Showing titles in Workplace & Organisational Behavior

Why is good leadership so rare? Everyone has to manage up to some extent, but, frankly, some bosses are worse than others. If you're being driven crazy by a micro-manager, frequently drown under your boss' unreasonable expectations or struggle with being handed out responsibilities but no authority, international behavioural expert Thomas Erikson is here to help.

When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it? In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want. He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members.

All of us hit a wall sometimes, in our life and in our jobs. What is getting in the way of your ability to make progress and do good work? We’re accustomed to thinking that we can only pivot in response to an emergency or an existential threat. This book is about how you make quick progress on an important goal without waiting for the crisis to hit first.

The hallmark of any exceptional career is the ability to devise innovative solutions for work challenges. Creative thinking skills are vital for your professional advancement.

“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.

Most organizations and individuals work in the context of annual goals and plans; a 12-month execution cycle. Instead, The 12 Week Year avoids the pitfalls and low productivity of annualized thinking. This book redefines your "year" to be 12 weeks long. In 12 weeks, there just isn't enough time to get complacent, and urgency increases and intensifies. The 12 Week Year creates focus and clarity on what matters most and a sense of urgency to do it now. In the end more of the important stuff gets done and the impact on results is profound.

In this timely and enlightening audiobook, Cal Newport introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can have fun with friends and family and eat out at restaurants without the obsessive urge to document the experience...Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement and makes a case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world.

Patagonia, named by Fortune in 2007 as the coolest company on the planet, has earned a reputation as much for its ground-breaking environmental and social practices as for the quality of its clothes. In this exceptionally frank account, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence, by step and misstep, to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately share its discoveries with companies as large as Wal-Mart or as small as the corner bakery.

In the years following her role as the lead author of the international best seller, Limits to Growth - the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet - Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem-solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute's Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world....

Currently, despite their skills and work ethics, members of ADHD, autism, Tourette Syndrome, learning differences, and related communities face drastic barriers to hiring and advancement. In the US, 30-40% of neurodivergent people and 85% of autistic college graduates struggle with unemployment. Lack of flexibility, transparency, and psychological safety excludes neurodivergent, disabled, and multiply marginalized talent—and leaves most employees stressed and disengaged.

Do you have a grip on your business, or does your business have a grip on you? All entrepreneurs and business leaders face similar frustrations: personnel conflict, profit woes, and inadequate growth. Decisions never seem to get made, or once made, fail to be properly implemented. But there is a solution. It’s not complicated or theoretical.

The book aims to demystify Lean methodologies and provide you with clear, actionable steps to foster a lean culture within your organization. I believe that by simplifying these concepts, Lean Made Simple can open minds to the transformative possibilities of Lean. I look forward to opening your eyes to the potential of Lean and how it can revolutionize the way we work.

Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, where management is also a technical discipline, the learning curve can be brutal - especially when there are few tools, texts, and frameworks to help you. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager.

Playing to Win, a noted Wall Street Journal and Washington Post best seller, outlines the strategic approach Lafley, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, used to double P&G’s sales, quadruple its profits, and increase its market value by more than $100 billion when Lafley was first CEO (he led the company from 2000 to 2009). The book shows leaders in any type of organization how to guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business successwhere to play and how to win.

Who Moved My Cheese? is a simple parable that reveals profound truths. It is the amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life, for example a good job, a loving relationship, money or possessions, health or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organisation you work in or the family or community you live in. The problem is that the cheese keeps moving.

Celebrated workplace thought leader Elizabeth Lotardo delivers an engaging guide to owning and elevating your work experience. With tips, watchouts, and funny stories, Leading Yourself will give you the encouragement and tactics to up-level your career, even if you aren't in your dream job. You'll learn to manage your self-talk, find meaning in the mundane, optimize your time at work, and build relationships with the people who matter.

Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In recent months, the pandemic has forced us all to reevaluate our assumptions about health and safety and multiple acts of police brutality have challenged most of us to reconsider our responsibility for fighting racism. Yet in our daily lives, too many of us still favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.

Within each corporation are anywhere from a few to hundreds of separate tribes. In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright demonstrate how these tribes develop - and show you how to assess them and lead them to maximize productivity and growth. A business management book like no other, Tribal Leadership is an essential tool to help managers and business leaders take better control of their organizations by utilizing the unique characteristics of the tribes that exist within.

Penguin Audio presents Damaged Goods, by Oliver Shah. In March 2015, British businessman and the chairman of Arcadia Group Sir Philip Green sold BHS for £1 to Retail Acquisitions, owned by Dominic Chappell, a serial bankrupt who filed BHS for administration shortly after. By April 2016, BHS had debts of £1.3bn, including a pensions deficit of £571m. Damaged Goods follows Green's journey to the big time, the sale of BHS and the subsequent investigation that concluded with Green paying £363m to the Pensions Regulator.

The second installment of the Traction Library's EOS Mastery Series, People gives listeners all the tools they need to create a thriving workplace culture and shows why it's an absolutely essential part of any successful business.