Business Problem Solving

People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, or environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They cannot solve their problems in their current context; the larger system within which they are operating is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They cannot transform this system on their own or by working only with their friends or colleagues; the system is too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector.

Tired of making decisions that seem to only work against you? It starts with understanding your brain and the decision-making process. Cognitive biases and heuristics have developed over thousands of years of evolution and can lead to serious damages in multiple areas of life if you don’t recognize them and stop them dead in their tracks. How Our Brains Betray Us has everything you need to know with examples, tools, and strategies to identify the most powerful cognitive biases that impair all types of decisions, how to avoid them and also use them to your advantage.

Cost reduction...productivity improvement...customer retention...these are the promises of the Six Sigma quality management system. The Six Sigma Way reveals how GE, Motorola, and numerous other companies are successfully using Six Sigma to fine-tune products and processes, improve performance, and increase profits. Now you can hear the road map for implementing Six Sigma in your manufacturing or service organization.

Learn to release gifts and talents you never knew you had and how to use them to become hugely successful, happy, and even wealthy. Discover how it is your daily standards and authenticity that determine your success or failure with your goals.

A leading behavioral economist shows how businesses can improve consumer thinking and decision-making on screens. The typical American office worker now spends the majority of his or her waking hours staring at a screen. In the 21st century, every business is a digital business, which is why it's so critical to understand how we think and behave online. Acclaimed behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi reveals a toolkit of interventions for the digital age. Using provocative case-studies and engaging exercises, Benartzi shows how businesses can update their nudges to help consumers make better decisions on screens.

Too many people associate creativity solely with the arts, even though to be an incredible scientist, engineer, or entrepreneur requires immense creativity. Combining creativity tools and techniques with real-world stories of innovative people and businesses, this audiobook is a provocation, an inspiration, and an invitation to unleash the innate creativity that lies within each of us. It offers a more dynamic and integrative way to adapt and innovate, one that allows us the freedom to access our full human selves.

Customers can be a mystery. Despite the availability of more data than ever before, everyone, from the CEO to salespeople in the field, struggles to understand who their customers really are, what they want, why they lose them, and how to regain them. To crack the case, start thinking like a market detective. David Scott Duncan shows how in his entertaining story of Tazza, a fictional chain of cafes with declining sales and leaders urgently seeking to understand why.

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.

Ori Brafman and management consultant Judah Pollack dramatically demonstrate how even the best and most efficient organizations - from Fortune 500 companies to today's US Army - can become more innovative by allowing a little unstructured space and "contained chaos" into their planning and decision-making. Through their consulting work, they realized that while structure and hierarchy are essential both in large corporations and small groups, too much of either can stifle creativity.

O que faz algumas pessoas serem mais bem-sucedidas que outras? Tem relação com habilidade e estratégia ou pode ter influência de algum fator que foge ao nosso controle? Iludidos pelo acaso é sobre sorte — ou, mais precisamente, sobre como a encaramos nas nossas experiências pessoais e profissionais. Nassim Taleb apresenta insights sobre essa variável nebulosa das nossas decisões e, para isso, usa exemplos do mercado financeiro — área em que supostamente a sorte pode ser confundida com habilidade.

Being able to take innovative and creative approaches to new challenges is crucial for leadership success. Decision Making and Problem Solving will help you to learn key techniques and models to confidently make the best decisions and solve the hardest problems. Using checklists, exercises, case studies and tried-and-tested methods, leadership guru John Adair provides a clear framework that can generate ideas and inspire confidence in your team - so you can spot the solution in every problem, and create ideas to rival even the best strategists.

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.

It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.

Katrina. Haiti. BP. Fukushima. The Great Recession. Those are just a few of the catastrophic disruptions the world has endured in recent years. As we try to respond to such crises, key questions arise: What causes one system to break under great stress and another to rebound? How much change can a complex system absorb while still retaining its purpose and function? What characteristics make it adaptive to change? Provocative and eye-opening, Resilience sheds light on the nature of change.

The Art of Strategic Decision-Making will teach you to seize control of your life and make sure your decisions aren’t making you. This book cites years of research and scientific studies about what constitutes a great decision and the factors that will inevitably lead you there. It is an in-depth look at human nature and psychology and why we make decisions in the way we do - for better or for worse. This book is packed with theory, but it is all practical and actionable. Use these mental models and pieces of analysis on your decisions today.

In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough introduced us to research showing that personal qualities like perseverance, self-control, and conscientiousness play a critical role in children's success. Now, in Helping Children Succeed, Tough takes on a new set of pressing questions: What does growing up in poverty do to children's mental and physical development? How does adversity at home affect their success in the classroom, from preschool to high school?

Do motivation and "how-to's" really work? Almost never! Why? There is something missing. In his newest results-getting book, If How To's Were Enough We Would All Be Skinny, Rich & Happy, Brian Klemmer explores what is missing and the real reason why most people do not succeed. The secret is found in seven paradigms that will change the course of your life. They are the basis of Klemmer & Associates' hugely popular series of experiential leadership seminars.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you innovate effectively.

Ask better questions, and you will get better results. Top business coach Mark Moses has identified four critical questions every business leader should explore on their journey to business and life success.

Change for Good is a new system for making social change through business that reflects Paul’s experience over the last 35 years. One of the core principles of Change for Good is including people with lived experience of social problems in identifying promising solutions and collaborating to bring these solutions to life. This methodology can create impactful and sustainable social change in society in ways that aren’t possible when executives make decisions in their boardrooms that are intended to impact the lives of vulnerable people.