management – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates… and Other Difficult People

By Scott J. Pearson | February 9, 2025February 8, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

As young people leave the classroom and enter the workplace, they are immediately struck by how central dealing with people issues becomes. Even the most technically gifted employee has to deal with others’ innumerable quirks. Then, when someone enters management, they may have power, but their job is based on motivating subordinates to produce. Yet few of us have academic expertise in dealing with people. Roy Lubit does. He holds an MD in psychiatry, which…

Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science of Hiring Technical People

By Scott J. Pearson | January 29, 2025January 29, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Today’s world is increasingly dependent on technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our businesses. Yet assessing which technical person to hire can be a tall task. Do you just hire the one that is most like you? Or do you hire the one with the most accolades? And how do you advertise? Johanna Rothman’s book empowers readers to figure out their own answers. Although the technology of hiring has changed significantly since its…

Management-Business Psychology

Active Listening by Carl Rogers

By Scott J. Pearson | January 22, 2025January 22, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

This short book, originally penned in 1957, addresses an important topic that’s become an expected leadership competency today. Active listening is a core expectation for managers in almost every field. Although it sounds easy to do, the practice actually requires a great deal of discipline and mental acuity. Fortunately, by encouraging the self-worth of the speaker, it unleashes a world of creative energy that can multiply any team’s accomplishments. As the authors contend, it simply…

Management-Business

Interviewing & Selecting High Performers: Every Manager’s Guide to Effective Interviewing Techniques

By Scott J. Pearson | January 4, 2025January 4, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

This book was recommended to me as a solid work about the fundamentals of the hiring process. It delivered what was promised. It’s not a book focused on a recent management trend, but instead is a work built upon classical psychology – the art of reading people quickly and effectively. It attempts to minimize the amount of bias that interviewers inevitably put into an interview and maximize the observed items that interviewers extract from an…

Management-Business Program Management

Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders

By Scott J. Pearson | November 21, 2024November 21, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Product management centers itself on coordinating several diverse, complex teams towards producing one coherent business product. It’s a fairly new role in organizations, and it’s especially popular in the IT sector. Software involves a disparate set of competencies, like writing code, graphical design, software design, marketing, customer relations, and subject matter expertise. A good product manager can act as a representative of a product’s “soul” to give voice to its essential human benefit. Alignment plays…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Putt’s Law & the Successful Technocrat: How to Win in the Information Age

By Scott J. Pearson | November 18, 2024November 18, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Great satirical works entertain while speaking deep truths. Like a court jester or Shakespeare’s comedies, humor can often unmask human nature where polite conversation can only obscure. Thus, when approached thoughtfully, jokes play an invaluable role to any thinking person. At their best, they can correct overly genteel approaches to problems. This book, written by a pseudonymous author, does just that. It speaks foundational truths about engineering organizations with a realism that surpasses more respectful…

Management-Business Program Management Software-Technology

Information Technology Project Management, 9th Edition

By Scott J. Pearson | October 18, 2024October 18, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

IT projects comprise a particularly difficult niche of project management. The field is so new, and IT professionals’ proficiencies vary widely. The technology quickly evolves, so what was true about project management a few years ago might not be relevant soon thereafter. Personalities can also pose a problem since software developers aren’t reputed to be the most personable workers. In this textbook, impressively in a ninth edition, Kathy Schwalbe provides sage advice by summarizing the…

Leadership Management-Business

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

By Scott J. Pearson | October 13, 2024October 13, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

We’ve all been there at some point in our lives: We tell ourselves, “This really, really needs to happen,” yet in the same breath, we answer ourselves, “But it’s impossible.” Say, we have a boss and a power structure around us that needs to shift. Or an intractable family disagreement with no obvious way forward. In our better moments, we all feel like we’re great leaders that shape history, but at other times, I wonder…

Leadership Management-Business Software-Technology

The Engineering Executive’s Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership

By Scott J. Pearson | September 24, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Encoding software is a highly technical task, but effective leadership is often anything but technical. Combining the two thus can be supremely difficult, but this pair of skills is necessary to fill roles like Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Unfortunately, advice is hard to come by in the literature since only a few extended books in this space. To better fill these gaps, Will Larson, known for his deep looks at…

Leadership Management-Business Mentoring

Coaching for Performance: The Principles & Practice of Coaching & Leadership

By Scott J. Pearson | August 18, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The field of workplace management has moved, in recent decades, from just being about organizing people for financial profits to also incorporating social and even spiritual values into employees’ career development. Today, good employees demand not just a paycheck but a place where they can grow and develop in some way. How are managers to avoid being caught flat-footed to these changing circumstances? Most managers lead by how they’ve been managed in the past, and…