Management Problem Solving

When you have a great opportunity or face a challenging threat, Create the Future (CTF) gives you the tools you and your leadership team will use for making critical decisions without a hefty price tag. Rick Williams has been a management consultant, company founder, and CEO. He has worked with large international companies, nonprofits, early-stage growth companies, and large government agencies. Drawing on his broad expertise and first-hand observations of top executives in action, Create the Future is the essential guidebook for leaders when they must make difficult decisions.

Outsmart the traps that are holding you back from success! Trap Tales is your guide to avoiding the seven obstacles that ensnare people every day. We all fall into traps, and we often don't even realize it until we're deeply entrenched. Like quicksand, traps are easy to step into, but difficult to escape - it seems that the harder we try to climb out, the deeper we sink. But what if there were another way? What if we knew the right strategies to escape the traps we have fallen into? What if we could spot traps from a distance, and avoid them entirely?

Every one of us gets anywhere in life due to three things: someone observes us, forms an opinion about us, and decides to give us an opportunity...or not. Likewise, we do the same thing with others. People have played this essential role in our lives, and we play it in the lives of those around us - and no matter how skilled we’ve become, we can play it even better.

Decision-making is a critical part of management, and bad choices can damage careers and the bottom line. This book offers the tools and advice managers need to avoid common biases and arrive at and implement decisions that are both sound and ethical.

Unprecedented access to infinite solutions has led us to realize that having all of the answers is not the answer. From innovation teams to creativity experts to crowdsourcing, we've turned from one source to another, spending endless cycles pursuing piecemeal solutions to each challenge we face. What if your organization had an effective systematic approach to deal with any problem?

Creating solutions to solve problems can often prove very difficult to accomplish, even for seasoned solution designers. Complex organizational problems have several stakeholders, endless variables, and a myriad of possible solutions. It's hard enough to figure out where to start, and even harder to realize what the perfect, mutually-beneficial solution is.

It can be messy and overwhelming to figure out how to solve thorny problems. Where do you start? How do you know where to look for information and evaluate its quality and bias? How can you feel confident that you are making a careful and thoroughly researched decision? Whether you are deciding between colleges, navigating a career decision, helping your aging parents find the right housing, or expanding your business, Problem Solved will show you how to use the AREA Method to make complex decisions.

Contrary to popular belief, the business world is not that complicated. While every industry and every profession requires specific expertise, the truth is that the "business of business" is relatively simple. In Business Without the Bullsh*t, listeners will learn surprising but tried-and-true secrets about being an extraordinary boss, about coping with annoying coworkers, and navigating the thorny problems that recur in every workplace.

In 2020, the world as we knew it changed. For close to two years, people were socially isolated. Many of us lost the art of human face-to-face connections that lead to the development of close intimate relationships. In Relational Intelligence, Dr. Adam C. Bandelli outlines the five essential skills that can help you reconnect with others and build strong, long-lasting relationships. Drawing on research from the fields of psychology, sociology, and behavioral science, he explains why these skills are necessary tools for building a life of joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

The HBR Guide to Collaborative Teams provides practical tips and advice to help you collaborate more effectively. Whether you're leading your own direct reports or building a talented group from disparate parts of your organization, you'll discover how to align others' goals and skills so you can solve problems as a team and deliver great results.

Today, the economic environment is global, highly sophisticated, and in continuous flux. Thus, the challenge for business leaders is to stay ahead of market flow and change, in order to gain competitive advantage. Creating Competitive Advantage explores why this pioneering can be the safest and best course for organizations to get ahead and guides leaders on how to forecast trends without increasing risk. It introduces the new concepts of market flow visualization and the line of probability, pioneering the safe course, and analytically supported intuition.

Making complex decisions can seem hard, and making them stick may feel impossible. Business leaders must consider multiple factors and opinions, negotiate with numerous stakeholders and implement decisions successfully. "Hard Decisions Made Easy" sets out effective and practical ways to tackle the twin challenges of this process: balancing non-financial and financial outcomes, and getting stakeholders on board.

Torture in Abu Ghraib prison. Corporate fraud. Falsified records at Veterans Administration hospitals. Teachers pressured to feed test answers to students. These scandals could have been prevented if, early on, people had said no to their higher-ups. In this timely new book, Ira Chaleff goes deeply into when and how to disobey inappropriate orders, reduce unacceptable risk, and find better ways to achieve legitimate goals.The inspiration for the book and its title came from a concept used in guide-dog training.

Feiner's candid leadership guide cuts through rhetoric and theory and gives managers and executives a "hands-on" approach to dealing with problems in business.

For years, I have been doing turnarounds of distressed companies to make the businesses profitable. I believe that the main reason companies are distressed is that the business owners do not know how to hire and manage a strong management team. Many business owners do not realize how important it is to have and maintain a qualified team of managers to oversee their employees. Most entrepreneurs believe they are doing a decent job of building a quality management team to lead their companies.

Most people are blown off-course by unexpected events. Top performers, by contrast, know how to navigate our unpredictable world. Not just that: they know how to thrive in it. You can acquire this essential skill, too. In Mastering Uncertainty, investor and serial entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly and award-winning business author Matt Watkinson reveal the shortcomings of conventional business thinking and the advantages of developing a "probabilistic" mindset that turns uncertainty from a source of fear into an incredible and exciting advantage.

Your team will change whether you like it or not. People will come and go. Your company might double in size or even be acquired. In this practical book, author Heidi Helfand shares techniques for reteaming effectively. Engineering leaders will learn how to catalyze team change to reduce the risk of attrition, learning and career stagnation, and the development of knowledge silos.

The modern practice intended to motivate individuals has ensured that humans no longer think for themselves. Using rewards, punishment, and feedback undermines not just our personal growth, but the very fabric of life and living systems. Award-winning author and business disruptor Carol Sanford proposes a smarter, faster, and deeper key to unlock a future of profound creativity and success. This guide allows you to challenge prevailing theories, promote a holistic understanding of education and change, and redefine the way we approach our work and the results we seek.

At this moment, rogue waves are forming under your business. Emerging technologies, changing demographics, the data economy, automation, and other trends are crashing into each other. When they converge, they’ll produce sea changes that sink companies and wash away entire industries overnight. If your competitor can’t ride out the next wave and you can, you win. Jonathan Brill - a renowned expert on resilient growth and decision-making under uncertainty - shows you how to prepare your business to survive and thrive through the most radical upheavals.

Think of your to-do list at work. Chances are the most important tasks require you to work with others - and the success of those endeavors depends on the effectiveness of your collaboration. According to management expert Leigh Thompson, collaboration that is conscious, planned, and focused on generating new ideas builds excitement and produces what she calls a "creative conspiracy". Teams that conspire to organize themselves, motivate one another, and combine their talents to meet creative challenges are the hallmark of the most successful organizations.