Business Problem Solving

In the 2011 best seller Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, an economist and psychologist, writes about the way humans make decisions and judgements in a complex world. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman helpfully points out the errors in thinking that people commonly have and fall victim to. He frames them as a series of illusions in a well-organized, direct fashion. Through this work, he enables readers to better make decisions and resist any harmful proclivities they may have.

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.

This book is about supporting your work as a leader. Its about helping you slow down, pull out of the day-to-day spin, build better problem solvers within your team, reduce your stress, and have more time for the leadership work you love. It reviews six strategies to deal with ASKhole behavior and stay out of the ASKhole trap.

Our age of radical uncertainty requires a new way of assessing risk that pays more attention to the extreme outliers that too often become tomorrow’s reality. Today’s models cannot cope with the frightening new unpredictable risks we face every day that frequently seem to come out of left field–the effects of climate change, a killer pandemic, a cascading wildfire, a financial crisis triggered by faceless algorithms, or a devastating cyberattack that shuts down the electric power grid. This audiobook advocates a new, more realistic approach to analyzing risk and strategizing.

It’s undeniable that we’re entering a new era of remote work. While many leaders seek to run business as usual, why settle for the usual when remote teams allow us to work even better? The research shows that employees are more productive and engaged when they have the freedom to work from anywhere.

Agile project management has grown in popularity over the past several years. Change is occurring so fast that many organizations are unable to keep up with the demands of a changing global world. Your ability to quickly change and adapt to your environment will make or break, not only your career but could be the deciding factor as to whether your company survives in the coming years.

Author Nigel Cumberland distills all the wisdom and knowledge of a lifetime of starting and selling businesses and coaching hundreds of wealthy leaders into 100 short chapters of advice on building and retaining sustainable wealth. Every chapter features a habit, mindset, or technique that’s common to wealthy people and instructions for how to use them in your own life. 100 Things Millionaires Do unpacks the habits, tools, techniques, and mentality of self-made millionaires and shows you how to begin your own journey to a wealthy future.

Whether you run your own business or work for someone else, you’ve probably got a lot on your plate. Along with the portion of your work that you truly feel like doing comes a generous helping of things you’d rather not do. As consultants, Steve Levinson and Chris Cooper have seen countless clients struggle - and often fail - to do the many success-producing things they know they should do but don’t feel like doing. The Power to Get Things Done will teach you how to consistently turn your good intentions into action so that you can be as successful as possible.

In The 24-Hour Rule and Other Secrets for Smarter Organizations, business consultant Adrienne Bellehumeur shows how her six steps of documentation can become your and your team’s new superpower.

No one wins at everything they try. But any setback, whether professional or personal, can become a step forward with the right tools and mind-set to turn loss into a gain. Drawing on nearly 50 years of leadership experience, Maxwell provides a roadmap for winning by examining the 11 elements that constitute the "DNA" of people who succeed in the face of problems, failure, and losses. Learning is not easy during down times. It takes discipline to do the right thing when something goes wrong.

Bina Venkataraman sees the way forward. A journalist and former adviser in the Obama White House, she helped communities and businesses prepare for climate change, and she learned firsthand why people don’t think ahead - and what can be done to change that. In The Optimist’s Telescope, she draws from stories she has reported around the world and new research in biology, psychology, and economics to explain how we can make decisions that benefit us over time.

Discover the practical, fail-proof tools that will help you to fine-tune your leadership skills, solidify respect among your workforce, and ensure your company's lasting success.

Interest in applying analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to sales and marketing has grown dramatically, with no signs of slowing down. This book provides essential guidance to apply advanced analytics and data mining techniques to real-world business applications.

In Curable journalist and health care advocate Travis Christofferson looks at medicine through a magnifying glass and asks an important question: What if the roots of the current US health care crisis are psychological and systemic, perpetuated not just by corporate influence and the powers that be, but by you and me? Curable outlines the future of medicine, detailing brilliant examples of new health care systems that prove we can do better. It turns out we have more control over our health (and happiness) than we think.

It’s comforting to think that we can be successful because we work hard, climb ladders, and get what we deserve, but each of us has been profoundly touched by randomness. Chance is shown to play a crucial role in shaping outcomes across history, throughout the natural world, and in our everyday lives. In The Random Factor, Mark Robert Rank draws from a wealth of evidence, including interviews and research, to explain how luck and chance play out and reveals how we can use these lessons to guide our personal lives and public policies.

Do you find yourself aching to break away from the mundane routine of the status quo? Do you often come up with innovative ideas, but soon find yourself dismissing them? Doug shares with you many of the success principles and applications that he developed and tested at the unique Eureka! Ranch, extraordinary techniques that can virtually transform your business.

Should one enter a market where someone is in a monopoly position? When is going to the ER a good or a bad decision? Why is it never a good idea for rebels to concede? Practice Game Theory answers all these questions. Think about and solve problems more effectively applying strategic games models to real-life challenges. Learn how top world leaders analyze and assess their next best moves.

Are you a good boss - or a great one? Get more of the management ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you master the innumerable challenges of being a manager.

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.

Tanja Hester and her husband Mark left their crazed careerist lifestyle to live their dream life in Lake Tahoe, retiring early from high-stress careers. Now Tanja will help you map out a customized plan for freedom and make it easy to succeed, whether you're good at math and budgeting - or not! Work Optional is more than just a financial plan: it's a plan for your whole life-designed by you, not by an employer or clients.