Managing Einsteins: Leading High-Tech Workers in the Digital Age

Today's new breed of technologically skilled employees often acts and thinks differently than their counterparts. And while break-the-rules approaches and attitudes can be helpful and even necessary for innovative, out-of-the-box thinking, they can also be a nightmare for managers. Managing Einsteins walks managers through proven best methods to optimize the skills, abilities, and knowledge of the new economy workforce without stifling the creativity and innovative spirit needed for success.

Written by two of today's top high-tech management experts, this clear, easy-to-read guide combines strategies for managing and team building with tips and pointers for building better communication between techies and non-techies, coaching for better performance, and more.

The helpful skills and effective guidelines in Managing Einsteins will help managers "bridge the gap," providing:

• Antidotes for correcting problems in the workplace
• "Knowledge tests" for each topic covered
• Insights from top tech leaders including Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Andy Grove
  

Picture your workforce, even for a second, and you will be able to immediately identify the Einsteins. Theyre the lifesavers who hammer through your impossible problems, keep your essential operations running by any means necessary, and consistently find answers when others scarcely understand the questions.

And as valuable and essential as they are to your organization, these curious and brilliant employees can also be your most frustrating, aggravating, and difficult to manage.

Managing Einsteins is the first book to provide strategies and guidelines managers can use to recruit, train, lead, and retain Einsteins, even as outside forces and recruiters are working just as hard to lure them away. Introducing managers to the proven techniques needed to optimize the skills, abilities, and knowledge of the new-economy workforce, without stifling the creativity and innovative spirit that exceptional employees need to achieve breakthrough success, this hands-on management guidebook discusses:

• Tips and pointers for building better communication between techies and nontechies
• Three factors for dramatically increasing job satisfaction for Einsteins
• Proven methods, from alternative work schedules to on-site quiet rooms, for satisfying even the most hard-to-please Einsteins
• Strategies for freely sharing information among coworkers­­without destroying its inherent value
• Insights from top leaders, including Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Andy Grove, and others

In todays increasingly technical, specialized workplace, Einsteins are as valuable as diamonds­­and as fragile as glass. Their anything-goes brainstorming and authority-flouting approaches can be both critical for innovative, out-of-the-box thinking and a nightmare for their bosses. Let Managing Einsteins provide you with a complete, well-researched profile of these diverse individuals, tips and strategies for maximizing their energy and knowledge, and an overall guide for effectively deriving their value and skills­­without driving them to your competitors.

John M. (Jack) Ivancevich, DBA, has a long and distinguished career as a professor, dean, provost, and recognized authority on management and management issues. Dr. Ivancevich is the author or coauthor of over 60 books­­as well as an increasing library of Web-enabled courseware­­on management, human resource management, and organizational behavior. He serves on a number of boards, business associations, and organizations, and is the recipient of numerous academic awards.

Tom Duening, Ph.D., is a visiting assistant professor in the department of marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of Houston Bauer College of Business. Author of Management 2.0: Managing in the New Economy, Dr. Duening has published numerous articles on entrepreneurship and small business. He consults on business development and new-venture creation for clients of every size, from small to multinational.