Managing to Stay Out of Court: How to Avoid the 8 Deadly Sins of Mismanagement

In the past 20 years, the number of employment discrimination cases has increased by more than 2,000 percent. This practical guide helps companies avoid the most common types of employment lawsuits through the development of strong people-management skills. Managing to Stay Out of Court is structured according to eight simple principles contrasting sins and virtues in the workplace - for example, Rationalizing Away Truth (sin) vs. Making Honesty the Only Policy (virtue), or Listening Through Your "I" (sin) vs. Listening Through Your Ears (virtue). A wealth of real-life examples show employers how to move directly from theory to practice by taking the lessons off the page and into the workplace. Included is a guide to adjusting management styles as well as techniques for implementing organization-wide changes. An appendix helps readers identify their own most prevalent management sins, and a complete set of tools and exercises - a sample journal page, memos, self-assessments, and a "Sin-to-Virtue Transfer Plan" - shows how to make the too-often adversarial manager-employee relationship fulfilling for both parties.