FranklinCovey and Simon & Schuster Release New Book: Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team

Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE: FC), a global firm specializing in organizational performance improvement, and Simon & Schuster today announced the release of a new book, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team (October 8, 2019, Hardcover: $28, Pages: 208, ISBN: 978-1982112073, www.EDAGM.com). The new book joins an impressive list of books from FranklinCovey, including the mega international bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

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FranklinCovey and Simon & Schuster Release New Book: Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team - Book Equips First-Level Leaders with Essential Skills and Tools for Leading Teams Effectively (Photo: Business Wire)

Written by bestselling authors, FranklinCovey’s Scott Miller (EVP of Thought Leadership), Todd Davis (Chief People Officer), and Victoria Roos Olsson (Senior Leadership Consultant), Everyone Deserves a Great Manager benefits leaders at all levels, but specifically addresses the challenges facing first-level leaders-those who manage teams of individual contributors who don’t have direct reports. It provides practical tools and reassuring guidance to develop effective leadership skills from day one and is also essential reading for entrepreneurs who must lead small teams of employees in order to grow their business effectively.

Mid- and senior-level leaders will also find great value in Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team, as it contains the skills and fundamentals they need to draw on and frequently revisit. For more seasoned managers, the book is part refresher, part midcourse correction, and a collection of enduring principles they can use to coach the first-level leaders who report to them.

First-level leaders have never been more relevant. The multiple layers of leadership in organizations have collapsed, and with this new flat management structure, the vast majority of people are reporting to managers, who now assume unprecedented influence and responsibility, often without enough resources or support to help them lead those on their teams. Timely and applicable to today’s ever-changing and evolving workplace, the book was written for the millions of people all over the world who are making the challenging and rewarding leap to management.

Researchers at the Harvard Business Review found that on average, people take on their first leadership role at age 30, but don’t receive their first leadership training until they’re 42, noting that, "They’re operating within the company untrained, on average, for more than a decade.”

"Ultimately, we realized that a guide with real people’s experiences, combined with FranklinCovey’s research, could help a lot of managers with their leadership challenges,” said Scott Miller, FranklinCovey Executive Vice President, Thought Leadership. "We’ve collected everything we’ve learned in the book, to help readers lead with confidence. The book provides insights into how and why great leaders think the way they do and nuts-and-bolts best practices for confronting and overcoming the most common leadership problems managers face. It delivers the guidance that most managers hope for when they were promoted, but perhaps didn’t receive. It provides the support, understanding, strategies, and tactics needed to develop as a leader and to lead people to become an engaged, high-performing team.”

Todd Davis, FranklinCovey Chief People Officer, said, "Despite being promoted because of their great success as individual contributors in their organizations, many leaders often find they are not prepared to lead and manage others effectively. They are the least experienced and trained and are learning by trial and error, because they have no other choice. They are expected to transition from focusing on their own results to achieve the team’s results overnight, to know the strengths and weaknesses of their team members, and to have all the answers. They must make sound decisions under ambiguous conditions, hold people accountable, and hit goals they may have had nothing to do with setting. This book will help them with all of these challenges, and more.”

Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team addresses the most common problems first-level leaders and new managers must face and briefly explores the limiting mindsets and typical mistakes that led to those problems. The skill-based chapters cover managerial skills like 1-on-1s, giving feedback, delegating, hiring, building team culture, and leading remote teams. The book also includes more than 30 unique tools, such as prep worksheets and a list of questions for 1-on-1s. It’s a great blueprint for becoming the manager every team deserves. Additionally, the exercises at the back of the chapters show readers how to put The 6 Critical Practices together, one step at a time. Readers can revisit the insights and action items they note at the end of each chapter and create an action plan that is customized for them.

The book, which expands upon FranklinCovey’s leadership solution and work session, The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team™, is based on decades of research and hundreds of leader interviews into what makes managers successful, as well as on tens of thousands of assessments that have been distilled down to the practices that yield the greatest results for first-level leaders. FranklinCovey has field-tested the principles and practices in the book with thousands of managers around the globe and has simplified the bewildering world of first-level leadership to the six most critical practices for leading a team. The practices equip first-level leaders with the essential skills and tools to accomplish tasks and achieve goals effectively by working well with and through other people, and provide leaders with the confidence and competence they need to meet the inevitable challenges of their role.

With real-world, relatable stories to provide the blueprint for becoming a great leader, the book outlines The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team:

1. Develop a Leader’s Mindset: Leaders learn the critical mindset shifts from those of an individual contributor to those of a leader.
2. Hold Regular 1-on-1s: By conducting these essential meetings effectively, leaders increase engagement of team members, better understand team issues, and help team members to solve problems to succeed.
3. Set Up Your Team to Get Results: Leaders learn to create clarity about team goals and results, and they delegate responsibility to team members, while providing the right level of support.
4. Create a Culture of Feedback: Both giving and receiving consistent, genuine feedback builds confidence and competence, and increases the performance of a leader and a team.
5. Lead Your Team Through Change: Leaders can take specific actions to help team members navigate and accelerate through change and achieve better performance.
6. Manage Your Time and Energy: The best leaders use weekly planning to focus on the most important priorities and to strengthen their ability to be an effective leader by applying Five Energy Drivers.

Victoria Roos Olsson, FranklinCovey Senior Leadership Consultant, said, "We know that the role of a first-level leader is difficult, but it’s worth doing—and doing well—because they can truly improve the lives and careers of their team members. As leaders, they will have an impact, for better or for worse, on their team’s ability to successfully overcome challenges. We are committed to helping readers become the leader their team deserves by sharing all that we have researched, experienced and learned through the framework of these 6 Critical Practices.”

FranklinCovey’s leadership solution and work session, The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team, has been adopted by thousands of companies, governments, non-profits, school systems, and universities around the world. The work session can be delivered as a live, one-day training module and includes bite-size articles, videos and tools organized around the solution and an opt-in, email-driven, digital-learning track over a 12-week period. The work session is included in FranklinCovey’s All Access Pass, an annually renewable pass, which provides passholders with unlimited access to FranklinCovey’s entire collection of best-in-class content. Passholders can assemble, integrate and deliver that content in an almost limitless combination through various delivery channels — live, live-online, on demand and integrated into existing training offerings. To learn more, visit The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team and FranklinCovey’s All Access Pass.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Scott Miller is a twenty-three-year associate of FranklinCovey and serves as the executive vice president of thought leadership. Scott hosts multiple podcasts, including On Leadership with Scott Miller and Great Life, Great Career. Additionally, he is the bestselling author of Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow and is a leadership columnist for Inc. magazine and Thrive Global. Scott previously worked for the Disney Development Company and grew up in central Florida. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and three sons.

Todd Davis has been with FranklinCovey for more than two decades and serves as the chief people officer. As the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work, Todd has delivered keynote presentations and speeches around the globe, including at the renowned World Business Forum. Todd has been featured in Inc. magazine, Fast Company, and the Harvard Business Review. He and his family reside in Holladay, Utah.

Victoria Roos Olsson is a senior leadership consultant for FranklinCovey. She is an expert in leadership development and has trained and coached leaders around the world for more than twenty years. Originally from Sweden, she has led learning and development for large organizations across Europe and the Middle East. Married with two daughters, she balances her corporate life with being a yoga instructor and a running coach. She and her family reside in Atlanta, Georgia.

ABOUT Franklin Covey CO.

Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE: FC) is a global, public company specializing in organizational performance improvement. We help organizations and individuals achieve results that require a change in human behavior. Our expertise is in seven areas: leadership, execution, productivity, trust, sales performance, customer loyalty and education. FranklinCovey clients have included 90 percent of the Fortune 100, more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500, thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, as well as numerous government entities and educational institutions. FranklinCovey has more than 100 direct and partner offices providing professional services in over 160 countries and territories.

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