Performance Leadership

Today's leaders know that speed and agility are the keys to any company's success, and yet many are frustrated that their organizations can't move fast enough to stay competitive. The typical chain of command is too slow; internal resources are too limited; people are already executing beyond normal expectations. As the pace accelerates, how do you inspire people's energy and creativity? How do you collaborate with customers, vendors, and partners to keep your organization on the cutting edge?

Armstrong on Reinventing Performance Management presents a holistic approach to performance management, drawing on Michael Armstrong's vast research and experience. Most organizations have performance management processes in one form or another, but these are often based on formal annual reviews, forced rankings and directly linked to pay decisions. These traditional approaches are often at the expense of ongoing, continuous feedback and focus on looking back at what has or has not been achieved rather than looking forward.

Better executive health drives business performance and a stronger society. For the experienced manager as well as manager in training, business school professor, and executive coach; Steven P. MacGregor helps you leverage this truth in your life and your business. MacGregor shares breakthrough insights and techniques he's honed through seven years of pioneering the world-renowned Sustaining Executive Performance (SEP) program and working with thousands of top executives worldwide.

You don't have to do a dangerous job to endure a health-destroying, possibly life-threatening workplace. Just ask the manager in a senior finance role whose immense workload required frequent all-nighters, leading to alcohol and drug addiction. Or the dedicated news media producer whose commitment to getting the story resulted in a 60-pound weight gain thanks to having no down time to eat properly or exercise. These individuals are not exceptions. Every industry is filled with them, and the costs, to both employees and their companies, is enormous.

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.

"For many years I struggled to lead in a difficult environment. My colleagues seemed to thrive on conflict. I sure didn't. I tried to be a servant, but I couldn't compete with their charisma and intensity." Whether you lead in a church or the marketplace, you probably relate to Tom Harper's desire to serve with strength. This book is the result of his three-year search through the Bible for wisdom on how to establish authority, overcome resistance, develop boldness, and manage conflict.

A humorous yet practical five-step guide to ridding ourselves - and our companies - of the bureaucratic bottlenecks and red tape that plague every office.

In this book, Mike Robbins dives deep into the ways great businesses build trust, collaborate, and operate at their peak level. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, Mike draws on more than 20 years of experience working with top companies like Google and Microsoft, as well as his baseball career with the Kansas City Royals. And, while each team and organization have their own unique challenges, goals, and dynamics, there are some universal qualities that allow teams to truly come together and thrive.

Many companies try to save money and underestimate the importance of project management. You know better than anyone else that project management is more than just quickly briefing your team during work. Even startups with small budgets invest in a project manager (PM) because it's no longer a secret that a skilled project manager can save companies 28 times more money since their output is more reliable.

Leadership Lessons, Volume 2 is a book that is all about how to improve organizational performance. The central focus of all these essays is improving the ability to understand the dynamics at play that are impacting their organizations. The purpose is to help organizations and the people within them to be able to realize their individual and collective potential. Many of the essays are titled in the form of a question because if you don’t learn to ask better questions, you will never get the answers you really need.

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.

Why were the American POWs imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton so resilient in captivity and so successful in their subsequent careers? This book presents six principles practiced within the POW organizational culture that can be used to develop high-performance teams everywhere. The authors offer examples from both the POWs’ time in captivity and their later professional lives that identify, in real-life situations, the characteristics necessary for sustainable, high-performance teamwork.

Lance Witt, founder of Replenish ministries and a former executive and teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, knows what it takes to keep teams functioning at the highest level of impact. He shows leaders how to build next-level teams that are spiritually, emotionally, and relationally healthy, productive, and high-performing.

In this timely and essential guide, McKinsey alumni Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas present a proven approach to workplace anxiety that reduces stress, boosts well-being, and overcomes blocks that get in the way of success. It begins with changing our relationship with fear and then developing strategies that improve outlook and performance, leading to greater profits, sustainable growth, and personal rewards. It’s only possible with a culture of unfear.

If you or someone you love has ever been caught in the vise-like grip of anxiety, you understand how painful and debilitating it can be. The frustration of the physical, mental, and emotional interference caused by anxiety is devastating. For many people, anxiety becomes the dragon they cannot slay. It doesn't have to be that way any longer. It’s time to break the chokehold anxiety has on your performance goals and your life.

Over the last 15 years, Coaching and Mentoring has become the go-to guide for anyone looking to develop their coaching and mentoring skills at individual, team or organizational level. Clear and accessible, it uses practical tools and best practice to demonstrate how to relate theoretical models to specific situations to gain real benefits. Now in its 3rd edition, Coaching and Mentoring has been fully updated to cover the latest thinking and developments in this area including extended coverage of coaching supervision.

For more than 50 years, NASA's Mission Control has been known for two things: perfect decision-making in extreme situations and producing generations of steely-eyed missile men and women who continue that tradition. A key to that legacy of brilliant performance is a particular brand of leadership, especially at the working level in Mission Control. Take the ultimate insider's look at the leadership values and culture that created the best team on this planet.

With so many choices available to them today's customers are smarter and more demanding than ever before, putting repeat business at risk. In order to keep them coming back, you can't just give them good, or even great, customer service...you have to knock their socks off!

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

The Culture Blueprint is a systematic guide to building a company culture. This audiobook is about fostering committed, enthusiastic employees. Distilling his years of experience teaching culture-building to companies like Google, P&G, and Amazon.