Management Problem Solving

Most people are blown off-course by unexpected events. Top performers, by contrast, know how to navigate our unpredictable world. Not just that: they know how to thrive in it. You can acquire this essential skill, too. In Mastering Uncertainty, investor and serial entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly and award-winning business author Matt Watkinson reveal the shortcomings of conventional business thinking and the advantages of developing a "probabilistic" mindset that turns uncertainty from a source of fear into an incredible and exciting advantage.

Your organization’s culture: It’s either an asset or a liability. At this very moment, it’s either lifting your business performance or “eating your strategy for breakfast”. How do you ensure it’s the former, not the latter? Listen to find out more...To make a bad culture good, or a good culture great, you’ve got to deliberately transmit strong and steady signals. This guide shows you how.

Companies make headline news all the time for decisions that make many of us scratch our heads in wonder, even companies that are smart and successful. Here, Neil Smith, with more than 20 years of experience leading large-scale performance improvements, reveals the hidden barriers that cause excellent companies to do dumb things, and smart people within companies to act in dumb ways. Smith has identified 8 barriers that prevent organizations from achieving and maintaining sustainable success.

The inability to set good strategy can sink a company - and a leader's career. A recent Wall Street Journal study revealed that the number one most sought after executive skill by organizations is strategic thinking, but few leaders have that skill set.

Dr. Liker's book, Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels: A Practical Guide was a 2016 winner of the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award. We have taken the time to extract the individual seminars and lectures of Dr. Liker used to create this world-renowned publication and offer them in a series of bite-sized, topic-specific learning modules. Here we'll: explain Nemawashi; discuss how to develop people through problem-solving; and share the activities related to the PDCA cycle.

How can you begin holistically tackling your anxiety whenever the moment strikes? In The Anxiety Healer’s Guide licensed counselor and creator of the Instagram account @TheAnxietyHealer Alison Seponara brings her expertise and commitment to healing anxiety to the world. While the journey toward recovery might look different for everyone, this portable resource is full of concrete activities, tools, and techniques that have been scientifically proven to calm the sympathetic nervous system and give sufferers a better sense of control over their minds and bodies.

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.

In Friend and Foe, researchers Galinsky and Schweitzer explain why this debate misses the mark. Rather than being hardwired to compete or cooperate, humans have evolved to do both. It is only by learning how to strike the right balance between these two forces that we can improve our long-term relationships and get more of what we want.

Technology thought leader and organizational architect Matt K. Parker breaks down the counterintuitive principles and practices that radically collaborative organizations thrive on. By combining the latest insights from organizational science, sociology, and psychology, he illuminates four imperatives that all radically collaborative organizations must embrace in order to succeed: team autonomy, managerial devolution, deficiency gratification, and candid vulnerability.

We are oddly paradoxical creatures who long to be happy while creating our own suffering. We replay past anguish, anticipate future distress, and stew in self-righteous anger. In Hard to Be Human, Ted Cadsby focuses on five cognitive design flaws that foster underthinking and overreacting, and reveals powerful strategies to overcome them.

Dr. Adizes’s premise, developed in this book, is that the ideal leader, manager, or executive - ideal in the sense that he can fulfill by himself all the roles necessary for the long- and short-term effectiveness and efficiency of an organization - does not and cannot exist. And that is the problem with contemporary management literature: It presents what the executive should do (because that is what the organization needs), even though no one can do it.

How do people come up with truly original ideas? The answer is to think outside the box - way outside. For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.

As a leader, changing your mind has always been perceived as a weakness. Not anymore. In a world that's changing faster than ever, successful leaders realize that a genuine willingness to change their own minds is the ultimate competitive advantage. Drawing on evidence from social science, history, politics, and more, business consultant Al Pittampalli reveals why confidence, consistency, and conviction are increasingly becoming liabilities.

No one knows leadership like Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Along with his wife and best-selling co-author, Suzy Welch, he explores with Daniel Goleman what it means to be a great leader, and what elements must be present for any leader to be successful. Key elements of emotional intelligence, from self-awareness to the ability to instill core values in a team, are part of that success.

CEO, executive wellness coach, and thought leader Naz Beheshti distills the most valuable lessons she learned from her first boss and mentor, Steve Jobs, into a holistic method to live your best life. Presenting the highly effective framework that Beheshti has used with clients for over a decade, this book empowers you to fulfill your highest business, personal, and social potential.

In Meta-Leadership, Dierickx draws on a vast body of research from psychology and business to show how great leaders can improve their judgment for stronger, more profitable results. Incorporating leading-edge data and research on the science of thinking, emotional regulation, and behavior, Meta Leadership offers fascinating stories, incisive insights, and useful takeaways for better leadership and better outcomes.

Turn to Decide and Conquer to access the decision framework David Siegel used when he took over as CEO of Meetup, the world’s leading platform for making connections and finding your community. Let David’s success during one of the most tumultuous times in his company’s history help guide you on your own path. Decide and Conquer helps all leaders navigate the big decisions that will impact their future and make their organizations a success. David outlines the 44 challenges leaders face when starting a new position.

ABC Hurricane Shutters, a Florida-based company, was on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, having recorded losses in each of the preceding three years. In From Red to Black: A Business Turnaround, Robert S. Curry shares his thought process, action steps, and profit improvement recommendations throughout his turnaround engagement at the shutter company. After Bob’s first meeting with the owner, he developed a detailed plan for recovery and was engaged the next day. Within four months, the company had made a complete turnaround with nearly every “must-do” completed.

What if you could brainstorm innovative solutions to your company's challenges? What if you could dream up new businesses that capture markets? What if you could tap the creative genius driving Silicon Valley's success stories? The truth is you can! Analytical thinkers, numbers people, non-artists - everyone can generate imaginative ideas. All it takes is letting go of the "I'm not creative" mindset and employing a proven process.

While it may not occur to us on a daily basis, there is a widespread cultural tendency toward quick decisions and quick action. Though the root cause is by no means malicious, we have begun to reward speed over quality, and the negative effects suffered in both our personal and professional lives are potentially catastrophic. Best-selling author and Chief Envisioner Dan Pontefract offers the solution to this predicament with what he coins "Open Thinking".