Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter E. Friedes is former CEO of Hewitt Associates, an international human resources consulting firm. During his twenty-three-year tenure, Hewitt Associates grew over 20 percent per year and was featured in the book The 100 Best Companies to Work For in America. Friedes has taught at Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Emory, and the University of Michigan.

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The Book CEO's and Employees Want Their Managers to Read
Managers have naturally either a "relating" or a "requiring" style. Those who naturally require are weaker at relating, and vice versa. The best managers possess the ability to do both well and know when to choose one over the other. Having the ability to relate and require is fundamental for effective managing. The 2R Manager offers specific advice tailored to an individual manager's current management style. Take the self-surveys, see the results, and learn the effect you have on those you manage. The 2R Manager will reveal what changes you must make in your management style . . . and will tell you exactly how to make them.

"The 2R Manager moves the reader effortlessly from intriguing premise through interactive diagnostics to effective personalized coaching that will improve management performance. It's an exceptionally engaging book." --John Eyler, chairman and chief executive officer, Toys "R" Us, Inc.

"Identifying that Relating and Requiring are fundamental management skills is profound in its simplicity. More importantly, Friedes tells you how and when to do both. It makes total sense. The 2R Manager is very well written, a must-read for managers." --Bonnie C. Hathcock, senior vice president and chief human resources officer, Humana, Inc.

"Peter Friedes knows and understands things about managing that most of us struggle a lifetime to learn. At last, with this book, he is sharing his insights with a general audience." --From the Foreword by David Maister, author and leading authority on managing professional service firms

Aus dem Klappentext

The Book CEO's and Employees Want Their Managers to Read
Managers have naturally either a "relating" or a "requiring" style. Those who naturally require are weaker at relating, and vice versa. The best managers possess the ability to do both well and know when to choose one over the other. Having the ability to relate and require is fundamental for effective managing. The 2R Manager offers specific advice tailored to an individual manager's current management style. Take the self-surveys, see the results, and learn the effect you have on those you manage. The 2R Manager will reveal what changes you must make in your management style . . . and will tell you exactly how to make them.

"The 2R Manager moves the reader effortlessly from intriguing premise through interactive diagnostics to effective personalized coaching that will improve management performance. It's an exceptionally engaging book." --John Eyler, chairman and chief executive officer, Toys "R" Us, Inc.

"Identifying that Relating and Requiring are fundamental management skills is profound in its simplicity. More importantly, Friedes tells you how and when to do both. It makes total sense. The 2R Manager is very well written, a must-read for managers." --Bonnie C. Hathcock, senior vice president and chief human resources officer, Humana, Inc.

"Peter Friedes knows and understands things about managing that most of us struggle a lifetime to learn. At last, with this book, he is sharing his insights with a general audience." --From the Foreword by David Maister, author and leading authority on managing professional service firms

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The 2R Manager

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

The 3Rs are the foundation of American education. Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic are the building blocks on which all advanced learning depends. Even if a student is brilliant in math and knows his future is in this field, he is expected to become proficient in reading and writing. No matter what a student's most "natural" R might be, she is taught the other two on the assumption that one way or another, they will be needed. The brilliant mathematician, for instance, may be able to convince his colleagues that his new theorem is correct because he is able to write a clear, persuasive paper on the subject. While he may lean on his math skills to make his reputation, he must also access his reading and writing capabilities to further his career and perform his job more effectively.

The 2R system serves a similar function for managers. To be a good manager today, you need the versatility to relate to the people you manage and to require that they produce results. Of these 2Rs, one is going to be more natural for you than the other. The trick is learning how to use your less natural R, when needed, to acquire the versatility of a 2R manager and the increased effectiveness that comes with it.

THE PROBLEM WITH BEING A 1R MANAGER

Managerial performance suffers when people get locked into one style. All of us are Relaters or Requirers to varying degrees. At the extreme, the Requirer acts like a drill sergeant when she should be collaborating, whereas the Relater is trying to be his subordinate's best friend when he should be setting deadlines and goals. Most managers don't operate at the extreme-they are not 100 percent Relater or Requirer-but they are overly reliant on their natural style. They are so dependent on that style, in fact, that they deny themselves access to a range of problem-solving ideas and effective approaches. Many managers operate at significantly reduced capacity by ignoring or infrequently using their less natural style.

Jack, for instance, was a young brand manager with a Fortune 500 company. He had a sterling pedigree-Harvard M.B.A., two years with a top consulting firm, and three years of glowing performance reviews. Jack was known in the company as someone who met deadlines, brought projects in on budget, and possessed superior marketing skills. During his first three years with the company, he was rotated through a series of staff assignments and consistently came up with problem-solving ideas. Because management had tabbed him as a high-potential employee, he was expected to perform well in his first-time managerial position.

It wasn't that Jack performed poorly in this position. His first assignment, introducing a line extension, went well. Jack crafted an innovative strategy and worked with his people and the company's ad and sales promotion agencies to create a splash. After a solid test-marketing program and rollout, however, a competitor introduced a similar product with lowball pricing that began eroding Jack's company's share. Jack responded by riding his people and his agencies hard to develop a plan to regain market share. When they didn't come up with anything he found suitable after a few days, he took on the assignment himself, working round the clock for a week to devise a new strategy. Although his direct reports liked aspects of Jack's plan, they also noted some glaring flaws. Two of his people, who had worked on the brand for a number of years and were more familiar with the market than Jack was, pointed them out. But Jack brushed them aside and refused to entertain a discussion of the issues they had raised.

When the strategy was implemented, it didn't live up to Jack's or the company's expectations. Just as significant, Jack had quickly created a bad relationship with his direct reports, who were convinced that their boss wouldn't listen to their ideas unless they agreed with his own. His inability to use a Relating style when it was needed damaged his relationships, thereby causing his people to withhold ideas and information in the future. If Jack doesn't learn to use his other R, he won't be on the fast track for long. Either negative feedback from his people will reach Jack's boss, or his group will lose talented individuals. Careers are derailed when managers fail to learn to use their other R.

Essentially, people like Jack are managing with one hand tied behind their back. Like just about every manager, he is capable of drawing on both Relating and Requiring styles. The problem, of course, is that most managers reflexively apply their dominant style, especially in times of stress. If they're Relaters dealing with a crisis situation, they automatically try to relate their way out of that crisis, rarely considering a Requiring solution. It's as if they have a blind spot that keeps them from seeing other possibilities.

Managers who are more versatile can choose from a much greater spectrum of alternatives. In a workplace where versatility is becoming increasingly important, this is a major advantage. Unfortunately, traditional management training does not focus on versatility. Instead, it tries to help managers learn each of the different functions that make up managing, usually in discrete modules.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION, NOT ENOUGH TIME

It's difficult to train managers effectively in an environment where they have less time and more to do than ever before. Years ago, managers did most of their learning on the job over long periods of time, observing their bosses in action. These informal apprenticeships allowed them to pick up skills incrementally, an appropriate training approach in that they were given increased responsibility at a slow, measured pace.

Today, with many managers barely more experienced than the people they manage, there is no time for slow, or even fast, apprenticeships. To accelerate learning, numerous types of training may have become part of a manager's daily life. You may have attended sessions on an assortment of topics, from communication, decision making, leadership, or project management to diversity, team-building, e-commerce, performance appraisal, compensation, or something else. A host of techniques, including coaching, brainstorming, risk-taking outdoor adventures, distance learning, and computer simulations may have been used to help you. But how much has the learning process really been accelerated?

Just about every company is concerned about rising training costs and the lack of return on that investment. Developing managers by creating discrete training modules for each management function is too slow. With so many topics, organizations are forced to select the most vital ones, leaving important gaps. There's too much for managers to absorb in the time they and their organizations are willing to devote to it. Perhaps more important, the training is often not designed to adapt to the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of existing managers.

HEARING WHAT YOU BELIEVE, TUNING OUT WHAT YOU DON'T

People hear best the ideas that reinforce what they already believe. If you are naturally a Relater, you readily absorb the Relating messages in a training session (or in a workshop, lecture, or book). The instructor might talk about the need for managers to be supportive of their direct reports and learn to empathize with them. Upon hearing the...