The Sophisticated Manager by Jack Litewka

The Sophisticated Manager focuses on specific areas in which managers often make serious mistakes or do less than a world-class job.  For example, anyone can do an okay job of hiring, but not everyone does a great job of optimizing the hiring process.  Ditto for triaging.  Ditto for building a high-performance team.  Ditto for dealing with “problem children”.  Ditto for managing peers.  Ditto for an internal-communication strategy.  Ditto for preparing for executive reviews.  Ditto for developing a great team culture.  And so on…

“As a psychologist, I'm always seeking useful readings for my clients.  Trying to balance work, life and the evolving dynamics of the modern business world can take its toll.  The Sophisticated Manager hits the mark.  Mr. Litewka applies his keen intelligence and years of managerial experience and insights to offer managers a wealth of strategies and practical advice.  He is a great teacher and writer.  I particularly appreciated his "in the trenches" approach, and discovered many useful ideas and tools to help my clients.  I highly recommend this book.”

—Steven Walch, Ph.D., Clinical

Psychologist

“As the creator of several successful ventures, Jack Litewka is a brilliant example of how you build businesses with people.  In Jack you find a creative intellect with a strong emphasis on practical action.  Jack reveals highly insightful business thinking, always balanced with sensitivity for people.  Jack is an inspiring person to work for – and it's great to now have his thoughts on the process of management written down, for the benefit of a wider audience.”

—Andrew Delin, Principal Consultant,

ICT management / Product & Service Planning and Delivery

 

The Sophisticated Manager: A Guide to Success instructs both first-time and experienced managers on how to deftly handle difficult situations that frequently arise and, of equal importance, how to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.

Undoing damage from mistakes is hard work and a terrible waste of a manager’s time and energy – and those mistakes can seriously undermine a manager’s credibility and authority.  The smarter path is for managers to proactively adopt critical best practices so that they can avoid common pitfalls.

The Sophisticated Manager addresses pain points that managers often face and struggle with.  The book also addresses relationship-building activities that new managers often overlook or make a low priority – when such activities should be a Priority 1 because they have positive long-term effects (or, if not done, have negative long-term effects).

What distinguishes The Sophisticated Manager is that it provides managers with in-the-trenches guidance – real-world, hard-won knowledge.  Dozens of examples and real-world vignettes offer a rich array of workplace-tested and workplace-proven best practices and techniques for hiring, communications, triaging, managing peers, executive presentations, team-building, culture-creation, and more.

Some manager-training books provide instruction on what managers should do; others partially teach how to do what’s required.  This book provides the “what to do”, the “how to do it”, and also the “why to do it that way”, which will help pre-empt future problems.

The Sophisticated Manager addresses major issues that managers often face and teaches them how to handle key challenges with managerial finesse and psychological sophistication.

Out-of-the-Box Press

© 2016 Jack Litewka