Management Problem Solving

Creativity, new ideas, innovation - in any age they are keys to success. Yet, as Stanford Professor Robert Sutton explains, the standard rules of business behaviour and management are precisely the opposite of what it takes to build an innovative company. We are told to hire people who will fit in; to train them extensively; and to work to instil a corporate culture in every employee. In fact, in order to foster creativity, we should hire misfits, goad them to fight and pay them to defy convention and undermine the prevailing culture.

Ask better questions, and you will get better results. Top business coach Mark Moses has identified four critical questions every business leader should explore on their journey to business and life success.

Drawing on a wide array of people and places, Uncharted traces long-term projects that shrewdly evolved over generations to meet the unpredictable challenges of every new age. Heffernan also looks at radical exercises and experiments that redefined standard practices by embracing different perspectives and testing fresh approaches. Preparing to confront a variable future provides the antidote to passivity and prediction.

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

What if you could brainstorm innovative solutions to your company's challenges? What if you could dream up new businesses that capture markets? What if you could tap the creative genius driving Silicon Valley's success stories? The truth is you can! Analytical thinkers, numbers people, non-artists - everyone can generate imaginative ideas. All it takes is letting go of the "I'm not creative" mindset and employing a proven process.

A powerful truth lies at the heart of lasting business success: when relationships thrive, everyone wins. Rooted in empirical research and decades of experience working directly with elite-level business owners, Russ Alan Prince, a leading authority in the private wealth industry, and Frank V. Carone, Founder and Chairman of Oaktree Solutions and one of the foremost experts on negotiating, unveil the transformative Everyone Wins Process—a proven four-step methodology for building and optimizing relationships that foster ethical, practical, long-term success, and financial freedom. Why The...

This practical guide introduces managers to a powerful new engagement and retention tool: the stay interview. Smart companies have begun conducting these periodic reviews in order to discover why their important talent might leave and to solve any problems before they actually quit.

Self-made millionaire Harvey Mackay knows about life at the top--and knows what it takes to stay there. Now, he tells you how to get there too, with dozens of common-sense lessons from all walks of life. Whether you're selling, managing, or punching the clock, you'll find the questions and the answers you need to questions like: Do you do what you love? (The Mackay self-inventory test will help you find out.); Do you love what you do? Do you deliver more than you promise?

As a savvy and motivated professional, you’re constantly on the lookout for high-impact leadership strategies to take your business to the next level and beyond—without bogging you down in abstract theories or exhaustive case studies. You need foolproof ways to lead your people to achieve outstanding results, even in challenging times. As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said, it’s time to get “brilliant on the basics.”

Dr. Adizes’s premise, developed in this book, is that the ideal leader, manager, or executive - ideal in the sense that he can fulfill by himself all the roles necessary for the long- and short-term effectiveness and efficiency of an organization - does not and cannot exist. And that is the problem with contemporary management literature: It presents what the executive should do (because that is what the organization needs), even though no one can do it.

Written for leaders, aspiring leaders, and anyone who makes a difference in the lives of others, author and leadership expert Tim Irwin, PhD, examines how failures of character common to even the most capable individuals—including deficits in authenticity, humility, self-management, and courage—repeatedly lead to downfall.

Based on his work at some of the world's largest companies, including Ford, Adidas, and Chanel, Christian Madsbjerg's Sensemaking is a provocative stand against the tyranny of big data and scientism, and an urgent, overdue defense of human intelligence. Christian Madsbjerg argues that our fixation with data often masks stunning deficiencies, and the risks for humankind are enormous. Blind devotion to number crunching imperils our businesses, our educations, our governments, and our life savings.

Installing agile tools and practices won’t be enough to respond to rapid market change unless you lay the groundwork with six key enabling factors, identified by the United Kingdom’s leading agile consulting firm, Agile Centre. From years of experience certifying people in agile leadership, product ownership, and scrum mastery, Karim Harbott has created a model that will help your organization achieve all six factors required for success. This audiobook will help leaders get realistic about the scope of the changes needed in their organization and show them how to get started.

In Clarity in Crisis, Marc shares how true leaders need to lead in and through times of crisis and thrive under conditions of ambiguity, rather than message their way out or duck from hard decisions.

In this revolutionary guide, Stanford University professor and international best-selling author of inGenius adapts her popular course material to teach everyone how to make imaginative ideas into realities.

In the early 1980s, Harley-Davidson was on the verge of bankruptcy. In the general public's opinion, quality was substandard - of both motorcycles and riders. Harleys leaked oil and were often broken down. Riders were roughnecks, out to raise hell. The Harley-Davidson brand was tarnished. What s more, the charges were true.By the mid-1980s, Harley couldn't produce enough bikes to keep the public happy. Dealers were selling bikes off the showroom floor, struggling to assuage customers frustration.

Even the best competitive strategies mean nothing if they can't be executed. Yet many organizations struggle when they move from defining a strategy to implementing it. Somehow, all the careful planning falls to the side, and leaders are left wondering how to pick up the pieces. The HBR Guide to Executing Your Strategy is here to help. This book offers leaders and managers tips and advice for how to take even the most detailed strategy and apply it throughout their organizations.

A rapid and massively disruptive shift from centralized to distributed organizations has already begun. But current leadership practices were designed for large centralized organizations, making them increasingly obsolete. Bob Johansen, who has been projecting future trends from Silicon Valley since 1968, outlines five literacies leaders need to develop to cope with this brave new world.

What makes a successful business? How can we work most effectively as a team? What are the keys to being a great leader? Best-selling authors Daniel Goleman and Peter Senge address these questions in Working with Presence. From the importance of harmonized thinking to the role that tacit knowledge plays in every organization, they discuss how companies can transform themselves into learning organizations.

With a mix of compelling stories, research from the social sciences and psychology, and real-world insights, Make Change Work for You shows how to reignite your career, rekindle creativity, and fearlessly innovate your way to success by providing the tools needed to master uncertainty and conquer every challenge in life or business.