Behavior Business

As a response to the increasing violence in our culture, the widening ideological divides, and the growing gap in economic well-being, there is greater awareness that a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. But even as we acknowledge the need to build community, the dominant on-the-ground practices about how to engage people, civically and organizationally, remain essentially unchanged. We still believe community is built with better messaging, more persuasion, and social events for people to get to know each other better. All of which is naïve.

We've all been taught that we must suppress or avoid emotions at work, but this inevitably leads to a loss in productivity, diminished creativity, and crushing job dissatisfaction. Research shows 85 percent of us avoid communicating crucial workplace problems upward, and many of us who are employed are actively looking for a different job. What's going on?

Surprising rules for successful monetization. In Monetizing Innovation, the authors at Simon Kucher distil the lessons of thirty years and over 10,000 projects into a practical, nine-step approach. Whether you are a CEO, executive leadership, or part of the team responsible for innovation and new product development, this book is for you, with special sections and summaries to make monetizing innovation part of your company's DNA.

When CEOs think about the supply chain, it's usually to cut costs. But the smartest leaders see supply chain and sourcing for what they can be: hidden tools for outperforming the competition. Steve Jobs, upon returning to Apple in 1997, focused on transforming the supply chain. He hired Tim Cook - and the company sped up the development of new products, getting them into consumers' hands faster. The rest is history.

Tremendous forces for change are radically reshaping the world of work. Disruptive innovations, radical thinking, new business models and resource scarcity are impacting every sector. Although the scale of expected change is not unprecedented, what is unique is the pervasive nature of the change and its accelerating pace which people in organizations have to cope with. Structures, systems, processes and strategies are relatively simple to understand and even fix.

The subject of “design thinking” is the rage at business schools, throughout corporations, and increasingly in the popular press - due in large part to work of IDEO, a leading design firm, and its celebrated CEO, Tim Brown, who uses this audiobook to reveal how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business. Change by Design is an audiobook for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

Does your organization manage complexity by making things more complicated? If so, you are not alone. According to The Boston Consulting Group's fascinating Complexity Index, business complexity has increased sixfold during the past 60 years. And, all the while, organizational complicatedness - that is, the number of structures, processes, committees, decision-making forums, and systems - has increased by a whopping factor of 35.

In Rising Above a Toxic Workplace, you'll learn how to endure, cope, or quit if necessary. Drawing from authentic - sometimes horrific - real-life stories, authors Gary Chapman, Paul White, and Harold Myra blend their expertise to give you practical guidance, empowering insight, and realistic hope. You'll discover: how workplaces can become unhealthy and how to avoid getting wounded; what drives toxic leaders and why they are so damaging to those around them.

Emotions are inseparable from how we humans think, choose, and act. In Emotional Design, cognitive scientist Don Norman shows how the principles of human psychology apply to the invention and design of new technologies and products. In The Design of Everyday Things, Norman made the definitive case for human-centered design, showing that good design demanded that the user's must take precedence over a designer's aesthetic if anything, from light switches to airplanes, was going to work as the user needed.

If your answer to any of the following questions is yes, listen to this book now. Don't walk into another situation without being 100 percent confident. 1. Have you ever been unsure as to who should be introduced first? 2. Have you ever placed your keys, purse, or cell phone on a table at a restaurant? 3. Have you ever worn your name tag on your left lapel? 4. Have you ever buttered your entire dinner roll before taking the first bite? 5. Have you ever sat down to dine and not known which glass was yours?

From the author of The Myth of Multitasking comes Invaluable, a business fable that empowers the frustrated and overworked to understand the value of their time. At the fictitious company GreenGarb, 20-something Jason is discontented with his entry-level position, feeling his skills and knowledge are being underutilized. Mid-level manager Tracy is overwhelmed by her workload and her needy direct reports. And CEO Helen needs them to sort it out productively.

Radical uncertainty changes the way we should think about decision-making. For over half a century economics has assumed that people behave rationally by optimizing among well-defined choices. Behavioral economics questioned how far people are rational, pointing to the cognitive biases that seem to describe actual behavior.

In Beyond High Performance, Jason Jaggard, along with the coaches of Novus Global and the faculty of the Meta Performance™ Institute, pull back the curtain to reveal the coaching tools they use to help the best get better. Their groundbreaking research shows there are two types of great leaders and teams: Those who achieve success once and then plateau or decline, and those who achieve success over and over again.

What are the underlying handful of fundamentals that haven't changed for over a hundred years? From Harnish's famous One-Page Strategic Plan to his concise outline of eight practical actions you can take to strengthen your culture, this book is a compilation of best practices adapted from some of the best-run firms on the planet. Included is an instructive chapter co-authored by Rich Russakoff, revealing winning tactics to get banks to finance your business. Lastly, there are case studies demonstrating the validity of Harnish's practical approaches.

Francesca Gino has been studying rebels in life and in the workplace for more than 15 years. She has discovered that rebels - those who practice "positive deviance" at work - are harder to manage, but they are good for the bottom line: their passion, drive, curiosity, and creativity raise the entire organization to a new level. And she has found that at home, rebels are more engaged partners, parents, and friends. Packed with strategies for embracing rebellion at work and in life, Rebel Talent encourages all of us to rebel against what’s comfortable, so that we can thrive.

At its heart, accountability is understanding that your actions do not always have the impact that you intend; it is ownership of your actions, working to repair problematic issues, and learning how to prevent patterns from forming or continuing in the future. How to Be Accountable will walk you through your own head to understand your own patterns and behaviors, untangle them, and live the kind of life you want.

The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide. It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every endeavor, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies, and even communities can undo their “learning issues” and achieve superior performance. If ever a work gave meaning to the phrase hands-on, this is it.

Two-time New York Times best-selling authors Roger Connors and Tom Smith show how leaders can achieve record-breaking results by quickly and effectively shaping their organizational culture to capitalize on their greatest asset - their people. Change the Culture, Change the Game joins their classic book The Oz Principle and their recent best seller How Did That Happen? to complete the most comprehensive series ever written on workplace accountability.

Do you exude confidence and credibility? Can you command a room? Sylvia Ann Hewlett, one of the world's most influential business thinkers, cracks the code of Executive Presence (EP) for men and women intent on winning the next plum assignment and doing something extraordinary with their lives. You might have the qualifications to be considered for your dream job, but you won't get far unless you can signal that you're "leadership material" and that you "have what it takes."

Originally published in 1896, General Henry M. Robert's classic guide to smooth, orderly, and fairly conducted meetings has sold millions of copies in numerous editions as the gold standard of meeting procedure for parliamentarians and novice club presidents and members alike. The best book from which to learn all about running and taking an effective part in meetings, General Robert's gift of order is as indispensable now as it was a century ago.