Workplace Behavior

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed.

An entertaining and accessible listen with profound implications for the future, Teeming takes us on a journey through nature’s most ancient and successful R&D labs, and gives practical prescriptions for redesigning organizations to flourish far into the future. Evolutionary biologist and anthropologist Dr. Woolley-Barker weaves poetic vision and deep scientific expertise to illustrate how flat, agile, and adaptive societies like ants, termites, and underground fungal networks self-organize for resilience and value.

Red teaming. It is a practice as old as the Devil's Advocate, the 11th-century Vatican official charged with discrediting candidates for sainthood. Today, red teams - comprised primarily of fearless skeptics and those assuming the role of saboteurs who seek to better understand the interests, intentions, and capabilities of institutions or potential competitors - are used widely in both the public and private sector.

Hierarchy in organizations is obsolete. There is a better way: one that increases the engagement of employees and managers alike, reduces micromanaging and other limiting approaches, and promotes organizational and individual success. In this book, self-management expert Samantha Slade presents seven concrete practices to help your organization flatten its existing hierarchy and develop a horizontal organization. The result will be enhanced creativity, greater growth, and an increased employee retention and productivity - and a better bottom line.

Institutions remain essential to human flourishing. They are the means by which communities thrive, individual vocations are fulfilled, and society is changed for the good. As a result, we all need to learn how to work effectively within institutions. That is just what Gordon Smith provides. He unpacks the core of institutional intelligence - the wisdom of working effectively within an organization. At the same time, he explains how team leaders, directors, executives, board members, key stakeholders, and employees can avoid what is often their greatest source of stress on the job,

Real wages have stagnated or declined for most workers, job insecurity has increased, and retirement income is uncertain. Why have jobs gotten so much worse? As Peter Cappelli argues, these issues and others stem from the logic of financial accounting and its fundamental flaws in dealing with human capital. Financial accounting views employee costs as fixed costs that cannot be reduced and fails to account for the costs of bad employees and poor management. The simple goal of today's executives is to drive down employment costs, even if it raises costs elsewhere.

Minding your manners is an acquired skill, but what serves you well elsewhere could trip you up in Japan. Save yourself possible embarrassment with Etiquette Guide to Japan. An inside look at Japanese social graces, it answers all the questions of the thoughtful traveler. Extensive, specific information on Japanese business etiquette assists listeners traveling to Japan for business.

If you are human, you are biased. From this fundamental truth, diversity expert Howard Ross explores the biases we each carry within us. Most people do not see themselves as biased towards people of different races or different genders. And yet in virtually every area of modern life disparities remain. Even in corporate America, which has for the most part embraced the idea of diversity as a mainstream idea, patterns of disparity remain rampant. Why?

Emotion, more than anything else, spells the difference between stellar and mediocre team performance. Fear, anger, frustration, and other negative feelings, can en danger a group's dynamic. But positive emotions have the power to transform it into a high-performance engine, where everyone operates at their peak. Their minds sharpen. They find creative solutions. They get great results.

Confronting Our Freedom is about reframing the common practices rising from traditional thinking about management and leadership. Most management theory and practice are about the need for clear constraints to succeed in the world where we work, but this now conventional thinking about managing calls for adaptation when working remotely has become common. This book is an invitation to freedom.

Business Ethics for Better Behavior concisely answers the three most pressing ethical questions business professionals face: What makes business practices right or wrong? Why do normal, decent businesspeople of good will sometimes do the wrong thing? And how can we use the answer to these questions to get ourselves, our coworkers, our bosses, and our employees to behave better?

Over six years, long-time Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger was invited by some of the greatest companies in the world to speak about the habits of high-performing individuals. From Microsoft and Starbucks to the New England Patriots and San Antonio Spurs, what do some organizations do seemingly better than most of their opponents? Don identified 16 habits that drive high-performing teams. Building on stories, examples, and first-hand accounts, each chapter in Great Teams comes with applicable examples on how to apply these characteristics in any organization.

Change initiatives fail because humans are hardwired to return to what's worked for us in the past. This book offers a straightforward process for rewiring ourselves and those we lead to be more change-capable.

In this explosive expose of the drug companies and how they are ripping us off, Marcia Angell, M.D., a doctor, medical journalist, and a former editor of the respected New England Journal of Medicine, reveals the many ways in which the pharmaceutical industry has moved away from its original purpose of finding and producing useful new drugs.

This. It’s insightful, useful, funny, and incredibly easy to relate to. The audience is distanced in the intro and then pulled into the fold in a unique and engaging way. I love the “tough-love” approach; this audiobook takes a hard, honest look at what people can do to change, what best practices and methods are, and what a toxic work environment looks like. Importantly, it refuses to let the listener bypass recognizing their own flaws and weak points, but it also doesn’t make the listener feel alienated or judged for not being perfect.

“Everyone wants everyone else to change.” That is the fundamental reason why most organizational transformations fail. Leaders want their people to exhibit behaviors that they don’t exhibit themselves. Team members feel powerless to make significant change just because of where they are situated on the organization chart. Improvement Starts with I provides you with a framework to change this through a simple plan that, when followed, will deliver outstanding engagement, improvement, and results, helping you avoid the potholes into which countless companies have fallen.

The more you are liked, or the higher your likeability factor, the happier your life will be. This audiobook will show you how to raise that likeability factor by teaching you how to boost four critical elements of your personality.

This book will inspire you to: better understand the path women must take to leadership; learn the root causes of the barriers that exist for women in the workplace; check your own gender biases and distinguish between confidence and competence in your colleagues; manage a more effective gender-diversity program; recognize the issues women face when speaking up about bias or harassment; and help women reenter the workforce after taking time off-and create opportunities for them to reach their ambitions.

Toxic workplaces take all kinds of forms—whether it's a narcissist boss who belittles and bullies, colleagues who backstab and gaslight, "work friends" who drain you with endless complaining, or a culture of overwork and burnout. It can feel impossible to know whether to speak up and when to keep your head down. Do you try to address it head-on, go to HR, or play office politics? The HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace will help you set boundaries and change what you can while helping you maintain your mental health and your self-respect in some of the toughest situations at work.

Everyone has a "schmuck" in their office - a difficult, disruptive person who upsets the workplace, confuses their coworkers, and causes concern. No one is safe from a schmuck. They come in many sizes and shapes. In her new audiobook, Dr. Jody Foster explains the entire spectrum of schmucks and how they can decrease productivity and generally make everyone else unhappy.