Gower Handbook of Management Skills

Citation

Mann, S. (2000), "Gower Handbook of Management Skills", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 21 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2000.02221hae.002

Gower Handbook of Management Skills

Gower Handbook of Management Skills

Edited by Dorothy M. StewartGowerAldershot1999456 pp.ISBN 0 566 08263 2 (paperback)£25.00

Keywords Management, Skills, Interpersonal communications

"This is the book I wish I'd had in my desk drawer when I was first a manager." So says the editor of this book, Dorothy Stewart, an independent consultant. These opening words do, in fact, sum up the content of the book in that it is an ideal text for the first-time manager. However, as the more experienced manager is likely to be somewhat frustrated by the basic and simple advice offered, readers should pay careful heed to the editor's opening remarks before rushing out to purchase this book.

The book is structured into three logical parts: "Managing yourself", "Managing other people" and "Managing business". Part 1 deals with personal skills and includes chapters on managing your time (topics include "choosing a diary", "determining priorities" and "electronic organisers"), speaking in public (includes "eliminating tension", "creating a feeling of confidence" and "preparing thematerial") and coping with stress(including "causes of stress", "signs of stress" and "coping at the top"). Part 2 covers people skills such as listening (including "leaving your internal critic out of the conversation", "listening to criticism" and "accept what you are hearing"), interviewing (including "body language" and "structuredinterviewing") and dealing with problem staff (including "eight categories of problem staff", and legal issues), while Part 3 focuses on business management such as decision making (including problem solving, contingency planning and creativity), negotiating (including "styles of negotiation" and "key negotiating principles") and project management (including "project definition" and "project appraisal").

As the above contents listingindicates, a wealth of important, if not essential, topics are covered in the text, and, while this means the book is all-inclusive, I do feel it means that depth is compromised. It is impossible to really do justice to fields such as "project management" or "coping with stress" when these are areas that generally warrant the dedication of a whole book. The editor does try to get around this problem to some extent by recommending further reading at the end of each chapter, but it is likely that more experienced managers will probably have already read some of these recommended texts themselves. Inevitably, some areas are dealt with in more depth than others – for example, although the entire field of personality is summed up inadequately in half a page, the chapter on communication manages to cover a much wider arena.

Generally, the material is very well presented and includes several very useful figures and diagrams – such as "mind maps", "setting challenging objectives" and "recruitment check-list". Overall, I feel that the Gower Handbook of Management Skills, with its acknowledged lack of "fancy models and useless theories", should be a useful (and easy) read for new managers – especially those without any prior training. More experienced managers should save their money – although wise ones will try and can get access to this from their company training library and pick out the most useful chapters and scan the others for a quick revision of their skills.

Sandi MannUniversity of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK