Business Problem Solving

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.

Our personal experience is key to who we are and what we do. We judge others by their experience and are judged by ours. Society venerates experience. From doctors to teachers to managers to presidents, the more experience the better. It's not surprising then, that we often fall back on experience when making decisions, an easy way to make judgements about the future, a constant teacher that provides clear lessons. Yet, this intuitive reliance on experience is misplaced.

In Clarity in Crisis, Marc shares how true leaders need to lead in and through times of crisis and thrive under conditions of ambiguity, rather than message their way out or duck from hard decisions.

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.

Over his four deployments as a Navy SEAL sniper, Brandon Webb learned all about performing while experiencing heart-pounding stress. After returning to civilian life, he started his first business venture - and failed miserably. He realized that his big mistake was neglecting to apply what he already knew about focus under pressure. By drawing on the lessons of his SEAL training and early business struggles, Webb went on to build a second business, a media network called Hurricane.

Success coach Dr. Tim Ursiny shows us that conflict can be a good thing, and facing up to it can lead to fantastic results. Interactive exercises will coach and motivate you to effectively deal with all types of conflict situations, with results that empower and really work!

Leadership is a set of abilities with which a lucky few are born. They're the natural relationship builders, master negotiators and persuaders, and agile and strategic thinkers. The good news for the rest of us is that those abilities can be developed. In The Leader's Brain: Enhance Your Leadership, Build Stronger Teams, Make Better Decisions, and Inspire Greater Innovation with Neuroscience, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative Director Michael Platt explains how.

Even the best competitive strategies mean nothing if they can't be executed. Yet many organizations struggle when they move from defining a strategy to implementing it. Somehow, all the careful planning falls to the side, and leaders are left wondering how to pick up the pieces. The HBR Guide to Executing Your Strategy is here to help. This book offers leaders and managers tips and advice for how to take even the most detailed strategy and apply it throughout their organizations.

Move is your guide to mobilizing your whole organization to take your business forward. Whatever your needed transformation may be - a new initiative, a new market, a new product, your fresh strategy is up against a powerful foe - an organization's tendency to stay very busy and completely engaged what it's already doing. Author Patty Azzarello draws on over 25 years of international business management experience to identify the chronic challenges that keep organizations from decisively executing strategy, and to give you a practical game plan for breaking through.

How do you tell a real trend from the merely trendy? How, for example, will a technology—like artificial intelligence, machine learning, self-driving cars, biohacking, bots, and the Internet of Things—affect us, our businesses, and workplaces? How will it eventually change the way we live, work, play, and think—and how should we prepare for it now? In The Signals Are Talking, noted futurist Amy Webb shows us how to analyze the "true signals" and land on the right side of disruption.

Data Leadership for Everyone is a game-changing book for anyone who believes in the power of data and is ready to create revolutionary change in their organization. Whether you're a C-suite executive, a manager, or an individual contributor, this book will propel your career by unlocking the mystery of how raw data transforms into real outcomes.

Prototyping is a way to test an idea to see if it can be successful before investing too much time and too many resources. But it's not only designers who "prototype" as they work. A skateboarder tries a new trick; that's a prototype experience. A chef experiments with a new dish and new ingredients; that's a prototype experience, too. Once a prototype is made, the creator gains knowledge about what worked and what didn't, what should be used again and what should be trimmed from the experience.

Negotiation has always been at the heart of solving problems at work. Yet today, when people in organizations are asked to do more with less, be responsive 24/7, and manage in rapidly changing environments, negotiation is more essential than ever. What has been missed in much of the literature of the past 30 years is that negotiations in organizations always take place within a context - of organizational culture, of prior negotiations, of power relationships - that dictates which issues are negotiable and by whom.

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country.

Are you tired of decision-making processes that drag on, hindering progress and stifling success? Discover a transformative approach in "Accelerated Decision-Making" by Jess Pryce. This book is your gateway to unlocking the power of the executive summary for dynamic, impactful choices.

New York Times best-selling author and iconic Hollywood producer Brian Grazer reveals a new secret to forge a happier and more successful life. Through his own personal stories, discover how eye contact - a power available to nearly everyone - can change your life, too. Whether you’re looking to develop a relationship, build your confidence, or win a negotiation, the answer is in the eyes. Grazer delves into the power of eye contact as he shares personal, life-changing stories and insightful advice that will help you immediately discover the secret to a more meaningful life.

Today, organizations are grappling with ambiguity, volatility, and paradox surrounding the challenges they face. This is complexity. But too many leaders approach complexity the wrong way - they push their people harder and harder and tackle problems one at a time over months, sometimes even years and nearly always in a linear fashion. It’s like setting a pot of water on “low” and waiting for it to boil. In this book, the authors share their proven formula for dramatically shortening the process and solving an organization’s toughest challenges in mere days.

Did you know that 93 percent of CEOs agree that this skill is more important than your college degree? Amazon's market cap is 1.7 trillion dollars. And it all started when Jeff Bezos used this skill to see a market inefficiency back in the day, before anyone else. Having this skill in your back pocket is like shortcutting Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule to learning something (who's got time for that?). So, what is it? Nothing complex or fancy. It's critical thinking. This audiobook is dedicated to imparting to you the maxims of how to think critically.

This relatively brief book covers multiple areas of thought ranging from an a-priori pursuit of truth to more practically applicable methods useful in the empirical world. Whether you’re interested in walking through exercises involving the engagement of your critical thinking skills or looking for some anecdotal advice on mental mastery and personal development, this short work is densely packed with both interesting rational and irrational points of view.

Research shows that people often wildly misunderstand the state of the world, regardless of age, sex, or education. And though the internet brings us unprecedented access to information, there's little evidence we're any better informed because of it. We may blame cognitive bias or fake news, but neither tells the complete story. Bobby Duffy draws on his research into public perception, offering a sweeping account of the stubborn problem of human delusion: how society breeds it, why it will never go away, and what our misperceptions say about what we really believe.