Workplace Behavior

The success of Starbucks is one of the most remarkable business stories in decades. Since 1987, the coffee merchant has grown from a single retail store on Seattle's waterfront to a company with more than 1,000 stores nationwide and a new one opening somewhere every business day. According to Fortune magazine, Starbucks "has changed everything...from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street."

Ilya Strebulaev has spent the last two decades at Stanford studying VCs’ counterintuitive approaches to decision-making, and the reasons behind the success and failure of corporate innovation efforts. Alex Dang, a senior leader at McKinsey and Amazon, has seen up close the impact VCs’ thinking and mechanisms can have on a business’ success. Together in The Venture Mindset, they present nine distinct principles that can help anyone looking to transform their business and achieve extraordinary results, no matter the industry.

Reframing Organizations provides time-tested guidance for more effective organizational leadership. Rooted in decades of social science research across multiple disciplines, Bolman and Deal's four-frame model has continued to evolve since its conception more than 25 years ago. This new seventh edition will be updated to include additional coverage of cross-sector collaboration, generational differences, virtual environments, globalization, sustainability, and communication across cultures.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories, the future of work has never been more uncertain, and even jobs requiring high levels of human interaction are no longer safe. The Last Human Job explores the human connections that underlie our work, arguing that what people do for each other in these settings is valuable and worth preserving.

In today’s work environment, the lines between our professional and personal lives are blurred more than ever before. Whatever is happening to us outside of our workplace - whether stressful, painful, or joyful - follows us into work as well. We may think we have to keep these realities under wraps and act as if we “have it all together”. But as Mike Robbins explains, we can work better, lead better, and be more engaged and fulfilled if - instead of trying to hide who we are- we show up fully and authentically.

After illustrating the global relevance of trust with his book The Speed of Trust by selling more than one million copies in 22 languages, Stephen M. R. Covey again illuminates the hidden power of trust to change lives and impact organizations in Smart Trust.

High achievers definitely approach their workday differently. This book gives access to the secrets and strategies they've found for making things work. Time Wise goes deeper and unveils some of the more counterintuitive but effective methods that boost your productivity. Some of the high achievers featured, along with their personal strategies, include Adam Alter setting systems instead of goals, Rita McGrath who consults her own personal board of directors, Jake Knapp who focuses on the one important thing of the day and Oliver Burkeman's approach to beating the to-do list.

In Beyond High Performance, Jason Jaggard, along with the coaches of Novus Global and the faculty of the Meta Performance™ Institute, pull back the curtain to reveal the coaching tools they use to help the best get better. Their groundbreaking research shows there are two types of great leaders and teams: Those who achieve success once and then plateau or decline, and those who achieve success over and over again.

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It's their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly.

Some people think that in today’s hyper-competitive world, it’s the tough, take-no-prisoners type who comes out on top. But in reality, argues New York Times bestselling author Dave Kerpen, it’s actually those with the best people skills who win the day. Those who build the right relationships. Those who truly understand and connect with their colleagues, their customers, their partners. Those who can teach, lead, and inspire.

With this indispensable guide, you'll cultivate a values-driven approach to building a culture of sustained authentic inclusion where everyone can thrive; learn how to improve the interview process to avoid missing game-changing talent; develop a hybrid office protocol that works for everyone and a support infrastructure that aligns with universal design principles; uncover and eliminate the destructive influence of unconscious cognitive biases; understand unique problem-solving abilities such as lateral thinking, visual-spatial thinking, multisensory thinking, and much more.

What will your 100-year life look like? Does the thought of working for 60 or 70 years fill you with dread? Or can you see the potential for a more stimulating future as a result of having so much extra time? Many of us have been raised on the traditional notion of a three-stage approach to our working lives: education, followed by work and then retirement. But this well-established pathway is already beginning to collapse.

Over the past three years, the notorious @GSElevator Twitter feed has offered a hilarious, shamelessly voyeuristic look into the real world of international finance. Hundreds of thousands followed the account, Goldman Sachs launched an internal investigation, and when the true identity of the man behind it all was revealed, it created a national media sensation - but that's only part of the story.

Lifestyle changes can be overwhelming: It’s hard to take on major goals without falling prey to self-doubt. But with kaizen, big goals become small, approachable steps. This Japanese method first made waves in the business world by launching Toyota to success; it also adds magic to Marie Kondo’s life-changing method of tidying up. As Kondo puts it: “You can take the first small step toward your dream today, and keep taking small steps to grow your passions.” Now, Sarah Harvey unlocks kaizen’s amazing potential to enhance our everyday lives.

What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth? Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey have found and studied such companies - deliberately developmental organizations. A DDO is organized around the conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people's strongest motive, which is to grow.

People are the problem. They're always the problem. If a business person goes home frustrated, if they talk with their significant other about it, if they lay awake at night stewing about it, inevitably the problem is some person at work - a colleague, subordinate, or boss. Handling people issues is every leader's major headache. It's what takes up the majority of their time and - more important - the bulk of their head space. Every leader can and must develop this most important of all management skills.

In a world where women and communities of color were disproportionally impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it's more important than ever for leaders to truly understand how to support inclusion in the postpandemic workplace. Drawing on years of work with many leading organizations, Jennifer Brown shows what leaders at any level can do to spark real change and navigate uncharted waters. She guides listeners through anti-racism using the Inclusive Leader Continuum, a set of four developmental stages: unaware, aware, active, and advocate.

We live, say Edgar and Peter Schein, in a culture of “tell". All too often we tell others what we think they need to know or should do. But whether we are leading or following, what matters most is we get to the truth. We have to develop a commitment to sharing vital facts and identifying faulty assumptions - it can mean the difference between success and failure. This is why we need Humble Inquiry more than ever.

Sarvesh's latest book focuses on grooming students and professionals to become aware and imbibe global business etiquette. This book guides you through the grooming and corporate etiquette nuances to develop and enhance your image and personality.

How can you come up with great ideas by yourself, or in the context of your team, and quickly determine which are worthy of investment? The simple metric of ideaflow determines success like no other. Ideaflow is a mindset, a way of approaching all your business problems, that multiplies your efforts and unleashes your full potential. Nurture ideaflow and watch your results transform.