Business Problem Solving

In The Book of Beautiful Questions, Berger shares illuminating stories and compelling research on the power of inquiry. Drawn from the insights and expertise of psychologists, innovators, effective leaders and some of the world's foremost creative thinkers, he presents the essential questions readers need to make the best choices when it truly counts, with a particular focus in four key areas: decision-making, creativity, leadership and relationships.

Meetings don't have to be a waste of time. When managed right, they are a powerful tool for solving problems, making decisions, exchanging ideas - and getting results fast. Based on years of experience in consulting for companies around the world, Brian Tracy has learned firsthand what works in meetings - and what doesn't. Now he reveals simple, proven ideas you can use to make meetings shorter, more effective, and more satisfying to everyone in attendance.

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.

A "brilliant, fun, and wise" (Cass R. Sunstein) tour of nine common business decision-making traps - and practical tools for avoiding them - from a professor of strategic thinking.

Disney experiences enthrall millions of guests around the world. How does it all become a reality? Find out in this action-packed narrative journey! Dream Chasing is a recounting by author Bob Weis of four decades of creating and seeing to completion challenging projects, leading teams from the top secret, high-tech corridors of Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) to the highest levels of The Walt Disney Company.

Volume 4 of The Great Mental Models series delves into the realms of economics and art, presenting more than twenty-four valuable ideas with clear language and style. This book equips you with an understanding of the dynamics shaping our world. It will teach you strategies to leverage these principles and give you a significant edge in the aspects of life you value most.

This is clearly abook every manager should listen to. One of the issues Mintzberg addresses is the frenetic pace and relentless pressures of the job - most managers hardly have time to think. So Mintzberg has done some revising and some updating and has distilled the essence of his original book into a lean, action-oriented shortened version. The core of the book remains the same: Mintzberg's observations of twenty-nine different managers, from business, government, and nonprofits, working in diverse settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra.

Budding entrepreneurs face a challenging road. The path is not made any easier by all the cliches they hear about how to make a start-up succeed - from platitudes and conventional wisdom to downright contradictions. This witty and wise guide to the dilemmas of entrepreneurship debunks widespread misconceptions about how the world of start-ups works and offers hard-earned advice for every step of the journey.

Insights—like Darwin's understanding of the way evolution actually works, and Watson and Crick's breakthrough discoveries about the structure of DNA-can change the world. We also need insights into the everyday things that frustrate and confuse us so that we can more effectively solve problems and get things done. Yet we know very little about when, why, or how insights are formed—or what blocks them. In Seeing What Others Don't, renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Klein unravels the mystery.

Each year about 28 million Americans begin a search for a new job. Millions more live in the age of the permanent job search, their online profiles eternally awaiting a better offer. Job seekers are more mobile and better informed than ever, aspiring to work for employers offering an appealing culture, a robust menu of perks, and opportunities for personal fulfillment and advancement. The result is that millions of applications stream to the handful of companies that regularly top listings of the best companies to work for.

Decisions equal success - nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive - they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension.

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.

In his groundbreaking book Predictably Irrational, social scientist Dan Ariely revealed the multiple biases that lead us into making unwise decisions. Now, in The Upside of Irrationality, he exposes the surprising negative and positive effects irrationality can have on our lives. Focusing on our behaviors at work and in relationships, he offers new insights and eye-opening truths about what really motivates us on the job.

Samit has been at the helm of businesses in the ecommerce, digital video, social media, mobile communications, and software industries, helping to navigate them through turbulent economic times and guide them through necessary transformation so that they stay ahead of the curve and profitable. In Disrupt You!, he reveals how specific strategies that help companies flourish can be applied at an individual level. By challenging assumptions, pinpointing one's unique value, and identifying weaknesses in the structure of current industries, anyone can achieve success and lasting prosperity.

Lawyers. Accountants. Software Engineers. That what Mom and Dad encouraged us to become. They were wrong. Gone is the age of "left-brain" dominance. The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers - creative and emphatic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't.

This game-changing book puts you behind the curtain at Toyota, providing new insight into the legendary automaker's management practices and offering practical guidance for leading and developing people in a way that makes the best use of their brainpower. Drawing on six years of research into Toyota's employee-management routines, Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company's organizational routines - called kata - that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation.

In this eye-opening book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples—from a wellness guru's tragic but fabricated backstory to the blunders that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the diet that ensnared millions yet hastened its founder's death—Edmans highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.

A popular process improvement strategy used in many corporations, Lean Six Sigma exemplifies eliminating waste and optimizing flow at an operational level. With the strategies outlined in this book, you'll have your projects, team, and maybe even your organization running at peak efficiency.

Too often, the sales process is all about fear. Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. No one is happy. Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a better way. Salespeople, they argue, do best when they focus 100 percent on helping clients succeed. When customers are successful, both buyer and seller win. When they aren't, both lose.

Based on breakthrough research, field testing, and proven best-practices, the thought-leading vision described by Gary Harpst in Six Disciplines Execution Revolution sets a new course for how small and midsized businesses can finally confront the never-ending challenge of executing strategy.