Your Management Sucks: Why You Have to Declare War on Yourself... and Your Business

I read a lot of business / management books. This particular book re-energized me. I highly recommend this to any manager looking for a recharge or just a kick in the butt.

My client and friend, Rory Fatt, sent me a book as part of his regular Gold Inner Circle membership program for restaurant owners ([...].) The book is called Your Management Sucks by Mark Stevens. This is a terrific manual for small business owners and I encourage you to buy it and read it immediately. This book helped me eliminate excuses for me holding myself back. Among the greatest lessons was in chapter 6, "Your greatest skill is a double-edged sword: it empowers and limits your company simultaneously. Mark explains this with an analogy of a golf-cart; he says too many business owners have a golf-cart company. This means that the moment the business owner takes his foot off the pedal, the golf cart stops. He says this is no better than a guy with a lemonade stand. "Guy gets a cold. Guy goes to bed. No lemonade today. No money. The other people in the business--whole job it is to grind what [the business owner] mines--are administrative and secretarial staff that may do their jobs well but cannot generate revenue from new clients or through the organic grown of existing clients." Mark mentions that graduating from a golf-cart company to a real business is a momentous transition. However, every business owner must go through it. This is what it takes to liberate yourself from your company and achieve growth. Otherwise, you take your foot off the pedal and the business slows to a stop. Throughout the book Mark provides a lot of advice on how business owners can break away from a golf-cart company. A lot of it is in the form of hard work and tough decisions. According to Mark too many business owners are concerned about what others think; employees, vendors and even competitors. How crazy is that? A business owner who is worried about what his competition thinks. However, it's true. Humans have a strong urge to be part of a group. Getting criticized by peers can be scary. Throughout this book Mark will step on your toes and challenge your conventional thinking. In fact, this is something of a mantra that he weaves throughout the text. Business owners should constantly challenge their beliefs, break apart and rebuild their businesses and provide a "360 degree experience" to their customers. Mark gives you insight into business complacency. I was lucky to learn early in my business career from a client the quote, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you" from the movie, Catch-22. I've built my business being paranoid. I expect vendor, employee and client defections. Therefore, since I know they are inevitable, I do what I can to minimize their occurrence and their impact. Mark Stevens provides a lot of advice about rebuilding successful companies to create massively successful fast-growing companies. This book is well worth your investment of time and money. Add Mark to your advisor team right away.

The title's quite blunt--and so are the messages. I found that page after page contains extremely accurate assessments and advice of the business, management, leadership, and people situations I face in my organization. It's a brutal "look in the mirror" as to what we need to start doing, stop doing, and continue doing.

Wanting to keep ahead of the curve in my career, it seems I'm always reading a business book or two. This one didn't waste my time, try too hard to impress me with MBA-speak, or tell me what I already know. What I liked most about Your Management Sucks is that the author tells it like it is. If I had a mentor, one that told me what I really needed to hear to get ahead, one that would kick my [...] to take next steps when I needed confirmation or direction, then I found one in this author. I think I will re-read many sections of this book as a refresher when I ask for a raise, take on a conference room of naysayers or need to push myself to take a few risks at the office. If you are uncertain what your next steps should be with your boss, concerned that voicing your opinion will make your colleagues think less of you, or want to know how to improve your own management skills and techniques, then this should be the next book you read. It's practical, full of "ah-ha" insights, and really gets your adrenaline pumping.