In October, right about the time I joined Weight Watchers, I accepted a new role at work managing a small group. About the same time, I got into a scrap with a nurse practitioner in my pediatrician’s office, a Facebook “friend,” who was posting inappropriate (in my judgment) gossip about parents who called on her on-call overnights. After I switched pediatricians, I vowed that I would never, ever, ever, ever post anything even remotely related to work on-line. Not only am I prevented by law from disclosing details of my work, I can’t even imagine the horror if my direct reports were to stumble upon a chatty blog post by me about the darnedest things they did or said at work that day. They would feel just like I did when I read about the craaaazy parents on Facebook bothering the nurse practitioner with their stupid problems: Sick and betrayed.

So, I’ll try to keep it general. I’ve gone from project management to people management. I inherited four people, hired two, brought in one contractor, and am actively looking for another person. Since I’m not that experienced in people management, I’ve been relying on my strengths, treating the department business as if it’s one giant project and I’m the uber-project manager. So far, I’m doing OK, but I can sense that it’s not a sustainable paradigm — too many details for me to keep track of. I know I should be working more on people development, but I’m struggling with the right level of oversight. Does anyone know of any good books on management? It’s not exactly a genre known for its deathless prose, although you can usually count on a nifty two-part title, separated by a colon. Or can you recommend some entertainingly bad ones?