Career Organization

In looking for help and understanding on how to build an organization and to select and manage your people, a good place to start would be to look for an organization that did that exceptionally well. Cintas is a great American success story, and Bob Kohlhepp was an important part of that success for 50 years. He began his career as controller but quickly moved up to ultimately become CEO and then chairman. He was a key part of building Cintas from $1.6 million in sales in 1967 to more than $7 billion today.

Whether it shows up as stress, top-down leadership styles, drama, or uncertainty, fear kills good decision-making, dampens morale, lowers employee engagement, and hurts bottom-line growth. The good news is that there's an antidote: Freedom at Work. In this groundbreaking book, Traci Fenton brings together decades of original research, based on her team's work with hundreds of top companies around the world, such as The WD-40 Company, Mindvalley, DaVita, Menlo Innovations, Zappos, HCL Technologies, and more, revealing the proven pathway to leadership success.

Responsive isn’t just a business book. It is a choose-your-own adventure guide to the future of work. Best-selling author Robin Zander shares stories ranging from Navy SEALs in Iraq to technology giants experimenting in Silicon Valley, from the inner workings of a sex cult to how a group of anonymous activists can change politics. Distilling tactics from forward-thinking practitioners and boundary-pushing companies, Zander shares these stories about how to keep pace and thrive in the future of work.

From the best-selling author of Avoidant comes a fresh look at HR and the hiring of mediocre employees favored by affirmative action programs. It's a new age of incompetence, with brain-dead, unaccountable employees holding sinecures at the heart of our government agencies and regulated institutions like banks and hospitals, protected by affirmative action and union policies.

Our government organizations face political fallout, media scrutiny, reduced funding, and the many challenges involved in motivating large, multi-layered and highly regulated organizations. It's no surprise that many government organizations report that their employees are less engaged than ever and that leaders feel helpless to change the situation. In many cases, employees and government leaders are caught in a vicious cycle. Performance declines, scrutiny increases, and employee paralysis ensues. How do you break this cycle and begin building successful government?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, can recognize a pattern from any set of data it is given, which is what makes it such an extraordinarily powerful tool. But because not all patterns are authentic or reliable, AI’s pattern-finding superpower can lead to spurious patterns. Hence the conundrum at the heart of AI: its greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness. Targeting the businessperson who needs to know how to use AI profitably and responsibly, Caleb Briggs and Rex Briggs offer a foundational understanding of AI that is easy to grasp yet thorough enough to be used effectively.

Distinguished author Dr. Charles R. Chaffin delivers a fun and evidence-based exploration of how you can devote more attention on what you believe is important while ignoring the distractions that increasingly permeate your life. Using research from cognitive, education, positive, and clinical psychology, the book identifies the sources of noise and distraction in this information age and how we can manage it in all aspects of our lives.

Saving Organizations That Matter: Ascending from the Confluence of Chaos is a practical guide to the turnaround and transformation of not-for-profit, mission driven organizations written from the perspective of someone who has been through many such experiences, whether as employee, consultant, manager, executive, CEO or member of the board. It features a number of strategies that can be deployed, often immediately, to help change the trajectory of organizations that are facing challenges and declining performance.

For young professionals and entrepreneurs, there is no shortage of gurus, processes, and quick-fix formulas to chase in the quest to grow their business, lead their team, and find personal fulfillment. In fact, there are so many out there that it's exhausting. Wouldn't it be better to realize that the leadership lessons we need to learn are not out there somewhere but in here, in our own lives? That instead of becoming a knock-off of someone else, we can be uniquely ourselves?

Building the Fit Organization gives executives a distilled, jargon-free method for attaining the benefits of lean management under real-world conditions. The corporate landscape is littered with companies that have failed to achieve success by mirroring the Toyota Way, but this book distills the lessons from the Toyota Production System into six core concepts and presents them in the easily understandable language of physical fitness and athletic excellence.

From one of the most respected names in business and leadership, a rare look at the specifics of how great leaders achieve "common purpose" and success within their organizations.

When Paul Kusserow began consulting for Amedisys, the home healthcare company was on the brink of collapse. Its stock had fallen to less than $11 per share, and it had to borrow money to pay a massive government fine. Six months later, Kusserow became its CEO. Under his leadership, Amedisys dramatically improved operations, increased its market capitalization by over tenfold, and took its place among the country's top home care and hospice businesses. In this in-depth case study, Kusserow explains how he achieved this stunning turnaround.

The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering—and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal. Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity.

Managing Brilliant Jerks provides resources to help you work more effectively with difficult leaders. As you listen, you’ll find detailed information on the flow of coaching sessions, sample correspondence to use with key stakeholders, and questions that encourage you to reflect on the issues presented in each chapter. The story of Peter will clarify for you the complex processes at work in the mind of an abrasive leader—and empower you to forge a productive and cooperative relationship with the brilliant jerks you encounter.

Globalization has created a superheated competitive business environment that demands innovation to stay ahead. But it's also created a hidden source of innovation right in your midst: the people in your organization who have deep experience in more than one culture - multiculturals. Having to integrate different cultural frameworks has enabled them to develop abilities that can contribute powerfully to building innovative organizations.

Intelligent influence is defined as "a learned competency that leads to extraordinary results driven by effective human interaction". This groundbreaking publication provides fascinating stories that prove that the strategic use of positive influence is the foundation of individual and organizational effectiveness in any endeavor that involves human interaction.

As president and CEO of Scripps Health, one of America's most prestigious health systems, Chris Van Gorder presided over a dramatic turnaround, catapulting Scripps from near bankruptcy to a dominant market position. While hospitals and health systems nationwide have laid people off or are closing their doors, Scripps is financially healthy, has added thousands of employees (even with a no-layoff philosophy), and has developed a reputation as a top employer. What are the secrets to this remarkable story?

The Trustworthy Leader reveals the benefits organizations enjoy when trustworthy behavior is practiced consistently by their leaders. Drawing from examples from the best companies to work for, Lyman, cofounder of Great Place to Work Institute, explains that being trustworthy means that leaders' behaviors are rooted in their commitment to the value of trust and not simply in an imitation of the practices of others.

Today's leaders need to engage, connect with, listen to, and include their employees and customers in the conversation surrounding the business. The Hero Factor discusses the importance of a strong company culture as the backbone of any successful business. Listeners will learn how to implement the traits that will help them become a hero entrepreneur, change their organization, live their values, and create a winning culture.

The Business of Excellence offers a unique and compelling perspective on the drivers of excellence in teams and organizations. The challenges of high performance and leadership are explored in depth and are illustrated with insights, interviews, and case studies from the military, sporting, and corporate worlds. The material includes a proprietary performance model that can be applied to a wide spectrum of organizations.