Business Organization

If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.

Peggy and Pam were two desperately disorganized sisters. They started each day with the best of intentions but they never made it because they were "Sidetracked Home Executives" caught in the disorder of misplaced priorities, half-completed chores, and undirected energies - two smart ladies who'd never used their heads when coping with their homes.

When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context - whether in the private or the public sector - many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work.

This book is the definitive guide for leaders of high-growth organizations seeking to understand and execute the people-management principles that are essential to continued success. Andrew Bartlow and T. Brad Harris offer a practical toolkit that founders, functional leaders, and managers of people can use to rethink their practices to meet their organizations' needs.

The power of uplift enables any organization to do more with less, beat the competition, and perform better than ever. Leaders who uplift their employees' passions, intellects, and commitments produce remarkable results. Based on original research from a seven-year global study, Uplifting Leadership reveals how leaders from diverse organizations inspired and uplifted their teams' performance.

The traditional hierarchical organization is dead, but what replaces it? Numerous new models - the agile organization, the networked organization, and holacracy, to name a few - have emerged, but leaders need to know what really works. How do you build an organization that is responsive to fast-changing markets? What kind of organization delivers both speed and scale, and how do you lead it? Arthur Yeung and Dave Ulrich provide leaders with a much-needed blueprint for reinventing the organization.

HR strategist Shereen Daniels delivers an incisive and honest discussion of how business leaders can change workplace practices to create a more anti-racist and equitable environment. The author draws on her personal and client-facing experience, historical fact, legal proceedings, HR insights, and quantitative analysis to equip listeners with the knowledge and tools they need to transform their companies.

Leading organizations worldwide are evolving from the idea of employee engagement to that of organizational alignment. More important in today’s virtual work environment, The Art of Alignment provides a road map to creating alignment to your mission and vision to distributed teams. The Art of Alignment takes a data-driven approach to organizational alignment. When executives add purpose to engagement, coupled with measurement, your organization will experience market-leading performance.

Few leaders will admit it, but again and again the growth of their organizations outruns their skills. If you're one of those leaders, you know the result: as the job grows bigger than you are, you get disoriented by a world of unfamiliar challenges. You then hit a wall of ineffectiveness, a stall point. Why won't doubling down on the managerial and technical building blocks that have worked before help you out of a stall? Because you invariably neglect the new political, personal, strategic, and interpersonal skills needed to manage yourself and others.

Accelerating Performance is not just another "warm and fuzzy" change management book - it's a practical, comprehensive, data-driven action plan for picking up the pace and achieving more. Cowritten by one of the authors of Beyond Performance, this audiobook draws on a combination of empirical research and decades of experience advising global companies to show you how to reduce time to value by building and changing momentum more quickly than your competitors.

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.

Hierarchy in organizations is obsolete. There is a better way: one that increases the engagement of employees and managers alike, reduces micromanaging and other limiting approaches, and promotes organizational and individual success. In this book, self-management expert Samantha Slade presents seven concrete practices to help your organization flatten its existing hierarchy and develop a horizontal organization. The result will be enhanced creativity, greater growth, and an increased employee retention and productivity - and a better bottom line.

The Talent War explores how US Special Operations Forces assess, select, and develop their world-class talent. You'll learn how to adopt a talent mindset, the single greatest weapon you can possess in the war for talent. When your organization reflects this mindset, you will hire, train, and develop the right people and put them in the best positions to make decisions that allow you to retake the advantage and win the war.

After a period of tremendous upheaval, it is necessary for organizations to transform alongside their employees and welcome new ways of working. While it is impossible to predict which changes will be successful, it is crucial for leaders to now ask: what should work look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe organizations? In Brave New Workplace, Julian Barling argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions.

Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, co-authors of the New York Times business best seller Raving Fans, are back with Gung Ho! Here is an invaluable management tool that outlines foolproof ways to increase productivity by fostering excellent morale in the workplace. It is a must-read for everyone who wants to stay on top in today's ultra-competitive business world.

DEI is an eight-billion-dollar industry that is not yet accessing its full potential through real solutions and results. However, through a powerful formula of policies and practices that motivate employees to be more socially and self-aware, The Inclusive Organization is a revolutionary yet practical resource for individuals at any stage of their career. Jenkins discusses human behavior, workplace psychology, and shares her DEI-tested framework for success.

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. Amy Edmondson shows that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible team-like entities.

With increased demand for hybrid and fully remote work styles, most firms understand that some form of distance work is here to stay—and have put some remote protocols in place. But many companies either see the shift to remote work as a threat to their culture and management style, or they just don’t know how to make the transition. It’s time to take advantage of the many opportunities remote work presents. This book will tell you how.

Every leader and team can use Building Strategic Organizations to deepen their understanding of essential strategy topics. You can also use these five tools to quickly develop a robust strategic plan that aligns your on-the-ground work with your strategy, priorities, and vision. Build the strategic capacity and employee engagement of your entire workforce by making sure they know why they come to work, what is most important, and what progress is being made.

Through the stories of a number of unsung heroes, Sanborn reveals the keys each one of us can use to improve our organizations and enhance our careers. He has an unparalleled ability to explain fundamental business and leadership truths through simple stories and anecdotes. You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader offers an inspiring message for anyone who wants to take control of his or her life and make a positive difference.