Workplace Leadership

Whether you're a manager, owner, or employee, Customer Service Training 101 gets you up to speed fast. The completely revised and updated third edition addresses every aspect of face-to-face, phone, online, social media, and self-service interactions. Using scenarios, guidelines, and practice exercises, this inspiring training manual explains what to say and do, what to avoid, and why interactions go astray.

In this path-breaking and genre-defying book, Parmesh Shahani - vice president at Godrej Industries Ltd - draws from his decade-long journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a step-by-step guide to reshaping office culture in India.

Look behind-the-scenes at the firm behind WordPress.com and the unique work culture that contributes to its phenomenal success, The Year Without Pants shares what every organization can learn from the world-changing ideas for the future of work at the heart of Automattic's success....

Every year, millions of top performers are promoted to management-level jobs - only to discover that the tactics that got them promoted are not the tactics that will make them effective in their new role. In Welcome to Management, Ryan Hawk provides practical, actionable advice and tools designed to ensure that transition is a successful one.

Not just another book on communication. Adaptive Listening helps you up-level the under-trained side of communication amidst the realities of a hectic workday. Researched and tested exclusively in the work setting, Adaptive Listening moves you beyond active listening, embracing easy-to-remember techniques that strengthen relationships and get work done more effectively.

For decades there have been two iconic Japanese auto companies. One has been endlessly studied and written about. The other has been generally underappreciated and misunderstood. Until now. Since its birth as a motorcycle company in 1949, Honda has steadily grown into the world’s fifth largest automaker and top engine manufacturer, as well as one of the most beloved, most profitable, and most consistently innovative multinational corporations.

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.

Why do some team members not get along? What is the best way to get new teams and ad-hoc teams to maximize their performance in the least amount of time? How can meetings be designed to achieve useful outcomes? Teams are the source of problem-solving and innovation that today’s organizations need to survive and thrive in an increasingly complex and challenging marketplace. Teamwork is hard because there is no magic formula or step-by-step procedure to ensure results.

Increasingly, new employees and junior members of any profession are encouraged - sometimes stridently - to "find a mentor!" Four decades of research reveals that the effects of mentorship can be profound and enduring; strong mentoring relationships have the capacity to transform individuals and entire organizations.

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.

Tom Kelley, author of The Art of Innovation and the general manager of IDEO, the world-famous design firm, illuminates the strategies IDEO used to beat the devil's advocate and drive creativity throughout the organization.

Does your organization manage complexity by making things more complicated? If so, you are not alone. According to The Boston Consulting Group's fascinating Complexity Index, business complexity has increased sixfold during the past 60 years. And, all the while, organizational complicatedness - that is, the number of structures, processes, committees, decision-making forums, and systems - has increased by a whopping factor of 35.

Trust is a nonnegotiable for high -erforming relationships and organizations. Yet trust is fragile, and 90 percent of the behaviors that break it are subtle, fleeting, and unintentional. Drs. Dennis and Michelle Reina have rewritten this third edition of their best-selling, award-winning book Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace to empower everyone at every level of responsibility--not just leaders--to build and sustain trust in their workplaces.

Do you hope to be coached or be a great coach? Or wish that your organization could execute its coaching mandate? Mark Colgate's 8 Moments of Power is the missing piece for those hoping to orchestrate a coaching change. In this engaging book, Colgate takes us on a journey with humorous stories, case studies, and pragmatic frameworks, while examining how organizations can create a coaching system that designs for, and delivers, continuous feedback that simultaneously increases employee and customer engagement.

Drawing on their groundbreaking data-driven research, as well as in-depth case studies and extensive interviews with managers and employees at companies like IBM, Accenture, and eBay, the authors show what behaviors define a connector manager, and why they are able to build powerhouse teams. They also show why other types of managers fail to be equally effective, and how they can incorporate behaviors of connector managers in order to be more effective at building teams.

The greatest threat we face is not robots replacing us, but our reluctance to reinvent ourselves. We live in an age of wonder: cars that drive themselves, devices that anticipate our needs, and robots capable of everything from advanced manufacturing to complex surgery. Automation, algorithms, and AI will transform every facet of daily life, but are we prepared for what that means for the future of work, leadership, and creativity?

Deliberate Discomfort follows the journey of Jason Van Camp as a new Green Beret commander taking over a team of combat-hardened Special Forces veterans. This true story tells firsthand the intense, traumatic battles these warriors fought and won, sharing lessons learned from their incredible backgrounds. A cadre of scientists further break down each experience, translating them into digestible and relatable action items, allowing the listener to apply these lessons forged under fire to their own lives.

The Inspiring Leader reveals the authors' newest proprietary research on how top leaders inspire teams to greatness. It discusses the behaviors exhibited by the most successful leaders and includes advice on how to implement them.

From disengaged employees to underserved customers, business failures invariably stem from a culture problem. In The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change, acclaimed culture transformation expert and global executive Siobhan McHale shares her proven four-step process to demystifying culture transformation and starting down the path to positive change.

Almost one in four American working adults has a job that pays less than a living wage. Conventional wisdom says that’s how the world has to work. Bad jobs with low wages, minimal benefits, little training, and chaotic schedules are the only way companies can keep costs down and prices low. If companies were to offer better jobs, customers would have to pay more or companies would have to make less. But in The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, makes the compelling case that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind - with bad jobs - is a choice, not a necessity.