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The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance
Citing the long-term consequences of unchecked, substandard worker performance, a guide for managers shares strategies on how to address minor mistakes and ineffective work habits at their earliest stages while building fairer, interdependent employment teams. 35,000 first printing.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published April 25, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 25, 2008
The Managerial Moment of Truth: The Essential Step in Helping People Improve Performance
Bruce Bodaken and Robert Fritz
Free Press/The Perseus Group
The title refers to special events shared by supervisors and those for whom they are responsible. Each is a opportunity to reveal a pleasant or unpleasant “truth” of one kind or another. For example, we appreciate being recognized for exceptional performance, whether or not a reward is involved; we resent having such performance ignored. We appreciate being told “the unvarnished truth in ways that are accessible, kind, and supportive”; we resent public humiliation. Bodaken and Fritz offer an approach to managers and their organizations which can “revolutionize” how people work together, think together, and create the future together. They have found that this approach (the Managerial Moment of Truth or MMOT) “can add anywhere from 25 to 40 percent more actual capacity to organizations without adding significant cost.” In fact, they have convinced me that their approach – if sustained over time – can actually save substantial amounts of both dollars and hours. MMOT is based on four basic factors: “the manager’s bility to see the unvarnished reality, the manager’s ability to bring people into a process of analyzing that reality, then creating a better designed managerial approach for the future, and finally establishing a system of follow-through as a mmentoring process for improved performance.” Bodaken and Fritz explain how to formulate and then implement such a program. They also offer and abundance of real-evidence which demonstrates how much various organizations have improved performance enterprise-wide by taking the MMOT approach.
Bruce Bodaken and Robert Fritz
Free Press/The Perseus Group
The title refers to special events shared by supervisors and those for whom they are responsible. Each is a opportunity to reveal a pleasant or unpleasant “truth” of one kind or another. For example, we appreciate being recognized for exceptional performance, whether or not a reward is involved; we resent having such performance ignored. We appreciate being told “the unvarnished truth in ways that are accessible, kind, and supportive”; we resent public humiliation. Bodaken and Fritz offer an approach to managers and their organizations which can “revolutionize” how people work together, think together, and create the future together. They have found that this approach (the Managerial Moment of Truth or MMOT) “can add anywhere from 25 to 40 percent more actual capacity to organizations without adding significant cost.” In fact, they have convinced me that their approach – if sustained over time – can actually save substantial amounts of both dollars and hours. MMOT is based on four basic factors: “the manager’s bility to see the unvarnished reality, the manager’s ability to bring people into a process of analyzing that reality, then creating a better designed managerial approach for the future, and finally establishing a system of follow-through as a mmentoring process for improved performance.” Bodaken and Fritz explain how to formulate and then implement such a program. They also offer and abundance of real-evidence which demonstrates how much various organizations have improved performance enterprise-wide by taking the MMOT approach.
June 25, 2010
I'm a manager at work and my boss asked me to read this book about managing that has informed some his management style. That's a great opportunity—to explicitly know where your boss is coming from. And the information presented in the book seems actually useful as well—it's a philosophy and process for handling the times when an employee has failed to meet expectations: missed a deadline, turned in work with mistakes or not up to quality, etc. The process is fairly straightforward. It's about fostering an environment based in reality and honesty.
There's a couple things that frustrated me: Like with many of this sort of business book, the essential notion could probably be expressed in a pamphlet, but no one's going to pay $20 for a pamphlet, so it's been padded out. Also, the writing is very stiff and businessy. And the example conversations in the book are all so simplistic as to drive me crazy. (The Boss makes the point that it's simple to make the points. But does it all have to sound like people in a 1950s industrial film?)
But that reality and honesty stuff. Man, that's some powerful ideas there.
There's a couple things that frustrated me: Like with many of this sort of business book, the essential notion could probably be expressed in a pamphlet, but no one's going to pay $20 for a pamphlet, so it's been padded out. Also, the writing is very stiff and businessy. And the example conversations in the book are all so simplistic as to drive me crazy. (The Boss makes the point that it's simple to make the points. But does it all have to sound like people in a 1950s industrial film?)
But that reality and honesty stuff. Man, that's some powerful ideas there.
July 26, 2016
Great management book! The main idea is to have conversations related to performance using the follow steps:
1. Acknowledge reality (both parts) and agree with it
2. Explore why it happened and the chain of decisions that led to it
3. Elaborate an action plan to change the next outcomes
4. Create a feedback system to monitor if the plan is working
1. Acknowledge reality (both parts) and agree with it
2. Explore why it happened and the chain of decisions that led to it
3. Elaborate an action plan to change the next outcomes
4. Create a feedback system to monitor if the plan is working
September 21, 2011
I was very impressed by this book. Telling the truth is important to professional success, but sometimes it can be hard to know how to do it, something this book addresses well. This is one of the best management books I've read in some time, though it's not a new title.
March 30, 2013
An optional-read book on performance management for knowledge workers, managers, executives, and entrepreneurs.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews