About the Book
In my book, I offer hard-earned career and management advice, drawing on numerous examples, stories, and scenarios of successes and failures from my own on-the-job experiences. I provide context and depth to my lessons learned, ensuring the advice offered is meaningful, understandable, and usable for the reader.
Excerpts from Individual Performer to Manager:
"If your main concern is for people to always "like" you, then you will never be a respected and successful leader. When people are not performing satisfactorily, when they are behaving in a manner that does not meet your or the company's standards, you must have the courage to confront people one-on-one to make sure they understand from you directly, that they are not meeting your expectations. If you don't take any action, or send someone else to do it, you will undermine and diminish people's respect for you…. "
"As a leader, you should acknowledge your people in your day-to-day interactions with them, not once a month, or during a six-month or annual review. You should seek out and always give credit where credit is due, never take credit when it belongs elsewhere, and never take credit alone for something you should be sharing with others."
Management progression: The topics and scenarios discussed in Individual Performer to Manager, and the advice offered, come primarily from the experiences that I lived through, working with people day in and day out, starting as an individual contributor, then progressively rising through the ranks to become a team leader, supervisor, manager, then manager of EDS's 192-person Southern California Systems Engineering/Solution Center in Los Angeles. I also became a credentialed Project Manager, over a thirty-year career with the large Fortune 500 Company, Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Hewlett-Packard (HP) acquired EDS in 2008, where I continued my career until I retired in 2015.
Management experience: This book captures some of the most noteworthy experiences from those years, where I had to compare and contrast the work and contributions of many employees, and also mentor, encourage, and provide guidance on how to improve their performance and impact. I had to assess people's performance and confront people one-on-one with performance issues, including terminating employees. I ranked people one above the other with supporting details; determined who would receive perks, bonuses, and salary increases; decided on who earned promotions and new opportunities; and also had the painful and demoralizing experience of having to lay many people off, not because of performance issues, but due to budget cutbacks. I recognized and celebrated successes with people and teams at both individual and project levels, but also had to gather and stand up at all-hands meetings to announce impending expense cutbacks, which resulted in hiring and salary freezes, as well as layoffs, and, of course, fielded many pointed questions.
Foremost: My goal with "Individual Performer to Manager " is to help people enhance their success as individual performers. This perspective stems from my own experience, where I often wondered whether I had the "right stuff" to keep advancing in my career. The book discusses how I overcame self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence to earn the respect of my coworkers and management.
I hope to reach people who, like I once thought, believe that they don't possess the necessary traits or aptitude, or that they may not be smart enough, or that they’re too quiet and timid to progress to higher levels in their career. Even if the reader has no desire to move into management, the topics on management should broaden the reader's perspective and understanding of that role, and provide him/her greater insight into how they and their work are being assessed and judged by management, to help them enhance their impact, performance, and value.
If the reader is targeting a management career track, this book, through numerous examples, covers some of the key aspects that I have experienced and learned, and provides tools, methods, and options that will help prepare the reader to face inevitable challenges, including those related to project management.
The author discusses these subjects on a deeply personal and experiential level, rather than from a typical business management textbook perspective. As one Publishers Weekly/Booklife critic wrote: "The author brings originality to this management guide through a narrative framework and by offering readers concrete, real-world examples rather than platitudes."
In my book, I offer hard-earned career and management advice, drawing on numerous examples, stories, and scenarios of successes and failures from my own on-the-job experiences. I provide context and depth to my lessons learned, ensuring the advice offered is meaningful, understandable, and usable for the reader.
Excerpts from Individual Performer to Manager:
"If your main concern is for people to always "like" you, then you will never be a respected and successful leader. When people are not performing satisfactorily, when they are behaving in a manner that does not meet your or the company's standards, you must have the courage to confront people one-on-one to make sure they understand from you directly, that they are not meeting your expectations. If you don't take any action, or send someone else to do it, you will undermine and diminish people's respect for you…. "
"As a leader, you should acknowledge your people in your day-to-day interactions with them, not once a month, or during a six-month or annual review. You should seek out and always give credit where credit is due, never take credit when it belongs elsewhere, and never take credit alone for something you should be sharing with others."
Management progression: The topics and scenarios discussed in Individual Performer to Manager, and the advice offered, come primarily from the experiences that I lived through, working with people day in and day out, starting as an individual contributor, then progressively rising through the ranks to become a team leader, supervisor, manager, then manager of EDS's 192-person Southern California Systems Engineering/Solution Center in Los Angeles. I also became a credentialed Project Manager, over a thirty-year career with the large Fortune 500 Company, Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Hewlett-Packard (HP) acquired EDS in 2008, where I continued my career until I retired in 2015.
Management experience: This book captures some of the most noteworthy experiences from those years, where I had to compare and contrast the work and contributions of many employees, and also mentor, encourage, and provide guidance on how to improve their performance and impact. I had to assess people's performance and confront people one-on-one with performance issues, including terminating employees. I ranked people one above the other with supporting details; determined who would receive perks, bonuses, and salary increases; decided on who earned promotions and new opportunities; and also had the painful and demoralizing experience of having to lay many people off, not because of performance issues, but due to budget cutbacks. I recognized and celebrated successes with people and teams at both individual and project levels, but also had to gather and stand up at all-hands meetings to announce impending expense cutbacks, which resulted in hiring and salary freezes, as well as layoffs, and, of course, fielded many pointed questions.
Foremost: My goal with "Individual Performer to Manager " is to help people enhance their success as individual performers. This perspective stems from my own experience, where I often wondered whether I had the "right stuff" to keep advancing in my career. The book discusses how I overcame self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence to earn the respect of my coworkers and management.
I hope to reach people who, like I once thought, believe that they don't possess the necessary traits or aptitude, or that they may not be smart enough, or that they’re too quiet and timid to progress to higher levels in their career. Even if the reader has no desire to move into management, the topics on management should broaden the reader's perspective and understanding of that role, and provide him/her greater insight into how they and their work are being assessed and judged by management, to help them enhance their impact, performance, and value.
If the reader is targeting a management career track, this book, through numerous examples, covers some of the key aspects that I have experienced and learned, and provides tools, methods, and options that will help prepare the reader to face inevitable challenges, including those related to project management.
The author discusses these subjects on a deeply personal and experiential level, rather than from a typical business management textbook perspective. As one Publishers Weekly/Booklife critic wrote: "The author brings originality to this management guide through a narrative framework and by offering readers concrete, real-world examples rather than platitudes."