The Ugly Truth about Small Business: 50 (Never-Saw-It-Coming) Things That Can Go Wrong...and What You Can Do about It

This book is excellent for anyone who manages other people. Numerous situations that could transpire are clearly and succinctly written with action ideas on how to protect yourself. You can either learn these the hard way (by experiencing them firsthand), or read this book and internalize how you can use each example to your benefit.

Very helpful tool toward better management of common workplace HR issues. The approach of gathering vignettes of workplace sticky-situations from a variety of industries and telling the straight-up story, then offering a "better solution" to dealing with the issue is educational and informative. Seems like the situations are not sugar-coated and the consequences of each are addressed. With each story told, there is a follow-on segment entitled" What I learned" and then the author's commentary on the same story entitled "applying the lessons learned to your company" (meaning the reader's own workplace). Recommend as a quick tip tool on a common HR problems. You can easily pick and choose which stories/situations are matched to your needs.

Whether you manage people in a professional, volunteer or family context, you'll relate to the stories in Ruth King's latest book called "The Ugly Truth about Managing People." It's a compilation of tales from business owners, managers and employees, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses about management challenges and how to overcome them. Unlike many management books, this one deals with reality, not theory. Each three to five page story follows the format of here's what happened, here's what I learned and here's how to apply the lesson to your company. Some of the titles include "My boss didn't operate in the real world" (I'm sure none of you reading this can relate to that!), "I inherited an employee who hated me" and "Retaining my workers was tough." I've always like the idea of learning from other people's mistakes instead of making them myself, so this book should prove to be a huge time and hassle saver as I build my company. Once you get through the sad, funny and/or horrifying accounts, the book gives you even more usable information in the form of "17 Critical Survival Strategies," "Six Steps to Successfully Groom Your Next Manager" and "Seven Greatest Management Myths." Who couldn't benefit from tips on how to confront bad situations immediately or knowing how to put together an employee policy manual? Myth #1 is my favorite - your employees can read your mind. What? They can't? It bothered me that some of the authors chose not to reveal their names or companies, because there were a few stories that made me think, "really? That really happened? And you stayed there?!" But, I guess in some cases, and especially when you're talking about sexual harassment, one might be more candid if the world doesn't know who you are. Click on the "Add to Shopping Cart" button and read "The Ugly Truth about Managing People."

What a terrific book. Easy to read, easy to digest, easy to remember, yet packed with powerful lessons and reminders of what we often know to be true, but at times don't practice. The book begins with 50 mini stories, each written by a different contributor. That person summarizes the lessons learned, and then the author follows up with several summary points of her own. Following the 50 stories are several chapters summarizing the lessons learned and pointing out key lessons the author has learned in her 25 years as an entrepreneur. The stories are written in the best storyteller fashion - quick, straight to the point, but with enough detail that they are memorable. I cringed as I read several of them, realizing I had handled a similar situation in my past very poorly. Several stories provided a powerful "aha" moment for me as I mentally tucked away the lesson learned with a promise to myself to handle things that way in the future. The book is very enjoyable to read, both well written and well edited. It's an easy book to put down and pick up later since the 50 stories are each a separate chapter. The advice at the end is succinct and not overbearing or ponderous. The most recurrent theme throughout the many stories is the crucial need to communicate well with employees. At the end, the point was emphasized to jump on problems quickly, particularly firing people who need to be fired and communicating to employees who are not meeting expectations. An excellent book! I'd highly recommend to all business owners and managers. Jan Dahlin Geiger, Author of "Get Your Assets in Gear! Smart Money Strategies" Get Your Assets in Gear! Smart Money Strategies