Book review: Manager's Answer Book

content/reviews/books/managers-answer-book.md

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
++++
+title = "The Manager's Answer Book - Barbara Mitchell, Cornelia Gamlem"
+date = 2021-08-25
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["reviews", "books", "books:2021", "management"]
++++
+
+[OpenLibrary
+Summary](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL28202958M/The_Manager%27s_Answer_Book):
+Powerful Tools to Maximize Your Impact and Influence, Build Trust and Teams, and
+Respond to Challenges
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+{{ stars(stars=2) }}
+
+Honestly, I didn't finish reading the book.
+
+First, the style of showing content by the way of questions doesn't quite fit
+the way I read, specially when the questions are specially designed to provide
+an answer -- and not the other way around.
+
+Second, most of the answers are quite obvious, in the style "How can I manage
+X?" with the answer "Ask the people who were doing it in the first". Well, duh.
+
+Third, the question style is somewhat confusing. It uses the pattern of "I
+read/saw/heard about X. What can I do about it?", with different styles of
+X. There are even questions which one could almost say are non-sequiturs, like
+(paraphrasing) "I'm a highly hands-on person, how can I write the reports the
+financial team is asking me?". You can be both, and none of those two are
+actually related.
+
+Fourth, there are a bunch of useless comments in the middle, which gives the
+impression of filler, like "As a manager, you have to do several things." No
+shit, Sherlock.
+
+And fifth, by 75% of the book, there was a question about what one should report
+and I quote "Evidence of union activity should be reported to your human
+resources or legal support as soon as possible. Early detection of and rapid
+response to union activity has long been key to union avoidance." So, if I get
+this right, it means that me, as a manager, should be a union busting asshole?
+Fuck. Off.
+
+That's when I gave up. I was already tired of the style and then, instead of
+suggesting speaking to people invested in it to check why they believe an union
+is necessary or what could be done to avoid the creation of the union in the
+first place. But no, you must report to legal so they can burst the whole thing
+down. Great, what a great person you've become.