Organizational Management

Eileen Sharp and Vic Hightower were frustrated. After years of profitable, predictable growth, Swan Services was in a rut. Meetings were called and discussions held, but few decisions were made and even less got done. People were pointing fingers and assigning blame, but nothing happened to solve Swan’s mounting problems. It felt as though they were working harder than ever but with less impact. The company Eileen and Vic had founded and built for 10 years was a different place. It just wasn’t fun anymore.

Get more of the communication ideas you want, from the authors you trust. With insights from leading experts, this book will inspire you to: rethink how you give feedback to employees; ask questions to encourage learning and the exchange of ideas; invest in the right virtual communication tools for your team or business; establish a language strategy for your company; negotiate effectively with anyone - including liars; and present data more powerfully using visualization.

Teams Unleashed provides a map and compass for engaged, sustainable, and improved team performance. This practical approach uses the everyday language of teams to highlight what's working, and uncover what's not, and gives teams the tools to incorporate new practices that build team effectiveness. This is an approach proven in the real world of teams since 2005 and used by thousands of teams worldwide.

In Impact Players, New York Times best-selling author and researcher Liz Wiseman reveals the secrets of these stellar professionals who play the game at a higher level. Drawing on insights from leaders at top companies, Wiseman explains what the most influential players are doing differently, how small and seemingly insignificant differences in how we think and act can make an enormous impact, and why - with a little coaching - this mindset is available to everyone who wants to contribute at their highest level.

Finally, in the first productivity book by a woman in a decade, Erin Falconer will show you how to do less - a lot less. In fact, How to Get Sh*t Done will teach you how to zero in on the three areas of your life where you want to excel, and then it will show you how to offload, outsource, or just stop giving a damn about the rest. In How to Get Sh*t Done she shows how even the most perfectionistic among us can tap in to our inner free spirit and learn to feel like badasses rather than drudges.

It's Monday. Time to hit the pause button on your personality and get ready for the next meeting because, for the next five days, we'll be speaking the language of business. And, from bloated jargon and monotonous memos to syrupy slogans and deadly dull presentations, the official language of business is bull. The second we get to work, we join the masses who trade the wit and warmth of their voices for a corporate stamp of approval and the comfort of conformity.

Preeminent leadership scholar Linda Hill, along with former Pixar tech wizard Greg Brandeau, MIT researcher Emily Truelove, and Being the Boss coauthor Kent Lineback, found among leaders a widely shared, and mistaken, assumption: that a "good" leader in all other respects would also be an effective leader of innovation. The truth is, leading innovation takes a distinctive kind of leadership, one that unleashes and harnesses the "collective genius" of the people in the organization.

Researchers now have a clear understanding of the key drivers that make meetings successful. In The Surprising Science of Meetings, Steven G. Rogelberg, researcher and consultant to some of the world's most successful companies, draws from extensive research, analytics and data mining, and survey interviews with over 5,000 employees across a range of industries to share the proven practices and techniques that help managers and employees enhance the quality of their meetings.

What’s the secret to business growth and innovation and a purpose-driven career in a world that is becoming vastly more complicated by the day? According to Marc Benioff, the answer is embracing a culture in which your values permeate everything you do. In Trailblazer, Benioff gives listeners a rare behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of one of the world’s most admired companies. He reveals how Salesforce’s core values - trust, customer success, innovation, and equality - and commitment to giving back have become the company’s greatest competitive advantage.

UCLA psychologist and organizational consultant Dr. Robert Maurer provides a simple and proven effective technique for making major changes with minimal disruption. Applying the operational concept of kaizen - small, continual improvements - to common management challenges, managers can drive major improvements with a series of well-planned techniques for boosting quality, innovation, sales, and morale.

Everyone has something they want to change. Marketers want to change their customers' minds and leaders want to change organizations. Start-ups want to change industries and nonprofits want to change the world. But change is hard. Often, we persuade and pressure and push, but nothing moves. Could there be a better way? This book takes a different approach. Successful change agents know it's not about pushing harder, or providing more information, it's about being a catalyst.

Want employees that go the extra mile? Love them or hate them, employee engagement surveys are here to stay. As manager, you're expected to digest the data and come up with a plan for improving the numbers. But it's not just busy work. Raising engagement scores matters because engagement matters. An enthusiastic workforce translates into higher productivity and profitability with less turnover and absenteeism. Fully committed workers will give their all every day - and it's your job to make that happen.

You are a Unicorn. You are inspiring, innovative, and powerful—and your idea has the potential to be the next big thing. But whether it's a product, a service, or a brilliant upgrade that your company could make, you need the right team to make it happen. Renowned brand strategist and entrepreneur Jen Kem will show you how to identify your Unicorn Leadership Type so that you can build and lead the most collaborative, harmonious, and motivated team of Unicorns to achieve extraordinary results.

With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?

Among the most prominent architects of the wireless communications industry, the former Verizon Wireless president and CEO has had one of the most remarkable careers in modern business. In Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?, Strigl shares all the skills and techniques he used to build Verizon into one of the greatest growth companies in any industry.

The world’s best teams don’t win because of leadership alone. They win because of teamship. Yet when it comes to success, it is leaders who are lauded; too little attention is given to the transformation of the team itself. We’ve all but ignored how to extract billions of dollars of shareholder value from the interdependency of talent in teams, Keith Ferrazzi argues. Upgrading teams is one of the least curated and under-leveraged opportunities for success. It is time to focus on teamship.

Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practice addresses organizational issues in terms of how managers experience them and how MBA students can most effectively learn about them. John Child draws attention to the exciting possibilities currently arising in organizations as the conditions for their survival change. His analysis covers new internal organizational forms, various kinds of network organization, and the evolution of organization to meet new demands.

The Song of Significance is a rousing contemplation on work: why it is the way it is, why it’s gotten so bad, what all of us–especially leaders–can do to make it better.

In Bring Your Human to Work, Erica Keswin laid down the rules and protocols of a human workplace. Now, in Rituals Roadmap, she shows us how to further employee engagement, explaining that workplace rituals foster a sense of belonging and help workers connect with one another and their work.

From the visionary head of Google's innovative People Operations comes a groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work - and a blueprint for attracting the most spectacular talent to your business and ensuring that they succeed. "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing". So says Laszlo Bock, former head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge.