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Lisa Haneberg brings two things to The High Impact Middle Manager that make her books really helpful for working bosses. First, she understands what life is like for you. Second, she explains things in a way that you can learn how to do things better.

I opened this book as a fan. I've read other books Lisa has written and reviewed three of them, most recently Hip and Sage. I read her Management Craft blog regularly.

I was excited about the topic. Most of the managers in most companies are middle managers. Even so, there's hardly anything written specifically for them.

I amped up even more when I read this in the Introduction.

"A great middle manager – referred to in this book as a high impact middle manager – is an individual who makes substantial qualitative and quantitative contributions to his or her organization and moves forward with velocity - speed and direction."

That sounded good, but just a paragraph further on I hit something that made me pause. Here it is.

"This book offers a vision of high impact middle management and a system for achieving this superior level of performance."

The word "system" was a red flag for me. When a book offers a system, it's also offering to be your boon companion for quite a while. Systems require you to dig in and work at lots of things and apply what you've learned. I find that most of my readers, working bosses, aren't willing to invest that time and energy in any single book.

Now that I've spent some time with the book myself, I can tell you one thing. If you're a working boss, you will get value from this book many times over, whether you adopt the whole system or not.

You will get the most value if you decide to use Lisa's system to change the way you do your job. The system is well designed. The writing is clear. The ideas are practical. But to get the most value, you will need to commit to spending time with the book and the ideas.

The good news is that you will get great value from this book even if you read it for random ideas and leave working the system to others. I do have one suggestion though. If you're going to dip into the book, instead of reading it through, read whole chapters or sections.

Boss's Bottom Line

The High Impact Middle Manager will help you do a better job, whether you opt for the total system or simply read the book for ideas.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.