Career Development

Imagine walking up to a stranger on the subway and asking them for their seat. What about asking a random person on the street if you could borrow their phone? If the idea makes you squeamish, you're not alone - social psychologists have found that doing these very things makes most of us almost unbearably uncomfortable. But here's the funny thing: even though we hate to ask for help, most people are wired to be helpful. And that's a good thing, because every day in the modern, uber-collaborative workplace, we all need to know when and how to call in the cavalry.

What do people and businesses need to know about the realities of innovating in order to develop products successfully? Lorraine Marchand—a seasoned practitioner who has guided Fortune 500 companies and start-ups on developing and launching new ideas—lays out a step-by-step framework for spurring success. She shares her eight laws of innovation, a formula for driving significant and lasting transformation in any organization. Marchand emphasizes the frame of mind needed to spark the innovation process.

We've all been taught that we must suppress or avoid emotions at work, but this inevitably leads to a loss in productivity, diminished creativity, and crushing job dissatisfaction. Research shows 85 percent of us avoid communicating crucial workplace problems upward, and many of us who are employed are actively looking for a different job. What's going on?

Going from small business to successful start-up to scalable growth takes more than just good luck, it takes a system. Over the last 34 years franchising consultant and growth expert Mark Siebert has been sought out by more than 70,000 executives looking to expanding their company. Out of those 70,000, only 5,000 had the right systems in place to go from successful to scalable.

In the last 10 years, the number of nonprofits and social sector organizations has grown by almost 25 percent, while charitable giving declined 30 percent over the same period. As a result, many organizations are chasing grants, tweaking and adding to their core activities to match what they think funders are looking for. Almost half of nonprofits surveyed nationally in 2014 said they added additional programs in the last year. The result is colloquially known as "mission creep" - organizations trying to be everything to everyone.

In today's complex, highly competitive, global environment, those who will survive and thrive in this new world of work are individuals, teams, and organizations who can maintain high levels of accountability and remain focused on must-achieve desired results. Achieve with Accountability is your personal handbook for awakening your (or your team or organization's) inner confidence, drive, perseverance, determination, resolve, and can-do mindset.

Erik Wahl, a visual artist, speaker, and entrepreneur, helps us unite the yin and yang of creativity - the dynamic new ideas with the dogged effort. He shows why we won't get far if we rely on the spark without the grind or the grind without the spark. What the world really needs are the creators who can hold the two in balance. This audiobook offers surprising insights and practical advice about how to fan the sparks and make the grind more productive.

The age of the distributed team is upon us. Teams can now operate and collaborate from locations other than a central office, and events surrounding the 2020 COVID pandemic have thrown its practicality into sharp relief. Managing a team whose members are distributed across several locations requires a different mindset and will remain a must-have for all areas of business from this point forward. Building and Managing High-Performance Distributed Teams explains what the distributed teams concept means to the future of your company.

Quietly and steadily, the number of women making six figures or more is increasing and continues to rise at a rate faster than for men. From entrepreneurs to corporate executives, from white-collar professionals to freelancers and part-timers, women are forging careers with considerable financial success. In Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Barbara Stanny, journalist, motivational speaker, and financial educator, identifies the seven key strategies of female high earners.

We all need help navigating the politics of ministry. In The Politics of Ministry, Bob Burns, Tasha Chapman, and Donald Guthrie combine their long ministry experience with sociological research on the topic. Filled with real-life stories taken from a variety of ministry settings, this book sets out wise principles and practices that help us see more clearly the political dynamics at play in our churches and parachurch ministries.

Achieving Excellence in Fundraising is the go-to reference for fundraising principles, concepts, and techniques. With comprehensive guidance toward the fundraising role, this audiobook reflects the latest advances in fundraising knowledge. Coverage includes evolving technologies, the importance of high net-worth donors, global fundraising perspectives, results analysis and performance evaluation, accountability, and credentialing, with contributions from noted experts in the field. You'll gain essential insight into the practice of fundraising and the fundraising cycle.

Employee to Entrepreneur is your guide to leaving your job behind and building something for yourself. Author and employee-turned-entrepreneur Steve Glaveski reveals how to navigate the challenges, find the entrepreneurial success that is right for you, and become a better person along the way.

Pulling Together is a fantastic guide for leaders from all walks of life. In it you will learn about the 10 Rules for High Performance Teamwork. They’re simple, yet so important! It’s not only about leading a team, but also being a part of one. The 10 rules are presented in a way that every person in your organization can understand. Use this audiobook to clarify expectations and foster accountability, build more focus, unity, trust and credibility with your team, align people and systems, mobilize commitment and generate enthusiasm.

Margaret Wheatley proposes that citizens band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. Turning to One Another encourages this process.

Michael Hyter is one of the nation's highest regarded executives of color and a widely respected thought leader in the area of talent development and leadership succession. To get there, he worked hard and made his work count through efficacy. In The Power of Choice he reveals the lessons he learned along the way - putting you on the fast track to career success.

The 25 Minute Meeting goes beyond "cut to the chase" and shows you how to take back your work day with smarter planning and more productive action. Meetings have become a de facto way of working, and as they pile up and stretch to interminable lengths, they eat up our days and sink productivity - if they are poorly planned and run. Done well, meetings are short, sharp, productive affairs that provide critical time and space for the interactions that drive business forward.

It’s a brutal paradox—the same founder attributes required to put a startup in motion will invariably blow it up. The difference between success and failure lies in the personal journey that every founder must pursue to avoid their own worst impulses. Steeped in nearly forty years of research in leadership psychology, Founders, Keepers begins with the same personality assessment Rich Hagberg, a psychologist and executive management coach, gives his clients.

Analogies are far more complex than their SAT stereotype and lie at the very core of human cognition and creativity. Once we become aware of this, we start seeing them everywhere - in ads, apps, political debates, legal arguments, logos, and euphemisms, to name just a few. At their very best, analogies inspire new ways of thinking, enable invention, and motivate people to action. Unfortunately, not every analogy that rings true is true. That's why, at their worst, analogies can deceive, manipulate, or mislead us into disaster.

Managing complex projects can stretch you to the limits. But with a book full of experts coaching you each step of the way, you'll never be baffled, blocked, or misdirected again. Packed with essays and insights from the field's top professionals, The AMA Handbook of Project Management is the resource professionals and students rely on for its practical guidance and big picture overview of the entire field. Whether you need advice keeping projects on track or help preparing for certification, this new edition explains every principle, process, and development.

Many people know the benefit of finding a sponsor - someone who goes beyond traditional mentorship to partner with a junior-level employee to help build their skills, advocate for them when opportunities arise, and open doors. But few realize that being a sponsor is just as important to career growth as finding one. Combining powerful new data and rich examples drawn from in-depth interviews with leaders from companies such as Unilever, Aetna, Blizzard Entertainment, and EY, The Sponsor Effect provides a seven-step playbook for how you can become a successful sponsor.