Bare Knuckle People Management
Creating Success with the Team You Have - Winners, Losers, Misfits, and All
By: Sean O'Neil, John Kulisek
May 3, 2011
Format: Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1935618482
ISBN-13: 978-1935618485
Publisher: BenBella Books
"Managers often struggle with how to transfer their frontline skills into middle management skills", write sales training and sales management experts Sean O'Neil and John Kulisek, in their no nonsense and results oriented book Bare Knuckle People Management: Creating Success with the Team You Have - Winners, Losers, Misfits, and All. The authors describe how to make a successful transition from frontine star to people management superstar.
Sean O'Neil and John Kulisek pull no punches as they guide the new manager through the players on the team. The authors understand that every team has outstanding achievers, average performers, weak producers, unusual misfits, and outright problem people.For a freshly promoted manager, or a manager moving laterally to assume the leadership of a different team, the difference in talent, performance, and attitude of the team members, can spell disaster for the unwary. The author present a sports themed analogy to describe in detail the various individual archetypes found on most teams. Instead of prescribing a set of rules to follow for every occasion, the authors take the alternative approach of treating each team member as an individual, with their own motivations and personal goals.
Sean O'Neil (left in photo) and John Kulisek (right in photo) move beyond the usual kid gloves, employee appreciation mantra that pervades workplaces in the corporate world. While the encouraging word may do wonders for motivating many, if not most employees, the authors emphasize that the soft skills approach won't work for all employees. They don't discount positive encouragement, and recommend it for those staff members with whom it works, but recognize the reality that some team members will not respond to positive reinforcement. Taking the sports team coaching analogy to the trenches of today's work environment, the authors realize that some workers need a hard nosed management approach.
On the other hand, the authors don't recommend that technique for all employees either. Instead, they suggest an individualized management technique, based on both the manager's skills and personality, and the characteristics of the individual team members. The authors point out that the great coaches in sports employ an individualized method of finding and deploying the strengths of each team member to benefit the overall performance of the entire organization.
For me, the power of the book is how Sean O'Neil and John Kulisek take a real world approach to people management based on the individual strengths and weaknesses of each team member. The authors combine straight from the hip honest assessments of the usual members of any team, with an understanding that different people require different motivational techniques. At the same time, the authors recognize that even the weakest members of the team can provide value if their strengths are put into play.
Another strong point in favor of the book is how the authors don't press a one size fits all management model onto the reader. Indeed, the authors actually oppose standardized management concepts. The authors know that all of the team members, from the best achievers to the problem employees, respond to different motivational strategies. The focus on the manager being a unique person, working with a team of individuals, provides real value in this book.
I highly recommend the straight talking and coaching based book Bare Knuckle People Management: Creating Success with the Team You Have - Winners, Losers, Misfits, and All by Sean O'Neil and John Kulisek, to anyone seeking an alternative to the usual all encompassing employee management concepts utilized in today's workplaces. This book considers the more rough and informal atmosphere that exists in many work environments, and capitalizes on the strengths of individuals within that modern milieu.
Read the engaging and insightful book Bare Knuckle People Management: Creating Success with the Team You Have - Winners, Losers, Misfits, and All by Sean O'Neil and John Kulisek, and move beyond the usual management bromides, and take a peek into the real world of management. Your success as a manager and as an organization may depend on it.
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