Organizational Leadership

Talent Makers: How the Best Organizations Win Through Structured and Inclusive Hiring is essential listening for every leader who knows that hiring is crucial to their organization and wants to compete for top talent, diversify their organization, and build winning teams. Daniel Chait and Jon Stross, cofounders of Greenhouse Software, Inc., provide listeners with a comprehensive and proven framework to improve hiring quickly, substantially, and measurably.

As leaders, how we are is as important as what we do. This new edition of a leadership classic shows how to master the inner and outer work needed to build relationships that unleash the transformational creative potential in everyone. Top-down, one-dimensional leadership models are hopelessly outmoded in today’s rapidly changing world. And they waste the leadership ability present throughout an organization, not just at the top.

With insights from leading experts including John Kotter and Indra Nooyi, this book will inspire you to: lead through the eight critical stages of change; create and instill a sense of urgency; transform your company's culture; get reorgs right; reshape your organization for climate sustainability; remodel the chief learning officer position to lead change; scale agile practices throughout your organization; and lead change when business is good - but also when times are tough.

Without trust, people and businesses fail. Trusted Leader provides a framework for building trust so that you and your organizations can perform at your best. “A lack of trust is your biggest expense", says Wall Street Journal best-selling author David Horsager. Without trust, transactions cannot occur. Without trust, influence is destroyed. Without trust, leaders lose their people. Horsager introduces listeners to his eight pillars of trust through the journey of a senior leader who thought success was certain.

Increasingly, organizations count on project teams to develop products and deliver services to their customers. Consequently, effective teamwork and team leadership are integral components of an organization's success. Authors Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O'Connell define the essence of superior performance by project teams at work and identify nine attributes of team membership and team leadership that set the stage for accomplishment of group objectives. Kohn and O'Connell bring these proven strategies to life with real-world examples drawn from decades of experience.

Think of your to-do list at work. Chances are the most important tasks require you to work with others - and the success of those endeavors depends on the effectiveness of your collaboration. According to management expert Leigh Thompson, collaboration that is conscious, planned, and focused on generating new ideas builds excitement and produces what she calls a "creative conspiracy". Teams that conspire to organize themselves, motivate one another, and combine their talents to meet creative challenges are the hallmark of the most successful organizations.

In Come Up for Air, you’ll discover the CPR® Business Efficiency Framework, a proven system for leaders, managers, and teams to maximize their performance and reduce overwhelm by using the right tools in the right way, at the right time. The end result? More output, less stress, happier employees, and the potential to gain an extra full day per week in productivity to use however you’d like.

Shorter tells the story of entrepreneurs and leaders all over the world who have discovered how to shrink the workweek without cutting salaries or sacrificing productivity or revenues. They show that by reducing distractions, eliminating inefficiencies, and creating time for high-quality focus and collaboration, four-day workweeks can boost recruitment and retention, make leaders more thoughtful and companies more sustainable, and improve work-life balance.

Preeminent leadership scholar Linda Hill, along with former Pixar tech wizard Greg Brandeau, MIT researcher Emily Truelove, and Being the Boss coauthor Kent Lineback, found among leaders a widely shared, and mistaken, assumption: that a "good" leader in all other respects would also be an effective leader of innovation. The truth is, leading innovation takes a distinctive kind of leadership, one that unleashes and harnesses the "collective genius" of the people in the organization.

Traditional business structures love stability and predictability. Yet many organizations believe the two essential ingredients for long-term success are creativity and innovation. Kirsten May and Alex Varricchio, founders of the marketing agency UpHouse, call the relationship between these two opposing expectations the Proximity Paradox - the belief that those who are closest to a subject are best-qualified to innovate for it, when, in reality, intense proximity limits creativity.

The Lean Leader: A Personal Journey of Transformation uses a compelling novel format to tackle the nuts and bolts of leading a Lean transformation. Listeners follow along as the characters face real crises and what seem to be unreasonable deadlines. As the story progresses, listeners will see how the main character, Don, and his colleagues transform from being "command and control" autocrats - those who make decisions and bark orders - to more Socratic coaches and mentors.

Your organization's culture can feel like something that has a life of its own; it's long-standing, inherited, and seemingly impermeable - in fact, a strong culture is often an obstacle to doing new things or going in new directions. But leaders are the stewards of a company's culture and have the power to shape it. The best leaders know that organizational culture is a fundamental and powerful management tool that can drive positive outcomes.

In the wake of widespread anti-racism demonstrations across the world, many companies have spoken out forcefully. But now comes the real test-harnessing the energy of this moment to further and sustain change for the better. Racial Justice: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you combat racism and bias throughout your company, revitalize your diversity and inclusion efforts, and lead the conversations necessary to bring your organization a step closer to racial equity.

Most business schools continue to prepare managers to be effective in stable and predictable environments, conditions that, if they ever existed at all, are long gone. The Agility Shift shows business leaders exactly how to make the radical mind-set and strategy shift necessary to create an agile, entrepreneurial organization that can innovate and thrive in complex, ever-changing contexts. As author Pamela Meyer explains, there is much more involved than a reconfiguration of the org chart and job descriptions.

We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you combat new competitors and define the best strategy for your company. With insights from leading experts including Michael E. Porter, A. G. Lafley, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book will inspire you to: choose a strategy that meets the demands of your competitive environment; identify the signals of disruption and take steps to avoid it; understand lean methodology and how it is changing business; and more.

Know What You're For details an effective growth strategy for businesses and nonprofits by closing the gap between two simple questions: What do you want to be known for? What are you known for? When the two answers match, organizations gain incredible momentum by unleashing the most powerful marketing force there is: lasting word-of-mouth support.

Francesca Gino has been studying rebels in life and in the workplace for more than 15 years. She has discovered that rebels - those who practice "positive deviance" at work - are harder to manage, but they are good for the bottom line: their passion, drive, curiosity, and creativity raise the entire organization to a new level. And she has found that at home, rebels are more engaged partners, parents, and friends. Packed with strategies for embracing rebellion at work and in life, Rebel Talent encourages all of us to rebel against what’s comfortable, so that we can thrive.

"Work-life balance" isn't making anyone happy. The pandemic helped catalyze a cultural shift of workers redefining themselves beyond what they do for a living. Now, it's time for you to rethink your role as a leader in the nexus of work and life. In Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, award-winning author Dan Pontefract contends that a thriving workplace isn't about employee engagement levels, nor is it predicated on your team members bringing their "best selves" to work. Instead, it requires you to support the people you manage so they can be their best in work and life.

How can we create workplaces where people thrive and love what they do and where they work? Al Lopus, cofounder and CEO of Best Christian Workplaces Institute, has studied hundreds of organizations to discover eight key drivers in companies with healthy cultures and engaged employees. With compelling case studies, behind-the-curtain revelations, and enlightening personal anecdotes, Road to Flourishing will motivate leaders, managers, and their teams to reimagine, reassess, and renew their commitment to building healthy work cultures where everyone can flourish.

Most leaders know that a winning, engaged culture is the key to attracting top talent - and customers. Yet, it remains elusive how exactly to create this ideal workplace - one where everyone from the front lines to the board room knows the company’s values and feels comfortable and empowered to act on them. Based on Ann Rhoades’ years of experience with JetBlue, Southwest, and other companies known for their trailblazing corporate cultures, Built on Values reveals exactly how leaders can create winning environments that allow their employees and their companies to thrive.