The Manager's Handbook: Five Simple Steps to Build a Team, Stay Focused, Make Better Decisions, and Crush Your Competition

I graduated Stanford Graduate School of Business, and I even took one of Professor Dodson's classes. Even still, I learned new, simple yet powerful best practices that are immediately actionable (some of which I've already started implementing in my organization).Dodson's writing style is pithy and pragmatic. His ethos exemplifies "simple, not easy". The recommendations are grounded in diligent research and extensive experience doing, supporting, and teaching.And after decades of working with some of the best and brightest in the world, I can confidently say that anyone who follow all five "simple steps" will be in the top 1% of all leaders. I'm grateful that Dodson has organized and explained the puzzle pieces of excellence - now it's on me to put it all together and level up.Perhaps most surprising to me is how seamlessly Dodson built a bridge between deep care and compassion for people (team members, customers, board members, mentors, suppliers - literally everyone we interact with in a professional capacity) and business performance. In a subtle but powerful way, I understood Dodson's core message to be "Care hard. Think diligently. Act kindly. Deliver exceptionally. Here's how."Thank you, Professor Dodson. This is a meaningful contribution to the canon of executive leadership literature and my new go to book gift for onboarding team members.

David has written a robust template for people in leadership positions to develop themselves and execute. This book is meant to be used, to be revisited, and to help guide one's development as a manager.It's logical. David outlines 5 skills and their subskills which are required to execute. They are all integrated, bolstering one another, and provides healthy tension and clarity when you're using them. For example, if you increase your quantity and quality of time, but find yourself doing more urgent tasks, perhaps you should revisit delegation or prioritization. That might be a dumb example, but the point is focusing on one subskill should enable you to see others that need work.It's practical - very clear and specific ways to build an operating plan, or speaking with customers, or developing a bonus structure. There are tons of dogeared pages in my copy with examples that I straight up steal for my business.It is thoughtful. David is a giant of building businesses. He mixes anecdotes from his long history in teaching and running companies. He's not only done it, he's taught other remarkable CEOs and leaders.Highly recommended if you want a book with little flat and pure, practical content that comes from decades of practice, not just theory.

As a first-time CEO, I am finding myself constantly referring to this book as I launch hiring processes, plan for board meetings, hire an executive coach, and more! It is super readable and actionable - no business book BS, just really concise summaries of how to build and optimize good business processes. And it's broadly applicable: although my company is a non-profit, the vast majority of the content still absolutely applies (and even the bits that are a bit less directly relevant have strong parallels in my work).I went to Stanford GSB (where Dodson teaches, though I never took a class with him). Many pieces of this book repeat course content I learned there, but nowhere have I seen it so usefully organized and pulled together. This certainly beats digging through my mountains of class notes!

You will keep coming back to this book! Full of useful advice from real life, and a great manual on how real life and business functionJust get it!

This is the first time we've read a handbook that ACTUALLY WORKS AS A HANDBOOK, and by that, we mean we'll keep using it, referring to it, and utilizing it as a reminder in months and years to come. There are several passages that we've even transcribed into notes and emails that we keep snoozing in our inboxes so that we are constantly reminded of them, day after day, week after week.There is obviously no dearth of business and leadership advice out there and at this point in our lives, we thought we had heard it all—or figured it all out through personal (and quite painful at times) trial and error, but The Manager's Handbook has plenty of wisdom that we have neither heard elsewhere nor gained ourselves through personal experience. This makes sense, as Dodson has experienced the equivalent of several lifetimes' worth of business and life experience throughout his career.It's so satisfying to read a book that is so informationally dense and that truly leaves us better off having read it than we were before. Highly recommended!

As a former business owner, I found the tools offered by this handbook so useful and realistically practical in managing the company. Growing the business, I was many times unsure our employees annual review, hiring or firing practices were reasonable. Having the handbook, managers will know what are the good practices to take in building teams and cultures. Strongly recommend to keep the book within reach

This was an easy read with some good advice. I'd argue that some of the advice requires you to be in a Sr. Leadership role, as opposed to a front-line manager, but that's not really a bad thing.

David's handbook was my travel companion in Colombia. It's beautifully written: every word adds value. The insights helped me with new strategies to start 2024 energized and focused. I've adopted the daily planning ritual, hiring scorecard, 360 guidelines, and email routine.

David Dodson has been active for over thirty years in the management and formation of new businesses - as the author of the best selling book The Manager’s Handbook, his extensive experience becomes very clear. Written in an easy to read way & well structured, this book summarises what every current or aspiring leader must focus on. I‘ve gifted this book to fellow leaders over a dozen times already. Very highly recommend it.

I wish I had this book years ago!

This product met all my expectation.