I used to love this podcast for the actionable content, thoughtful structure and forward-looking insight. Those days are, regrettably, long gone. The new hosts are arrogant, condescending. They fill the first 90% of the episode with rude or irrelevant fluff before getting to solid content. That dynamic is puzzling at best. You’d expect a podcast on management to be well-managed and professional with coherent material. Or at least, that’s what I expect. I’ve canceled my membership and will now steer clear of this podcast.

I understand fluffing up the podcast. I don’t mind it in itself. But you can tell from the tone and cadence how fake it is. I point this out because I believe the messages in there are great! But I have difficulty listening to it and it certainly makes me wonder if a paid membership means needing to suffer through more 30 minutes of dialogue that pains me. And doing that just more often for 30 seconds of useful content.

I’m a busy person and listen to podcasts to generate ideas for leading my team, growing my career, and gaining advice on topics where I have gaps. What I like: There are nuggets of great advice and information in this podcast. The hosts seem to have real world experience and that translates well in their conversation. What I don’t like: It often takes forever to get to the point. It seems like 90 percent opinion and fluff with 10 percent actionable content. For example, a recent 5-part series on engagement surveys spent 4.5 episodes on why they are garbage and maybe .5 of that on what managers can actually do about them. It doesn’t help front line managers to know why engagement surveys are garbage — The surveys are not going anywhere. The hosts often go on extended tangents and repeat the same opinion in different ways multiple times, often those opinions have nothing to do with the topic at hand. To keep me as a listener: Tighten up your agenda and talking points. Come prepared with points and with time limits for each. Provide peer reviewed evidence of the topic at hand and not just opinion. Opinion is fine, it just can’t be everything. Using the paid transcripts to gain the ability to weed out all the fluff isn’t a great selling point.

The topics are interesting, but I just had to stop listening. They sound like robots. Not pleasing to listen to.

Listened to the Performance Review episode where they warned against conflating the performance review with feedback. Well… real life managers do that and maybe they’re not good ones but that’s reality. If you’re ignoring reality for ideals or what you personally practice, what is the use of this podcast?

If you’re looking to be a better leader, start with the trilogy and keep going! Wish I would have found this before my first manager role. The advice is simple, easy to understand and they provide step by step instructions on how to implement. You won’t find better, but you may pay more. 😂

I like the content but it’s like you’re waiting around for them to get to the point. And then…the pauses…in every… sentence…makes it… impossible to get… through an… entire podcast. I would love to listen to the great content, just wish the delivery was better.

Simplified managers tools and tactics, actionable advice and effective strategies. I highly recommend this podcast to any leader in any field!

M-T is the place for all the items we need to be effective and efficient managers. It gives practical actionable advice and ideas that can be applied whether you are just starting as a manager or have been on the job for decades. They cover the things that you should have learned or maybe have learned “the hard way”. They cover the proverbial “ good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from a lot of bad judgment and bad decisions. “ saving you the hard lessons of learning or explaining why that wasn’t the right thing to do. Recommendations come from their experiences, their research, and work with clients. Thanks for adding “Galactically stupid “ to my “phrase library” and making sure to never deploy it inappropriately.

I’ve been listening to Manager Tools for a very long time! And while I agree with some of the things that they say, and think that people are to squishy in some ways in the work force. Holy moly! I’m not sure if I’m becoming more aware of how toxic the stuff they peddle is, or if they really are getting more nuttier and nuttier! If you like Ben Shaperio, or better yet Matt Walsh’s take on basically everything, you’ll love this podcast! God speed hiring and retaining anyone under the age of 40!

Real business education in the online world is not a common occurrence! If you want to break past the tactical trends and build something that lasts, this is for you!

If you’re curious to hear how offices were managed in the 1980s or 1990s, this show is for you. I began managing people over a decade ago and, naturally, I sought out resources to help me be successful. I listened to Manager Tools and Career Tools religiously. Now, given social changes and upheaval in the traditionally hierarchical structures of corporate America, Manager Tools just feels badly out of touch. In one episode, for example, one of the hosts tells a story of admonishing a conference attendee for not shaking hands a certain way (read: black dude dapping it up gets yelled at for not doing a whiter handshake). A lot of what’s presented here is steeped in fundamentally dated principles of old school office culture. I would caution against any of today’s young managers listening or subscribing to any of the content.

This podcast has significantly improved my understanding of my role as a manager. It provides actionable steps you can implement immediately into your management role. Improves work relationships, builds trust with your staff, walks through conflict management, how to give feedback, the power of one on one’s, how to communicate deliverables and so much more. I am a licensee now because having the show notes at my finger tips is priceless in my tool box for being the best manager I can be. Thank you MT’s!

I really wanted this to be a useful podcast, but I think it’s reinforcing too much of the toxic white guy culture that I’ve grown up with and am surrounded by too much. In a discussion about management and leadership, the topics “diversity” and “psychological safety” came up. The guest points out that diversity, while connoting that “race and stuff are also important”, should really be about diversity of thought and experience. The host said he rolled his eyes at the mention of “psychological safety”, and then seems to criticize something very different and laments who he sees as the victims, the ones who are held accountable for being psychologically unsafe.

I keep trying to live this podcast. I find the presenters to be very condescending at times and the way they come across can be very off putting. I believe I am done with this one.

I really enjoyed this podcast until they stated it was my duty to staff were coerced into taking the experimental gene therapy or lose their livelihood. I will not participate in medical tyranny. This has poisoned the Manager Tools tree, so to speak, and I no longer trust their guidance and have purged their podcasts from my system.

Manager Tools is full of very detailed and useful information that managers can use right away in their positions.

I love the topics and there are gems of info but a lot of the time they talk around a topic instead of giving any actual information on how to improve your skills. Lots of…we have this data…this is how we created this data…these are all the companies we spoke to…but that’s it

I began listening to Mark, Mike, Wendi, and Dani within the last two years after having been a supervisor for about the last four. I earned a 27% raise in 2015 in large part through the application of concepts and behaviors I learned from the show and show notes. I may be on the verge of earning another 25% raise and a manager title in the next month or so thanks yet again to the Manager Tools team. I'm better for it and my directs are better off from it. Thanks so much! How fortunate for all of us that Mark and Mike started this podcast and business more than ten years ago! Thanks even more for keeping all the shows online through all these years. —-wow, I wrote that review above in late 2016 and by January 2017 I did indeed promote myself to “manager” by joining a new organization with greater pay. MT has been indispensable still over the last couple of years as I quickly moved up to a higher manager title and pay within a year and now in 2019 am on the verge of yet another promotion and increase. Thank you MT staff and especially Mike and Mark for starting it all! —amazing, I wrote the follow up review in 2019 and I did indeed use their guidance to promote myself to the tune of a 33% increase and more senior manager role. Now I’m 2021 still using and recommending their guidance all the time I’ve just signed a 75% increase and now Director level role. Will be a subscriber and recommender for as many years as possible. Originally I said this podcast was worth tens of thousands but it’s actually worth hundreds of thousands at this point. Thanks so much.

On your effective meeting volume 1: It would be fantastic to be able to make every meeting on time but when you have back to back meetings with no breaks (as is often true with no exaggeration in our new normal), it is simply impossible to make every meeting on time.

MT guidance is priceless. I discovered Mark and Mike in 2011 while serving in Korea. Since implementing their guidance, my leadership and results skyrocketed- I was selected to command a large organization and for senior leadership. Simply implementing O3 meetings at every assignment improved my relationships and the performance of my team. If you only have time for one PodCast, this is it.

Terrific resource on specific behaviors to improve management practices. The management trinity is priceless. I have been listening to these podcasts since 2008. I highly recommend for anyone who wants to be a better manager.

Mark and Mike continue to knock it out of the park. I listened to them years ago and often shared their assessments wth my leadership team I've caught up with the recent COVID casts, and these are great! Mark always keeps current and relevant, and is clearly a world-class though leader in Management and Leadership.

As of 2020, I am coming up on 13 years as a Manager Tools manager. I actually got a *better* job during the tough economic downturn in 2009 by practicing this advice. I love starting my work commute each Monday morning with a new Manager-Tools episode. This is targeted, useful and entertaining stuff! This is the real, specific advice on how to be better at every aspect of management. Heck, the advice works for 'real' life, too. A podcast devoted to the proper way to shake hands? Yep, they've got that. Great, great stuff here.

The cast has been going on for awhile, so there is a lot to catch up on. That said, this is great information that every manager or person who wants to be a manager should consider. It's a great resource and if you are looking for the answer to a question, they probably have a cast on it. Start with the Manger Tools Basics podcast feed to get the fundamentals.

New to this cast, but seems 10-12 minutes of time is spent on introduction.

I love to listen to manager tools, I’ve listened each week and it’s nice to get reminders of best practices in management.

I’ve listened to several of these podcasts. All I’m hearing is a litany of buzzwords. What is the message? Give me one point. Get to know your people? You could have said that in 3 minutes and I could be listening to Casefile right now. If I had a quarter for each time the host says the word “data,” I would be at the beach rather than listening to this meaningless podcast.

This is a repetitious joke. I’m not normally one to leave reviews but you need to improve your content. There is hardly anything valuable here, I spent 40 minutes listening to the two part “1 on 1’s” and came away with 1 good insight. The remainder of the podcast is an advertisement, baiting with interesting topics, then wasting my time talking about why they are qualified to speak on the subject and never addressing the original idea. I subscribed looking for management nuance and insight, my time was wasted, get it together. If you want people to buy your product, stop treating them like idiots.

I just became a new manager without much training or official development courses, and I have been desperate to learn how to be a better manager with so many unexpected issues! These tools are like having a mentor on tap, and I can’t stop listening! I think I listened to them non-stop on my first day off, and every hour after work and as I go to sleep. Thank you so much!!!

This is the best podcast out there. I have a business degree but love listening the ideas and lessons you discuss. They are current, simple and makes sense. K.I.S (Keeping it simple). I wish I would have discovered this a couple years ago, it would have saved me a lot of time and money spent going to business school! Keep the knowledge coming.

Please stop rambling. Only 1/3 of the content is actionable. Also the intro music sounds like those cheesy training VHSs back in the 80’s, I tune out before you even start.

Manager-Tools has been probably the single most useful podcast I’ve ever listened to. Mark and Mike (and other hosts) focus first and foremost on advice you can use. Not just believe or strategize, but tips you can actually use. Honestly, it changed my life and made me a better leader.

A great podcast for everyone to listen to. It puts everything in very practical and straightforward manner. If your not listening and sharing this you’re not doing your job.

Excellent information, very well done.

Looking for some daily advice and this is just what the doctor ordered. Not too short, not too long - LOTS of great information.

I'm willing to concede that the principles behind Manager Tools are sound. However, I've listened to three podcasts so far (including basics) and they have yet to actually describe their methods. They have spent 30 minutes EVERY time justifying their theories and/or explaining over and over why other resources fall short. So far, it seems like they could cover all their actually helpful content in 5-10, ten minute casts. So aggravating.

If you are a manager you need to listen to this podcast. All episodes are actionable for every manager.

Even if you just pick the episodes that pertain to a particular part of management this is a great resource. I have some opportunities and raises that were direct results of things I implemented from the podcast.

I began listening to the Manager Tools podcast 3+ years ago. I've found their advice to be practical and very valuable. They provide information that would be valuable to almost anyone in management.

If only I had this education earlier in my career, the organizations I have served would be much better off. Mike & Mark give clear directives on how to make a positive impact for your organization and be a positive influence for the individuals in your life's path. I have begun sharing listening sessions of "Manager Tools" with our employees and the results have been seen quickly. You can teach an old dog new tricks - and I'm thankful for that!

I truly value all of the insight and information these guys put out every episode. I'm in late 20s managing people much older than myself. I love having a place to go for sound ideAs and advice. Awesome podcast that I believe would be beneficial to every manager. Keep up the Awesome work. I appreciate it!!

I love that it's almost like being baby fed all this great information! As a young woman wanting to become a more effective manager, this is a great podcast!

Thanks for all your great insights over the years

You don't know it all, no one does. This podcast will help full the gaps and round out your manager skills.

Great cast for Managers and Sups.

Too much setup and introduction really hurts this podcast. It’s as if they’re padding out the podcast for time. This would be much more effective in a shorter format.

I love this guidance. Hiring, interviews, phone screens, DISC, one-on-ones....love this stuff.

I believe I have listened to every single podcast by these guys over the past year. I have been a manager for a few years, and there is no real training like this out there. I have put it as a mandatory listen to all my managers which is making my job a lot easier! Really appreciate all the work the, manager and career tools, team does! -Miron Briley

This is one of the best management podcasts around. Always relevant and informative!