“The way we deal with our team directly relates to the results that are achieved,” Irvine notes, arguing that management should take care of staff, who takes care of customers, who in turn, satisfied with the service they’re receiving, take care of the shareholders. Irvine lays out different types of managers and workplace cultures, arguing the benefits of a “performance management” system of leadership that treats team members like customers, emphasizes a vision and clear procedures, emphasizes accurate, consistent, fact-based feedback, and calls upon management to model behavior and establish boundaries and consequences.

Despite this volume’s concision, Irvine still offers multiple methods of offering feedback and evaluations to workers, designed to encourage positive performance and, when necessary, address and correct problems. Quick introductions to delegating and time management (including the “80/20 rule”) may spark lightbulbs in some readers, though the brevity of these sections—and a dearth of real-world examples—may limit their utility, though even here Irvine’s emphasis is on the immediately actionable, offering steps to break cycles of becoming overwhelmed due to a lack of trust or time or other factors. Irvine’s time-efficient guide stands as a helpful, engaging read that offers more wisdom than books demanding many more hours.

Takeaway: Concise and actionable advice for managing teams, demanding just an hour of readers’ time.

Great for fans of: Julie Zhou’s The Making of a Manager, Brad Jackson and Ken Parry’s A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A