with the people who can make the biggest difference in your professional success." -- IVAN MISNER, founder and chairman of BNI "Talk about power! Follow Judy Robinett's logical, straightforward, and helpfully detailed advice, and you can be a 'Power Connector' yourself! Great ideas, well presented, with no ‘wasted space’ in her argument!" -- DON PEPPERS, coauthor of Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage "Absolutely brilliant. A step-by-step guide to building a network that will be both invaluable to you and just as valuable to those whose lives you will now have the opportunity to touch. I can't imagine a more powerful book for one who truly desires to be a Power Connector." -- BOB BURG, coauthor of The Go-Giver and author of Adversaries into Allies "In the C-Suite or in your personal life everything comes down to the quality of your relationships. Judy's book helps you attract and maintain the relationships that will get you what you want most. Be a super connector now!" -- JEFFREY HAYZLETT, TV host and bestselling author of Running the Gauntlet

"This book presents a comprehensive collection of the most current research on various aspects, roles, and functions of digital enterprises"--Provided by publisher.