Management Problem Solving

In business, the right behaviors matter. But getting it right is tricky. Even when we acknowledge the need to change what we do and how we do it, life has a habit of getting in the way, upsetting even the best-laid plans. And just how do we manage those situations that can provoke even the most rational among us into behaving in ways we would rather forget?

Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world's most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading Data Domain and ServiceNow to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up, he shares his leadership approach for the first time.

How to Stop Yourself Before You Make Another Costly Decision - No one intentionally makes bad decisions. Yet we make them all the time. In fact, some of the worst disasters in recent history - the collapse of major investment banks, the global financial meltdown - were the result of seemingly reasonable decisions made by a lot of smart people. How does this happen? Michael J. Mauboussin argues that the correct process for deciding well - especially when the stakes are high - conflicts with how our minds naturally work.

He knows how to win. More, he knows the many ways - subtle, brutal, often self-inflicted - we lose. As the most trusted mental coach in the world of sports, Trevor Moawad has worked with many of the most dominant athletes and the savviest coaches. From Nick Saban and Kirby Smart to Russell Wilson, they all look to Moawad for help finding or keeping or regaining their competitive edge. (As do countless business leaders and members of special forces.) Now, at last, Moawad shares his unique philosophy with the general public.

How can you come up with great ideas by yourself, or in the context of your team, and quickly determine which are worthy of investment? The simple metric of ideaflow determines success like no other. Ideaflow is a mindset, a way of approaching all your business problems, that multiplies your efforts and unleashes your full potential. Nurture ideaflow and watch your results transform.

The traditional attitude toward creativity in the American business world is to "think outside the box": to brainstorm without restraint in hopes of coming up with a breakthrough idea, often in moments of crisis. Sometimes it works, but it’s a problem-specific solution that does nothing to engender creative thinking more generally. Inside the Box demonstrates Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), a method that systemizes creativity as part of the corporate culture. SIT requires thinking "inside the box", working in one’s familiar world to create new ideas independent of specific problems.

Former consultant Dr. Paul Friga distills the guiding principles first presented in the best-selling The McKinsey Way and the tested-in-the-trenches methodologies outlined in The McKinsey Mind, and combines them with many of the principles and procedures implemented by the military and other organizations. The result is nothing less than the business equivalent of a Special Forces Field Manual.

Difficult people are the worst part of a manager's job. Whether it comes from direct reports or people above, outbursts, irrational demands, griping, and other disruptions need to be dealt with - and it's your responsibility to do it. Leading the Unleadable turns this dreaded chore into a straight forward process that gently, yet effectively, improves behaviors.

Customers can be a mystery. Despite the availability of more data than ever before, everyone, from the CEO to salespeople in the field, struggles to understand who their customers really are, what they want, why they lose them, and how to regain them. To crack the case, start thinking like a market detective. David Scott Duncan shows how in his entertaining story of Tazza, a fictional chain of cafes with declining sales and leaders urgently seeking to understand why.

The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company.

Design-oriented firms such as Apple and IDEO have demonstrated how design thinking can directly affect business results. Yet most managers lack a real sense of how to put this new approach to use for issues other than product development and sales growth. Solving Problems with Design Thinking details 10 real-world examples of managers who successfully applied design methods at 3M, Toyota, IBM, Intuit, and SAP; entrepreneurial start-ups such as MeYou Health; and government and social sector organizations.

Ben Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.

In The Book of Beautiful Questions, Berger shares illuminating stories and compelling research on the power of inquiry. Drawn from the insights and expertise of psychologists, innovators, effective leaders and some of the world's foremost creative thinkers, he presents the essential questions readers need to make the best choices when it truly counts, with a particular focus in four key areas: decision-making, creativity, leadership and relationships.

Hiring and firing are hard to get right - and potentially costly to get wrong. Two of the most crucial tasks you face as a manager, they are vital to both the success of the enterprise...and your own career. No need to worry. This handy guide breaks down the simple but powerful strategies you can use to bring better employees onboard - and weed out the weaker ones.

A popular process improvement strategy used in many corporations, Lean Six Sigma exemplifies eliminating waste and optimizing flow at an operational level. With the strategies outlined in this book, you'll have your projects, team, and maybe even your organization running at peak efficiency.

Navy Ace pilot and TOPGUN instructor Bill Driscoll demonstrates how his own life-or-death aerial dogfights - and the preparation for them - can help guide high-risk corporate decisions. Interviews with over 200 senior executives and 26 Ace pilots, as well as strategies from Driscoll's own highly successful second career in commercial real estate, reinforce the consistent patterns underlying exceptional performance under pressure.

Speed has gotten a bad name in business, much of it deserved. When Facebook made "Move fast and break things" an informal company motto, it fueled a widely held belief that we can either make progress or take care of people, one or the other. That a certain amount of wreckage is the price we have to pay for inventing the future. Leadership experts Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that this belief is deeply flawed—and that it keeps you from building a great company.

While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember 20 years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children?

Business and organizational leaders spend well over half of their professional time engaged in this process. It is the way they do deals, lead employees, and manage relationships. Most leaders learn to negotiate on the job through a long process of trial and error. In today’s competitive marketplace, there is no time for experimentation, nor room to make mistakes. The good news is by mastering negotiation, the next level of success is actually closer than it appears. The actionable advice and practical guidance offered in this book give a roadmap for every type of negotiation.

This game-changing book puts you behind the curtain at Toyota, providing new insight into the legendary automaker's management practices and offering practical guidance for leading and developing people in a way that makes the best use of their brainpower. Drawing on six years of research into Toyota's employee-management routines, Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company's organizational routines - called kata - that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation.