Management Problem Solving

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.

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.

Art Thinking combines the mind-sets of art and the tools of business to protect space for open-ended exploration and manage risks on your way to success. Art Thinking takes you from "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" to realizing your highest aims, helping you build creative skills you can apply across all facets of business and life. Warm, honest, and unexpected, Art Thinking will help you reimagine your work and life-and even change the world-while enjoying the journey from point A.

There are a lot of right leadership strategies and techniques our leaders have been using throughout history. In Leadership Strategies and Tactics Guidebook for Leaders, you will uncover the secrets to exceptional leadership. The books are designed to get you thinking about your own leadership style and what you need to do to enhance your leadership.

For decades, alarms have sounded about declining engagement. Yet companies continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the low productivity and unhappiness that go with them. Why is "culture" so difficult to improve? What makes so many good employees check out? Neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers. It all boils down to trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate.

How do some startups go from zero to billions in mere months? How did Alexander the Great, YouTube tycoon Michelle Phan, and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon climb to the top in less time than it takes most of us to get a promotion? What do high-growth businesses, world-class heart surgeons, and underdog marketers do in common to beat the norm? One way or another, they do it like computer hackers. They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: rethinking convention and breaking "rules" that aren't rules.

Murphy's Law tells us that if something can go wrong, it will. Nonsense! says Al Casey, who maintains: If things can go right, they should. But you've got to make them go right, he adds, by hard work, focusing on key problems, and believing in the people around you. One of the most successful - and original - American businessmen of our time, Al Casey is a no-nonsense turnaround specialist who loves nothing more than the big challenges, whether in the private or the public sector.

How to Be Strategic is your accessible but comprehensive guide to strategic thinking in any situation. Fred Pelard distils 20 years' experience training executives at all levels from leading companies around the world into a range of smartly illustrated, workable methodologies that will enable you to understand each approach and find your own path to the right solution every time.

Whether you're rolling out a new product from a city-view office or rolling up your sleeves to deliver a social service in the field, learning why and how to embrace failure can help you do better faster. Smart leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents design their innovation projects with a key idea in mind: ensure that every failure is maximally useful. In Fail Better, Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn show how to create the conditions, culture, and habits to systematically, ruthlessly, and quickly figure out what works in three steps.

Navy Ace pilot and TOPGUN instructor Bill Driscoll demonstrates how his own life-or-death aerial dogfights - and the preparation for them - can help guide high-risk corporate decisions. Interviews with over 200 senior executives and 26 Ace pilots, as well as strategies from Driscoll's own highly successful second career in commercial real estate, reinforce the consistent patterns underlying exceptional performance under pressure.

Leadership is all about others - inspiring them to believe, then enabling that belief to become reality. That's the essence of Leadership U: it starts with U but it's not about U. Those timeless words are timelier than ever today, as leaders look to accelerate through the crisis curve. As author Gary Burnison observes, "There will likely be more change in the next two years than we have seen in the last 20." Now, in Leadership U, Burnison lays out a framework - his Six Degrees of Leadership - to show leaders how to create change.

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.

Based on breakthrough research, field testing, and proven best-practices, the thought-leading vision described by Gary Harpst in Six Disciplines Execution Revolution sets a new course for how small and midsized businesses can finally confront the never-ending challenge of executing strategy.

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.

Red Teaming is a revolutionary new way to make critical and contrarian thinking part of the planning process of any organization, allowing companies to stress test their strategies, flush out hidden threats and missed opportunities, and avoid being sandbagged by competitors.

Connectional intelligence unlocks the 21st-century secret to getting "big things done" regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you do. We typically associate success and leadership with smarts, passion, and luck. But in today's hypercompetitive world, even those gifts aren't enough. Get Big Things Done argues that the game changer is a thoroughly modern skill called connectional intelligence.

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.

From turf wars to low morale, most companies attempt to cure what ails them with the latest management fad - and fail. They are treating the symptoms while ignoring the true problem. Success starts with knowing the kind of business you're really in.

From childhood, Sarah Robb O'Hagan felt destined to become a champion, but her early efforts at sports, in school, and in music made it clear she was no natural superstar. Unwilling to settle for average, she decided to go Extreme. From working with Richard Branson as a thriving Virgin Atlantic executive in her 20s to being fired and nearly deported a matter of months later, she learned through a series of surprising successes and epic fails that the extremes of her experiences were the engine of her success.

For more than 40 years, The Boston Consulting Group has been shaping strategic thinking in business. The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry. Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside.