Recently I finished going through Evaluating Performance (pictured on the left) and Communicating Effectively - both of which I found at my public library. Just like the books I read before (Motivating Employees and Managing People) the content in these two books is not rocker science, and it is not meant to be read quickly from cover to cover. Rather, it is meant to be used as a guide and to be consulted every now and then.

I found both books to be a great resource. Evaluating performance was something that was covered in my Human Resources class, but it was never something that we went extensively into. A lot of effort in the evaluation of performance is about communication - it's not just enough to fill out a piece of paper once a year to give (or deny) someone an annual merit raise - it's important to communicate with your employees in order to gauge what is happening, and to be able to steer the ship in the right course (if it isn't already).

The book on communicating effectively is a great companion to the evaluating performance. I have written (and co-written) a lot of papers during my management curriculum, and I have had many presentations. However, I never took a course on business communications. I found this particular book to be a good guide on business communications from the humble (but yet so hated) memo, to the more elaborate business report. There was also a section in the book on oral communication, which I found helpful as well.

I have a couple more of these books to read, but thus far, it seems to me that this series on best practices is quite a useful thing to have and consult if you are a manager or aspiring to be one.