Business Problem Solving

Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don't even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us.

In The Upside of Uncertainty, INSEAD professor Nathan Furr and entrepreneur Susannah Harmon Furr provide a sweeping guide to embracing uncertainty and transforming it into a force for good. Drawing from hundreds of interviews, along with pioneering research in psychology, innovation, and behavioral economics, Nathan and Susannah provide dozens of tools—including mental models, techniques, and reflections—for seeing the upside of uncertainty, developing a vision for what to do next, and opening ourselves up to new possibilities.

The third edition of this groundbreaking book continues to advance its mission to support groups to do their best thinking. It demonstrates that meetings can be much more than merely an occasion for solving a problem or creating a plan. Every well-facilitated meeting is also an opportunity to stretch and develop the perspectives of the individual members, thereby building the strength and capacity of the group as a whole.

Using stories from his time at Netscape, Apple, and Slack, Michael Lopp presents a series of small but compelling practices to help you build leadership skills. You’ll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted. The essays in this book examine the practical skills Lopp learned from exceptional leaders - as a manager at Netscape, a senior manager and director at Apple, and an executive at Slack. You’ll learn how to apply these lessons to your own experience.

In this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking Thinkertoys, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you'll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life.

Samit has been at the helm of businesses in the ecommerce, digital video, social media, mobile communications, and software industries, helping to navigate them through turbulent economic times and guide them through necessary transformation so that they stay ahead of the curve and profitable. In Disrupt You!, he reveals how specific strategies that help companies flourish can be applied at an individual level. By challenging assumptions, pinpointing one's unique value, and identifying weaknesses in the structure of current industries, anyone can achieve success and lasting prosperity.

This groundbreaking audiobook includes the same material used by leaders and employees of Koch companies to apply Marker-Based Management (MBM) to get results. Koch outlines this unique management methodology, developed and implemented by Koch Industries, which has experienced 2,000-fold growth since 1967. MBM is a scientific approach to management that integrates theory and practice while providing a framework for dealing with the ongoing challenges of growth and change.

In Joel's Schwartzberg's 10-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across - one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail - is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.

Unleashing your humble alpha is the key factor to unlocking profound leadership, unshakable confidence, clarity of purpose, and the quality of life you dream of. It’s a natural power created by you when in alignment that supercharges your ability to take massive charge in business and life so you can stop grappling for power, failing to motivate staff, or struggling in your relationships. It’s the momentum you’ve been searching for.

Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. Though four simple words, this carefully crafted credo lies at the heart of Walt Disney's enviable empire and has led The Walt Disney Company to prosperity for decades. As foremost experts on Disney, authors Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson return with an updated and expanded third edition of The Disney Way to show how organizations can incorporate this four-pillared credo to support any business, drive any team, and guide any leader to create immeasurable success.

Master the art of thinking with Mental Models: An AI's Guide to 100 Thinking Tools Humans Overlook. This book transforms complex concepts into actionable strategies, making life’s toughest decisions easier to tackle. Ever felt stuck in a problem, unsure how to navigate the noise? Or missed opportunities because you didn’t see all the angles? This book is your shortcut to clarity and creativity.

Value stream mapping - an essential but underused methodology - is a proven approach to help you visualize and resolve disconnects, redundancies, and gaps in your value delivery system. More than a tool to eliminate operational waste, value stream mapping is a highly effective means to transform leadership thinking, define strategy and priorities, and create customer-centric work flow. Business performance improvement experts Karen Martin and Mike Osterling present a practical way to deeply understand how work gets done - in any environment - and how to design improved work systems.

If you want to impress people with your critical-thinking skills, then check out this comprehensive audiobook with two manuscripts in one: Critical Thinking and Logical Fallacies.

In The Serendipity Mindset, Christian Busch explains that serendipity isn't about luck in the sense of simple randomness. It's about seeing links that others don't, combining these observations in unexpected and strategic ways, and learning how to detect the moments when apparently random or unconnected ideas merge to form new opportunities. Busch explores serendipity from a rational and scientific perspective and argues that there are identifiable approaches we can use to foster the conditions to let serendipity grow.

The Fractal Effect: How Patterns, Cycles, and Scaling Influence Your LifeUnlock the Hidden Patterns That Shape Your World—And Use Them to Your Advantage! Have you ever wondered why history seems to repeat itself, why financial markets follow cycles, or why nature’s designs—from galaxies to your own body—mirror themselves at every level? The answer lies in fractals—self-replicating patterns that govern everything from business and decision-making to personal growth and creativity.

Welcome to what may be the most important module in this course. I'll be talking about problem-solving and a way of visually representing problem-solving. You may have heard this referred to as "A3 reporting" or "A3 storytelling". I will be referring to it as "A3 thinking"; that is, it's a way of thinking rather than documenting problem-solving on a piece of paper.

This is the most important module because in the Toyota Way, problem-solving drives continuous improvement and showing respect for people. Problem-solving is the core skill of a lean leader and it is the skill most leaders lack.

Here, drawing on revealing, honest stories from his five decades in business - the company's many successes as well as its stumbles - Koch walks the listener step by step through the five dimensions of Market-Based Management to show stockholders, entrepreneurs, leaders, students - and innovators, supervisors and employees of all kinds, in any field - how to apply the principles to generate Good Profit in their organizations, companies, and lives.

To achieve the ultimate in entrepreneurial breakthrough success requires an uncanny ability to spot the next big wave of consumer demand - but how do you do that? For most small business owners, the true cash cows seem to be reserved for lucky people who were in the right place at the right time.

A "brilliant, fun, and wise" (Cass R. Sunstein) tour of nine common business decision-making traps - and practical tools for avoiding them - from a professor of strategic thinking.

Radical uncertainty changes the way we should think about decision-making. For over half a century economics has assumed that people behave rationally by optimizing among well-defined choices. Behavioral economics questioned how far people are rational, pointing to the cognitive biases that seem to describe actual behavior.