Managing For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Introduction

Congratulations! As a result of your astute choice of material, you're about to read a completely fresh approach to the topic of management. If you've already read other books about management, you've surely noticed that most of them fall into one of two categories: (1) deadly boring snooze-o-rama that makes a great paperweight; or (2) recycled platitudes glazed with a thin sugar coating of pop psychobabble, which sound great on paper but fail abysmally in the real world.

Managing For Dummies, 3rd Edition is different. First, this book is fun. Our approach reflects our strong belief and experience that management can be fun, too. You can get the job done and have fun in the process. We even help you maintain a sense of humor in the face of the seemingly insurmountable challenges that all managers have to deal with from time to time. On some days, you'll face challenges — perhaps pushing you to your limit or beyond. However, on many more days, the joys of managing — teaching a new skill to an employee, helping land a new customer, accomplishing an important assignment, and so on — can bring you a sense of fulfillment that you never imagined possible.

Second, the vast majority of popular business books seem to be here today and gone tomorrow. Like it or not, many managers (and the companies they work for) seem to be ruled by the business fad of the month. In Managing For Dummies, 3rd Edition, we buck the trend by concentrating on tried-and-true solutions to the most common ...