Growing Great Employees
Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers.

Growing Great Employees is conversational, anecdotal, and humorous – much more fun to read than the typical advice to managers.

The book covers the whole cycle of employment, from recruiting, to hiring and orienting, through developing and career transitions. For each point in the cycle you’ll find practical instructions with simple models, real-life examples, and self-directed activities to try things for yourself. It’s a well-tested, systematic guide to creating a workplace where people thrive — and get great results.

Learn such easier-said-than-done skills as:

  • Influence through Listening: using listening to motivate and build commitment;
  • Targeted Interviewing: clarifying what you need most in an employee, and assessing how each candidate fills those needs;
  • Hiring for Keeps: getting employees started off on the right foot, so that they’re committed and contributing as quickly as possible;
  • Feedback for Action: discovering the strengths and Achilles’ heels of individual employees, and giving feedback that will help them improve without discouraging them;
  • Delegating that Sticks: giving employees more responsibility – and feeling confident they’ll succeed;
  • Firing with Integrity: how to let someone go without damaging them, yourself or the company.

“Business is hard enough without the insecurities of both boss and employee. So it’s refreshing to see a book that delivers current thinking on personnel practice while prodding managers to recognize the tensions.”

Harvard Business Review

“Growing Great Employees is like having an expert at your side, one whose clear-headed lessons provide a nutrient-rich road map for perennially winning at business.”

Danny Meyer

CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group, and author of Setting the Table

“In Growing Great Employees, [Erika’s] offered a comprehensive guide to being a fun, smart, and effective manager—the kind of manager that any company would love to have.”

Leo Kiely

President and CEO, Molson Coors Brewing Company

“Believe me when I say you can take four full semesters of ‘management’ in business school or you can simply read, keep, and refer to Growing Great Employees. This book transcends all the theory, fads du jour, and management babble on the current scene and offers simple, straightforward, and, most important, effective steps for creating a community of work in which people are so fulfilled and so productive that they achieve superior results.”

James A. Autry

Author of The Servant Leader

“A most readable, insightful, and thorough treatment, filled with common sense and practical examples. A must-read for all managers interested in growing their people.”

W. Timothy Gallwey

Author of The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Work

“For the past twenty-five years, Erika Andersen has been working with companies to make sure that employees achieve their true potential. In Growing Great Employees, Erika is sharing that practical, smart, soup-to-nuts insight on how to be the best kind of manager with a broader public.”

Geraldine Laybourne

President and CEO, Oxygen Networks
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