Business Problem Solving

Using data to guide decision making builds stronger, more adaptable organisations that can thrive in a rapidly changing world. Embedding a pragmatic, data-guided culture in any organisation can be a challenge. This comprehensive guide for leaders sets out a proven framework for developing the mindset and strategies required to generate value from data and to scale quickly. Jargon-free and packed with practical advice, Data Means Business can help you activate your data to generate growth.

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.

Are you new to TRIZ and looking for an easy-to-follow guide on how you can use it to enhance your company's creativity, innovation, and problem-solving abilities? Look no further! Written in plain English and packed with tons of accessible and easy-to-follow instruction, TRIZ for Dummies shows you how to use this powerful toolkit to discover all the ways of solving a problem, uncover new concepts, and identify previously unseen routes for new product development.

Modern work life is a maze, but you can find a shortcut through it. We are spending longer hours at work, although we desire more work-life balance. According to the World Population Review, the 10 countries with the longest workweeks averaged 42.2 hours. Given how much time you spend at work, wouldn’t it be better if you could be more efficient at your job? The Harvard Business Review says that workers spend as much as 41 percent of the average workday on tasks that don’t add value. Modern work poses its challenges.

The language of business. In order to understand how your business is performing right now and to evaluate, assess, and devise new strategies to boost future performance, you need information. Financial statements are a critical source of the information you need. In direct and simple terms, Richard A. Lambert, Miller-Sherrerd Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, demystifies financial statements and concepts and shows you how you can apply this information to make better business decisions for long-term profit.

Best-selling author Andy Andrews helps us break through false boundaries and rediscover the path to accomplishing extraordinary results in every area of our lives.

Research and experience demonstrate two areas with which many new managers are completely unfamiliar: delegating tasks and work and making decisions. Some struggle with this for years. But it doesn't have to be hard. 151 Quick Ideas for Delegating and Decision Making combines 50 years' experience of two managers and the experiences of other managers who have been interviewed and observed. And even if you are already in a supervisory position, this book can help you do a more effective and efficient job at managing people and tasks.

In today's high-speed, customer-empowered world, the levels of swiftness and efficiency of business transactions will determine ultimate success or failure. In this groundbreaking guide, Dooley helps you spot the inevitable points of friction in your organization, and he provides the tools and insight you need to eliminate them. By truly understanding the impact friction can have, you'll be able to establish positive habits and eliminate negative ones - all with the end result of building a company that's the envy of your industry.

Organizational psychologist and executive coach Rebecca Newton has found that even her most successful clients still want more of one quality: gravitas. They want their words to carry weight, to have a positive, lasting impact on those around them. Gravitas can seem like an elusive, intangible quality, but it isn't about adopting the style of another or being someone you're not. Newton draws on extensive research and experience coaching business leaders to show what underpins authentic gravitas and how anyone can develop it.

How do you tell a real trend from the merely trendy? How, for example, will a technology—like artificial intelligence, machine learning, self-driving cars, biohacking, bots, and the Internet of Things—affect us, our businesses, and workplaces? How will it eventually change the way we live, work, play, and think—and how should we prepare for it now? In The Signals Are Talking, noted futurist Amy Webb shows us how to analyze the "true signals" and land on the right side of disruption.

In this revolutionary guide, Stanford University professor and international best-selling author of inGenius adapts her popular course material to teach everyone how to make imaginative ideas into realities.

No one knows leadership like Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Along with his wife and best-selling co-author, Suzy Welch, he explores with Daniel Goleman what it means to be a great leader, and what elements must be present for any leader to be successful. Key elements of emotional intelligence, from self-awareness to the ability to instill core values in a team, are part of that success.

List the hottest buzzwords in business today and "analytics" is bound to come out near the top. But to most people, analytics implies complex tools and technical experts manipulating massive amounts and varieties of information (i.e.,"Big Data"). But complex Big Data analytics isn't the only game in town. And many people don't realize that a business doesn't need data scientists and complex tools to derive useful information and valuable benefits from any amount of raw data.

Unprecedented access to infinite solutions has led us to realize that having all of the answers is not the answer. From innovation teams to creativity experts to crowdsourcing, we've turned from one source to another, spending endless cycles pursuing piecemeal solutions to each challenge we face. What if your organization had an effective systematic approach to deal with any problem?

Most of us grew up with the idea that there is good debt and there is bad debt. Good debts are generally considered to be debts you incur to buy things that can go up in value—like a home or college education. Bad debts are things like credit card balances, where you borrowed money to buy things that depreciate or go down in value, like most consumer goods.

Over his four deployments as a Navy SEAL sniper, Brandon Webb learned all about performing while experiencing heart-pounding stress. After returning to civilian life, he started his first business venture - and failed miserably. He realized that his big mistake was neglecting to apply what he already knew about focus under pressure. By drawing on the lessons of his SEAL training and early business struggles, Webb went on to build a second business, a media network called Hurricane.

This groundbreaking audiobook includes the same material used by leaders and employees of Koch companies to apply Marker-Based Management (MBM) to get results. Koch outlines this unique management methodology, developed and implemented by Koch Industries, which has experienced 2,000-fold growth since 1967. MBM is a scientific approach to management that integrates theory and practice while providing a framework for dealing with the ongoing challenges of growth and change.

Creating solutions to solve problems can often prove very difficult to accomplish, even for seasoned solution designers. Complex organizational problems have several stakeholders, endless variables, and a myriad of possible solutions. It's hard enough to figure out where to start, and even harder to realize what the perfect, mutually-beneficial solution is.

We are living in a time when behavioral change is necessary for our health and survival. Yet we find it exceedingly difficult to transform our own habits, let alone those of other people. Enter Naohiro Matsumura, whose powerful new design method is as astonishingly simple in its logic as it is sophisticated in its psychology. It allows any of us to address challenges in our homes, our public spaces, and our social interactions.

Harvard University professor and U.S. Intelligence Science Board member J. Richard Hackman reveals how to make teams more effective in solving hard, complex problems in intelligence work and other challenging, high-pressure areas.