Get Out of the Way
How to Manage Development of Timely, Innovative and Relevant Products
By: John Levy
Published: May 19, 2010
Format: Paperback, 154 pages
ISBN-10: 1600051758
ISBN-13: 978-1600051753
Publisher: Happy About
"Great technology and outstanding processes are not enough to make great products", writes management consultant John Levy in his enlightening and practical book Get Out of the Way: How to Manage Development of Timely, Innovative and Relevant Products. The author describes how management of people is critical to success in product development, product competitiveness, and customer service.
John Levy, as a high technology expert himself, understands how managers with an engineering or technology background often lack the people management skills for leading and coaching individuals and teams. With experience in solving deterministic problems, high tech people bring extensive technical problem solving skills to their management roles. Unfortunately, these skills fail the manager when organizing and leading teams. To alleviate this problem, John levy offers practical advice to managers, from a technical background, how to get out of the way. Becoming more people focused, and letting go of technical leadership, creates more effective managers while helping teams become more innovative and effective. For the author, the result is more timely, competitive, and profitable products that better serve the needs of the customers.
John Levy (photo left) recognizes the learning curve required for managers with a technological background, and provides real world advice to help them develop into great team leaders. The author stresses leadership by trusting the people on the team do their job with a minimum of interference in their creative process. |The author presents an outcomes based goal for the new manager. They include:
* Developing timely products that are more competitive
* Creating innovative products that gain market share
* Designing relevant products that make customers loyal
For me, the power of the book is how John Levy provides straight forward, relevant concepts for transforming a manager into an effective team leader and coach. While the emphasis of the book is for managers emerging from high technology or engineering backgrounds, the approach to trusting people and getting out of their way is applicable for any manager. Through the use of stories and real world examples, John Levy demonstrates how the very skills and biases that made a technical person effective, will work against the project manager when leading a team. Those very biases will cause a manager to get into the way of the team, reducing its effectiveness as innovators. This book provides a hands on guide for managers to go against their problem solving tendencies and become great team leaders and coaches.
I highly recommend the insightful and very user friendly book Get Out of the Way: How to Manage Development of Timely, Innovative and Relevant Products by John Levy, to any manager whether from a technical or engineering background seeking to make a smooth and effective transition from team member to trust based manager. The resulting transformation need need not be difficult as John Levy illustrates, but one that is liberating for the manager and the team. By following the author's advice, a manager and the project team will become a creative force for timely products that compete successfully and build customer loyalty.
Read the approachable and engaging book Get Out of the Way: How to Manage Development of Timely, Innovative and Relevant Products by John Levy, and become a superior project manager, who stays out of the way of creative teams, and facilitates unlimited innovation. The competition will be left behind as a result.
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