Ignited: Managers! Light Up Your Company and
Career for More Power, More Purpose and More SuccessBy Vince Thompson
FT Press, New York, 2007[powerpress: http://gsbm-med.pepperdine.edu/gbr/audio/spring 2011/book_corner/Ignite_Accomazzo.mp3]
During my professional career, I worked for two large global banks, Jefferies and UBS, and always found myself very uneasy in navigating the corporate web of implicit and explicit demands and games. I always found that my personal best surfaced in more boutique, entrepreneurial organizations where my talent was empowered and rewarded.
Thompson’s book is a must-read for those trapped in middle management who have not been as lucky as I have in finding a way out to smaller, yet much, much greener pastures. We cannot all be entrepreneurs and masters of the universe, but with the proper set of rules, we can modify our “middle universe” and find professional happiness and personal balance. The author reaches his conclusions from data compiled via an extensive online survey and more than 100 interviews with managers from different industries. The resulting case studies bring life to the author’s management theory and allow the reader to fully connect with the relevant information.
One interesting story on meeting management and time collapse walks the reader through Hollywood mogul Jeff Katzenberg’s breakfast meeting routine. The description of Katzenberg’s speedy, yet quality-oriented approach to meeting management conveys useful and usable information with color and impact.
The book also lists other usable tactics, such as incorporating technology (i.e. blogs and wikis) to ensure accountability and to create traction and a more need-oriented type of networking than it is normally implemented.
In the end, Thompson wraps up his management manual with a section on personal balance, a key ingredient in the survival kit of the middle manager.
