Motivation Behavior

Are your people excited to come to work? Are they passionate about your team's purpose? In Engaging the Hearts and Minds of All Your Employees, leadership expert Lee J. Colan reveals the necessary steps to inspire and engage everyone on your team. By fully engaging your employees, you'll ignite stellar team performance and customer service.

Many project managers do not have the authority to direct the activities of people on their teams - they can only influence them. The most influential people succeed by focusing less on themselves and their message and more on others. They pay attention; they are brave; they are vulnerable; they are curious, and they look for and acknowledge the things that are important about, and to, the other person. And they model the behavior that they want to see. This book tells you how.

For 20 years, Great Place to Work has published its gold-standard list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, which appears first in Fortune magazine. But its latest research shows that what was good enough to be a “great” workplace 10 or 20 years ago is not good enough now. Even at the best workplaces, leaders can - and must - do better. The vital differentiator for companies now is their people - all their people.

Once upon a time, people wrote fables featuring untrustworthy ravens, wicked wolves, insincere monkeys, and power-hungry lions. Told repeatedly through generations and spread throughout the world, classic stories abound in which noble heroes and heroines matched wits with these typically treacherous beasts. But what's that you say? You feel as though you're surrounded by just these sorts of characters at work? Well, you're not alone.

How to Be Human in a Technical World is a powerful account for the technically minded who want to change their behavior and their lives, but don’t know where to start. The first step, asserts author Karine Leblanc, is to increase their emotional intelligence and learn her recipe for success with the Six Magic Skills. Full of real-life stories, research, practical tools, and action steps, this book is the solution to every analytically minded left-brain thinker who desires more from their career, their relationships, and their life.

Could you lose weight if you put $20,000 at risk? Would you finally set up your billing software if it meant that your favorite charity would earn a new contribution? If you’ve ever tried to meet a goal and came up short, the problem may not have been that the goal was too difficult or that you lacked the discipline to succeed. From giving up cigarettes to increasing your productivity at work, you may simply have neglected to give yourself the proper incentives.

We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.

As a manager, it’s your role to achieve the highest possible return on the physical, emotional, and mental efforts your people put forth. It’s not just a return on investment ...it’s a return on energy. But how are you supposed to light a fire under each employee when studies find that most of them are working at only a fraction of their potential?

Working with difficult people can reduce your morale, threaten your productivity, deplete your energy, and waste your time. But you don't have to be helpless in the face of other people's craziness! Knowing how to handle coworkers' disruptive behavior is one of the most important career skills you can have, allowing you to become a more valuable employee and a more self-reliant person.

John C. Maxwell thinks there's no such thing as business ethics. There's only ethics. Maxwell asserts there's one ethical standard for all behavior, and you might be surprised by what it's based on.

Every day, thousands of hidden and ignored problems frustrate workers and customers and, in turn, reduce profits. The key to finding and fixing these problems is to engage employees closest to the work and closest to the customer in new ways so they can contribute their ideas. This book provides rules that, if followed, will allow employees to harvest all the low hanging fruit - and some that is not so low hanging - that will grow earnings, make customers happier, and increase morale.

Change-Friendly Leadership: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance is a simple affirmation that successful organizational change involves - requires, in fact - the active, willful participation of the people affected by the change. In the change approach prescribed here, the friendly factor is not just a play on words; it is the very foundation for effectively engaging people's heads, hearts, and hopes.

Before you can lead change, you must first learn to communicate effectively.Sync or Swim will help you: break through apathy and cynicism to inspire teamwork; empower and energize frustrated colleagues; and create an engaging work environment.

Many organizations approach the issue of employee engagement and motivation by tapping into age, gender and other stereotypes. Motivation and Performance challenges these notions, bringing together evidence that group differences are often exaggerated and that getting to the heart of what really motivates individuals is what's most important. This book is a practical guide to ensuring that organizations consider all motivators - job security as well as the need for personal growth - to improve employee satisfaction, boost organizational productivity and reduce staff turnover.

Play predates the development of human culture and our brains are hard-wired to use play as a tool to accelerate learning, strategically explore unfamiliar environments and develop collaborative social connections. Games are human created, formalized structures and processes designed to maximize engagement and get the most out of the "play" impulse. In fact, gaming comes so naturally to us, we don't even notice it for what it is.

“You don’t have to turn into a corporate drone to kick ass in the working world,” says inspirational speaker Tania Katan. After more than ten years of smuggling creativity into the business sector, Katan is here to tell you that any task or pursuit can be a creative one. You just need to be willing to defy conformity and be ready to conjure imagination anywhere, at any time. That’s where Creative Trespassing comes in.

We judge people in business the same way we judge those in our personal lives. We listen to what they say, watch how they behave, and take note of the results of their actions. Success is ultimately built on a foundation of character, communication, and trust. To accomplish our goals, people must believe in us. The Power of Reputation offers business people an action plan for creating the kind of reputation that generates trust, inspires confidence, and paves the way for lasting success.

Maverick marketing whiz Mike Veeck offers you his simple, no-fail formula for business success!

Drawing on his own experience and the success stories of clients and others who have benefited from his philosophy, Veeck shows how fun, creativity, and passion can bring out the best in an organization and an individual.

The "Fun Is Good" philosophy applies to everyone, whether you're the CEO or lower on the totem pole.

Based on real experiences that David Novak had as the Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, this parable will empower listeners to recognize the contributions of those around them in order to drive bigger and better results. It's not hard, it's not expensive, and you don't need an MBA or even a position of authority to do it. It's a deceptively simple principle that can have a huge impact on both your life and your business.

Fish! Sticks employs the same kind of easy-to-use story that was used in Fish! to illustrate its three main commitments for continued success: Find IT, Live IT, Coach IT, where the "IT" is each employee's own personal vision, found within the overall vision for the business. Chock full of easy-to-grasp examples, this book provides advice that is concrete and can produce immediate improvements in employee morale, customer satisfaction, and productivity, both for the short and long-term.