Human Relations Management in Young, Growing Companies

Often lost in the study of people management is the crucial skill of relationships management. It is not simply the study of how to help people "get along," nor is it the same as managing compensation, for example, but it is infinitely more volatile, complex, and difficult to do. Snider sees it as the key to success in new and growing organizations of almost any kind (he refers to these relationships as "partnerships") and in his challenging new book proves that in any high-growth company, people really are partners. He explores the dynamics of such groups, their social and psychological aspects, and shows how to use the concepts that emerge from these understandings to manage a real-world enterprise. What happens if it fails? Snider, a clinical psychologist with experience in couples therapy, shows that the dissolution of a business can be likened to the breakup of a marriage and "managed" the same way. This book is engrossing, essential reading for entrepreneur-executives in all types of companies--new, growing, even mature ones--but also for venture capitalists and others on the way up, with financial or personal career stakes in them.

MARVIN SNIDER is an organizational consultant with a private practice in Waban, Massachusetts./e He holds a doctorate in psychology and is the author of an earlier book on process family therapy. Among his past and present clients are hospitals, school systems, banks, law firms, public agencies, and an insurance company. His book emerges, in part, from his own experiences in establishing a professional partnership practice.