Management Problem Solving

The ability to make sound and timely decisions is the mark of a good leader. But when leaders with otherwise strong track records suddenly begin making poor decisions - as seen in the recent corporate scandals that rocked the business world - the impact can be widespread. In The Stress Effect, leadership expert Henry L. Thompson argues that stress is often the real culprit behind this leadership failure.

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.

Generating and executing great ideas is the key to staying ahead in a rapidly changing world. It seems so basic. Why is it so hard to actually get right? According to innovation expert Phil McKinney, the real problem is that we're teaching people to ask the wrong questions about their businesses - or none at all. There has to be a better way. In Beyond the Obvious, McKinney will help you use his proven FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Rank, Execution) Method to dig deeper and get back to asking the right questions - the ones all companies must ask to survive.

With Amy Herman's Fixed., we now have access to what the FBI, NATO, the State Department, Interpol, Scotland Yard, and many more organizations and their leaders have been using to solve their most intractable problems.

In his latest publication, CEO and founder of Brainard Strategy, Michael Brainard, details the eight disciplines that must be adopted, implemented and mastered in order to truly accelerate the journey towards effective leadership development. An exploration into psychological and positive behavioral conditioning, Brainard draws on his comprehensive PhD research to create a prolific manifesto becoming the type of leader you’ve always aspired to be.

In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee provides executives with a simple tool to cut through technological complexity and market uncertainties. The Value Stick, based on proven economic mechanics, is an extraordinarily powerful tool that helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen their firm's competitive advantage.

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.

Using stories from his time at Netscape, Apple, and Slack, Michael Lopp presents a series of small but compelling practices to help you build leadership skills. You’ll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted. The essays in this book examine the practical skills Lopp learned from exceptional leaders - as a manager at Netscape, a senior manager and director at Apple, and an executive at Slack. You’ll learn how to apply these lessons to your own experience.

Thoroughly revised and updated new edition of the best-selling guide to implementing the popular change methodology, Appreciative Inquiry, in organizations of all sizes and sectors. 20,000 of the 1st edition sold.

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.

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.

Much of our business thinking is shaped by delusions that distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. The most pervasive delusion is the Halo Effect. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude the opposite. In fact, little may have changed.

Harvard professor (and negotiation advisor to organizations around the world) Deepak Malhotra shows how to defuse even the most potentially explosive situations and to find success when things seem impossible. Malhotra illustrates key lessons using behind-the-scenes stories of fascinating real-life negotiations, including drafting the US Constitution, resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, ending bitter disputes in the NFL and NHL, and beating the odds in complex business situations.

Why are women so often overlooked and underpaid? What are the real reasons men get raises more often than women? How can women ask for - and actually get - the money, the job, the recognition they deserve? Prompted by her own experience as cohost of Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski asked a wide range of successful women to share the critical lessons they learned while moving up in their fields. Power players such as Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Harvard's Victoria Budson, comedian Susie Essman, and many more shared their surprising personal stories.

In no other time in recent history have leaders in every industry and on every continent grappled with so many changes that have independently and simultaneously undermined their ability to lead. The Prepared Leader encapsulates more than two decades of the authors' research to convey how it has positioned them to navigate through the distinct challenges of today and tomorrow. Their insights have implications for every leader in every industry and every worker at every level.

On average, people leave about 20 percent of potential mutual gains untapped in any negotiation. This is akin to taking 20 percent of the value in any deal and dumping it into a garbage canister. Finding that hidden 20 percent, the “sweet spot”, is a skill that takes practice but is also one that anybody can learn. In Negotiating the Sweet Spot, Leigh Thompson offers surefire best practices and tools to use in daily negotiations and conflict situations.

Wrestling with fear doesn't have to be a negative experience. This book offers an approach to life that unlocks a new way of thinking and being in the world, one that leads directly through the center of the anxieties we seek to avoid. Written in the style of an owner's manual, a guide to being human, Burkett focuses on areas of pain and anxiety as they tend to manifest for modern people: feelings of unworthiness, and issues surrounding sex, money, failure, and even death.

Franklin Covey experts Kory Kogon and Suzette Blakemore understand the importance of leadership in project completion and explain that people are crucial in the formula for success. This updated and revised edition of Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager offers practical, real-world insights for effective project management and guides you through the essentials of the people and project management Initiate Plan Execute Monitor.

Life is full of uncertainty. You don't know what lies ahead. But you can learn to control the controllable by using logic and reason. With the help of this book, you'll discover new ways to think about - and solve - problems more efficiently than ever before. Discover how strategic games model real-life behavior.

Management teams and boards are facing disruption on all sides, from morphing customer preferences to the COVID pandemic to climate change. At the same time they are floundering in strategy confusion with too many concepts and not enough clarity. In this book, strategy expert and regular Harvard Business Review author Graham Kenny releases managers and directors from their strategy haze. His simple and effective framework allows managers to navigate the current maze of ideas and approaches and maximize their competitive advantage.