Business Problem Solving

>. Orange Beach, Alabama is a simple town filled with simple people. But like all humans on the planet, the good folks of Orange Beach have their share of problems - marriages teetering on the brink of divorce, young adults giving up on life, business people on the verge of bankruptcy, as well as the many other obstacles that life seems to dish out to the masses. Fortunately, when things look the darkest - a mysterious man named Jones has a miraculous way of showing up.

Throughout history, a powerful force has hindered the growth of human welfare and happiness. It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local bar. It is human stupidity. Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, created this vitally important book in order to detect and neutralize its threat.

There’s no doubt that our world has gotten more extreme. Pandemics, climate change, superpower rivalries, cyberattacks, political radicalization—virtually, everywhere we look there is mayhem bearing down on us, putting trillions of assets at risk. And at least two factions have formed around how to respond. In Chaos Kings, Scott Patterson depicts how one faction, led by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan, believes humans can never see the big disaster coming.

In The Creator Mindset, Bashan shows you how to use creativity as a decision-making tool and do so every bit as confidently as you use spreadsheets and data analysis.

In today's fast world, it's important to have certain skills for success. With so much fake news and information everywhere, critical thinking and logic are crucial. These skills help us think well and make good decisions. They help us understand why things are how they are, figure out what influences them, and come up with ways to make things better. One of the reasons most of us fall short in thinking critically is that our educational system doesn't teach critical thinking.

Tackle your thorniest problems using the wise fool's savvy strategies! The wise fool is the archetypal contrarian known for his creativity, irreverence, and humor. He looks at life in unorthodox ways and pushes back against the status quo. Throughout history, powerful decision-makers (Egyptian pharaohs, Chinese emperors, Persian sultans, and European kings) consulted wise fools to question the assumptions that kept them mired in stale and obsolete solutions.

In this widely anticipated and deeply researched book, Dr. Donohue, a victim of workplace stress herself, lays out a seven-step solution to give you the tools you need to make communication a cure for workplace stress, not a cause - even (especially) when you're working with a generationally diverse team.

During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges - it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector's response to big problems at all levels.

Think in Systems is a concise information book offering high-level, strategic problem-solving methods for personal and global issues. The book presents the main features of systems thinking in an understandable everyday manner, helping you to develop the skill top analysts and world leaders use.

Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential.

It’s easy to be positive when everything is coming up roses. But what happens when life goes sideways? Many of us lapse into a self-defeating negative spiral that makes it hard to accomplish anything. Getting to Neutral is a step-by-step guide that shows listeners how to use mental conditioning coach Trevor Moawad’s innovative motivational system to defeat negativity and thrive.

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.

Our ability to foresee and protect against natural catastrophes has never been greater; yet we consistently fail to heed the warnings and protect ourselves and our communities, with devastating consequences. What explains this contradiction? In The Ostrich Paradox, Wharton professors Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther draw on years of teaching and research to explain why disaster preparedness efforts consistently fall short.

We all wish we had more time to pause and reflect about small decisions and big goals - and everything in between. But since we live and work in a vortex of tasks, meetings, decisions, and serious responsibilities, we rarely get the chance to step back. In this practical guide, best-selling author and Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco argues that you don't need long periods of solitude and tranquility to reflect well.

Rocket science is often celebrated as the ultimate triumph of technology. But it's not. Rather, it's the apex of a certain thought process—a way to imagine the unimaginable and solve the unsolvable. It's the same thought process that enabled Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind, that allows spacecraft to travel millions of miles through outer space and land on a precise spot, and that brings us closer to colonizing other planets.

Detonate explains how organizations built up bad habits, identifies which ones masquerade as "best practices", and suggests alternatives that can contribute to winning in the marketplace. With a focus on optimism and empowerment, it focuses on an approach and mindset which are critical to successfully compete in an era characterized by profound technological advances and uncertainty.

What passes for strategy in too many businesses, government agencies, and military operations is a toxic mix of wishful thinking and a jumble of incoherent policies. Richard P. Rumelt’s breakthrough concept is that leaders become effective strategists when they focus on challenges rather than goals, pinpointing the crux of their pivotal challenge—the aspect that is both surmountable and promises the greatest progress—and taking decisive, coherent action to overcome it.

Even the Odds helps us understand the broader implications of risk - and how it guides our decision-making - so that we can improve outcomes across multiple facets of our lives, from our businesses and investments, to the personal choices we make.

We pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings”. We create incentives for good behavior, but don’t get rid of obstacles to it. We collect new-and-improved ideas, but don’t prune the outdated ones. Every day, across challenges big and small, we neglect a basic way to make things better: We don’t subtract. Leidy Klotz’s pioneering research shows why.

Whether we realize it or not, we all take risks large and small every day. Even the most cautious among us cannot opt out - the question is always which risks to take, not whether to take them at all. What most of us don't know is how to measure those risks and maximize the chances of getting what we want out of life. In An Economist Walks into a Brothel, Schrager equips listeners with five principles for dealing with risk, principles used by some of the world's most interesting risk takers.