Business Problem Solving

For decades, alarms have sounded about declining engagement. Yet companies continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the low productivity and unhappiness that go with them. Why is "culture" so difficult to improve? What makes so many good employees check out? Neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers. It all boils down to trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate.

Few businesses can afford to shut down for an extended period of time, regardless of the cause. If the past few years have taught us anything, it's that disaster can strike in any shape, at any time. Be prepared with the time-tested strategies in Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Incident Management Plan and protect your employees while ensuring your company survives the unimaginable.

Murphy's Law tells us that if something can go wrong, it will. Nonsense! says Al Casey, who maintains: If things can go right, they should. But you've got to make them go right, he adds, by hard work, focusing on key problems, and believing in the people around you. One of the most successful - and original - American businessmen of our time, Al Casey is a no-nonsense turnaround specialist who loves nothing more than the big challenges, whether in the private or the public sector.

Data. It's the benchmark that informs corporate projections, decision-making, and analysis. But, why do many organizations that see themselves as data-driven fail to thrive? In Leading with AI and Analytics, two renowned experts from the Kellogg School of Management show business leaders how to transform their organization to become evidence-driven, which leads to real, measurable changes that can help propel their companies to the top of their industries.

In an era of ambiguous, messy problems - as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change - it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. Creative Acts for Curious People is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence.

How to Be Strategic is your accessible but comprehensive guide to strategic thinking in any situation. Fred Pelard distils 20 years' experience training executives at all levels from leading companies around the world into a range of smartly illustrated, workable methodologies that will enable you to understand each approach and find your own path to the right solution every time.

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.

The number-one international best-selling author of The Gray Rhino offers a bold new framework for understanding risk and how we can reexamine and reshape our relationship with uncertainty to live more productive and successful lives.

Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don't demand a more mindful approach. It's when we're faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.

For more than 40 years, The Boston Consulting Group has been shaping strategic thinking in business. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry. Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside.

The strength of any organization is determined by the quality of its managers. Want to be invaluable to your company? Just boost your management skills. When you discover what the most successful managers know, you'll unlock the secrets to turning even ordinary employees into extraordinary performers. Filled with proven techniques, this guide tells you how to bring out the best in your people - and hit new heights in your own career.

Whether you're rolling out a new product from a city-view office or rolling up your sleeves to deliver a social service in the field, learning why and how to embrace failure can help you do better faster. Smart leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents design their innovation projects with a key idea in mind: ensure that every failure is maximally useful. In Fail Better, Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn show how to create the conditions, culture, and habits to systematically, ruthlessly, and quickly figure out what works in three steps.

Leadership is all about others - inspiring them to believe, then enabling that belief to become reality. That's the essence of Leadership U: it starts with U but it's not about U. Those timeless words are timelier than ever today, as leaders look to accelerate through the crisis curve. As author Gary Burnison observes, "There will likely be more change in the next two years than we have seen in the last 20." Now, in Leadership U, Burnison lays out a framework - his Six Degrees of Leadership - to show leaders how to create change.

Published in more than two dozen countries, How to Change the World has become a bible for the field of social entrepreneurship. It tells the stories of people building innovative and pattern-changing solutions to social and economic problems.

Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, the school teacher next door who amassed a million-dollar fortune.... Did these people succeed because they were more motivated or because they were more disciplined? The answer to both questions is yes - but not in the ways you might think. Anyone can achieve extraordinary things. The secret is setting goals that test the very limits of your abilities. In Hard Goals, Mark Murphy, the acclaimed author of Hundred Percenters, explains the science behind getting from where you are to where you want to be in your career, business, and life.

Foncer, changer de route, recommencer. Depuis qu'elle est née, Sophie ne fait que ça. Un jour, elle a voulu comprendre. Elle a appuyé sur pause, bien décidée à aller chercher là où il le faudrait - biologie, psychologie, neurosciences, philosophie, littérature et bar du coin - des réponses susceptibles d'éclairer ses choix. Alors que nos choix sont ce par quoi nous écrivons notre vie et affirmons notre liberté, que savons-nous d'eux ? Pourquoi les faisons-nous, et comment ?

In Bet on You, Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch reveal hard-earned, real-world insights that will help you realize your potential by enacting risk in ways most meaningful to you. The author’s risk-taking guidance has been embraced by the world’s best businesses: Google, Boston Scientific, FedEx, and Oracle. Their insights are the secret sauce behind any transformative journey to a success-filled life.

From turf wars to low morale, most companies attempt to cure what ails them with the latest management fad - and fail. They are treating the symptoms while ignoring the true problem. Success starts with knowing the kind of business you're really in.

We struggle to manage complexity every day. We follow intricate diets to lose weight, juggle multiple remotes to operate our home entertainment systems, face proliferating data at the office, and hack through thickets of regulation at tax time. But complexity isn't destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there's a better way: by developing a few simple yet effective rules, you can tackle even the most complex problems.

Mark Schwartz, author of leadership classics A Seat at the Table and The Art of Business Value, reveals a new (empowering) model for the often soul-shattering, frustrating, Kafkaesque nightmare we call bureaucracy. Through humor, a healthy dose of history and philosophy, and real-life examples from his days as a government bureaucrat, Schwartz shows IT leaders (and the whole of business) how to master the ways of the Monkey, the Razor, and the Sumo Wrestler to create a lean, learning, and enabling bureaucracy.