Picked this up at the library recently: The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch) by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio.

I like the real-world feel of it. The stories range from short little “oops” ones to interview style. The points are all full of good humor and life lessons.

For example, in the chapter “Playing Goddess,” the authors talk about reviewing. How useful are reviews? Really? Is it the only time you get feedback? Is that the only time you hear that you missed too many deadlines? And it’s now in your permanent record and affecting your chance at a raise! Frustrating, right? So, their company, YC Media, has a review process they call Begin, End, Save, Track (BEST). They also do this not just once a year, but twice. One for the money and one for the feedback.

Begin

Three actions. What should the employee do now? Later? What makes the boss type happy? Hopefully this isn’t “fetch me coffee in the morning” but more like “give more web training sessions.”

End

Three actions. What should the employee stop? Stop it or get out type stuff. This is where the employee is given a chance to shape up. Things that would fit here are “coming in after 10:00 a.m. every day” but not “stop eating broccoli at work.”

Save

Three actions. What’s the employee doing right? These things you don’t want to stop. They say, “… we have hopefully been pointing out good work on a weekly if not daily basis.” Yes. But in case the supervisor forgets we like to hear random acts of praise (when we deserve it) this reminds them at least twice a year. Hopefully by doing these things, the employee gets some reward. One might say a save is “performs well under pressure” or “puts up with my crap.” Ok, maybe not the latter.

Track

Quantify what the employee has for “Begin.” For example, if the supervisor wants the employee to give more web tutorials to the general staff in “Begin,” then in “Track” the action might be to give two web tutorials to the staff. That way, the employee can say “done.”

They then go into some mistakes supervisors make when doing evaluations.

I liked this book so much that I added their other book to my “to read” list: The Girl’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business.