Book Review- Manage Your Manager- Kritika Sharma

Title- Manage Your Manager
Author- Kriti
Publisher- BlueJay Books Pvt Ltd
ISBN- 978-93-82891-04-8
FB page- fb.com/manageyourmanager
Price- Rs 150
Pages- 162

Here's another review in the series of reviews on request that I started doing recently. This time I had the opportunity to review this book by Kriti which is about dealing with office politics and day-to-day problems at work. Obviously, it has a specific target readership and comes like a guidebook for all those who are struggling with their managers or HR departments and dealing with tough situations at work. The book also teaches you how to strike a balance between the work and personal lives.

A word about the author first. Kritika Sharma is a wife, a working woman, a cooking enthusiast and has done masters in Business Management. The high spirited-ness can be gauged from the fact that she found time to write a book amidst all these roles that she was donning. Hats off!

About the cover- the cover has a no nonsense appeal to it with the clear depiction of what is inside the book. An office coffee mug with the inscription "Dos and Don'ts @ Work" adorns the cover page. The back cover has few tele-commercial like questions- Do you feel neglected by your manager? Do you have a feeling that your manager is a bit biased? Have you ever thought- 'only if I knew what to do..'? If your answer is yes, then this is the book for you. This seemed a bit cheesy to me but I feel people who really are in these problems would like such clear cut approach about the book.

The book is divided into two sections- A. Direct Managers and B. The Others. More attention as obviously been paid to direct managers and the cases are presented in the form of commonplace problems written as case studies and the problems or solutions have been explained with correct reasoning and explanations as per the author's wisdom and intellect.

The language is fairly simple with no fancy words and the pages use recycled paper which are of good quality. The small publishing houses in India are really doing some good work of late. Impressive.

At the end of each chapter, there are summaries in the form of survival tips which I found to be the most helpful part of the book. You can nicely sum up the advice their and apply them in your case and act accordingly. Another good thing is that the book does not have any pretentious air about it and the situations and dilemmas are presented with an empathetic approach toward the employee ie the reader. The manager is referred to as a 'she' which I found to be a delightful change from the normal. The book if value for money in terms of content and the presentation is not that flashy so, that might not lure the ones who seek company of big words (think Deepak Chopra and their ilk). The book also does not have any moral pretensions and seeks to give the most practicable advice, assuming that you're a hard working employee who is not a brown-noser for sure.

This book also is going to be helpful for people who are facing personal life crisis which is somewhat related to their career situation. The advice is more like a wise colleague who is also a friend telling you while stating examples from her life. It strikes a chord and is friendly and not hard to digest.

I recommend the book to all those who are in need. It is priced modestly and can make for a very good gift to your friends who are in some sort of work-related crisis. I rate this book with 4 stars.

****/5