Organizational Behavior Management

Reward and recognition programs can be costly and inefficient, and they primarily reward employees who are already highly engaged and productive performers. Worse still, these programs actually decrease employee motivation because they can make individual recognition, rather than the overall success of the team, the goal. Yet many businesses turn to these measures first-unaware of a better alternative. So, when it comes to changing your organizational culture, carrots and sticks don't work!

If you have ever been part of a great team, you will know it is exponentially better than being part of a mediocre team. Teams are at the heart of working in complex domains and are essential to the success of agile approaches yet relatively few teams achieve greatness. Agile and leadership coach Geoff Watts has pulled together his many years of experience with all sorts of teams from software to product development, from medical teams to sports teams and has identified five common characteristics of great teams:

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.

Building upon the revelatory power of her book Overcoming Bias, which addressed managing individual and interpersonal bias, Erasing Institutional Bias scales up the framework to impact systemic change in organizations. Tiffany Jana and co-author Ashley Diaz Mejias bring together in-depth research on how biases become embedded into workplace cultures with practical and engaging tools that will mobilize listeners toward action.

Effective leadership comes down to implementing everyday, common-sense practices to help organizations thrive - and yet so many leaders are still missing these fundamental principles from their personal and professional lives. Renowned business experts Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley disclose the simple truths about leadership they have gathered over their long and distinguished careers to help bring common sense into common practice.

In this audiobook, leading consultants Dick and Emily Axelrod share a way to meet that enables you to get work done right there in the meeting, an approach they’ve spent 30 years field testing. Using the same work-design principles that transformed the mind-numbing assembly line into the dynamic factory floor and make video games so engaging, they offer a flexible, repeatable process that has already been used to run thousands of productive meetings in all kinds of organizations.

Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.

Ken Segall's first book, Insanely Simple, was based on observations gained from 12 years working as Steve Jobs' advertising agency creative director, first with NeXT and then with Apple. He saw firsthand that Jobs looked at everything through the lens of simplicity. His obsession with simplicity was visible not just in Apple's products. You could see it in the way the company was organized and how it innovated, advertised, sold at retail, and provided customer service.

Are your people excited to come to work? Are they passionate about your team's purpose? In Engaging the Hearts and Minds of All Your Employees, leadership expert Lee J. Colan reveals the necessary steps to inspire and engage everyone on your team. By fully engaging your employees, you'll ignite stellar team performance and customer service.

Leaders love to say that any company is only as good as its people but tend to evaluate candidates and employees more by their measurable accomplishments than by their "softer" qualities, like integrity, compassion, and other values. Best-selling author Anthony Tjan is leading a movement to change the way we think about goodness so that we can become better judges of people and create more goodness in ourselves, in others, and in our organizations.

Reap the benefits of a diverse workforce. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you create a culture that seeks and celebrates difference. This book will inspire you to: identify and address bias; short-circuit discrimination instead of unintentionally feeding it; attract, retain, and engage talented people who represent myriad identities; ensure that everyone has equal access to growth opportunities; trade outdated policies for practices that are proven to foster inclusion; and more.

Why do the Yankees always seem to win and the Red Sox fade? Why do companies such as Dell and Gillette never seem to lose their halo? What lessons does Nelson Mandela offer leaders in trouble spots like the Middle East. From sports to business and the most complicated political situations, a common element, a truth, persists: people succeed when leaders give them the confidence to do so.

Mentors are over-utilized, undertrained, and often under deliver. From an employer's perspective, assigning a mentor is often a band aid to a larger problem. From an employee's perspective, a lack of formal mentorship is seen as a serious, career-inhibiting problem, the equivalent of sailing a boat without a rudder. In The Mentor Myth, Debby Carreau represents this dichotomy, explaining that while a mentor's counsel can be invaluable, it is not the silver bullet human resources professionals claim.

Stewardship is the journey of financial insider John Taft toward understanding and affirming the importance of stewardship - which he has come to define as "serving others" - as a core principle for the financial services industry, the global financial system, and society at large. By defining the attributes of authentic stewardship, this book presents a path forward by analyzing the success of Canadian banks in weathering the financial crisis; evaluates the effectiveness of global financial reform efforts in making the financial system safer, sounder, and more secure

What makes a great team tick? Leadership guru John C. Maxwell says the answer is simple: great players. In 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player, Maxwell teaches leaders how to develop better players and teaches each player how he or she can achieve true greatness from the inside out. Drawing on examples from some of history's most winning team players--including Quincy Jones, Ronald Reagan, and Bob Taylor--he shows readers how to develop qualities such as discipline, enthusiasm, communication, preparation, and commitment.

In today’s changing world, where business leaders must navigate industry disruption, entrepreneurs struggle to push beyond initial success, and activists tackle hard challenges like climate change, there is a need for a more powerful way to do innovation. Too many innovators are trapped by the limits of common innovation practices. The way we’ve been taught to create and innovate for the past two decades is failing us. It’s time for a paradigm shift. To unlock the secrets to doing bigger things, this book introduces the pioneering concept of ecosystem innovation.

Increasingly, new employees and junior members of any profession are encouraged - sometimes stridently - to "find a mentor!" Four decades of research reveals that the effects of mentorship can be profound and enduring; strong mentoring relationships have the capacity to transform individuals and entire organizations.

How do you work? In businesses and nonprofits, families and faith communities, how we work matters. Culture Shift: Nonviolence at Work reimagines these environments as places that are united with our values. Our work can feel like a nourishing part of our life. We can look forward to meetings. Working groups can become spaces we enjoy being, where learning is continuous and mistakes are welcomed, where each person knows they matter.

Let’s face it, as an entrepreneur or small business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of growing your empire. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all guidebook for people who are just starting out to follow. But the truth is, no matter what kind of business you are building if you don’t have a solid foundation in place, the storms that will inevitably come could cause you to lose everything you’ve worked for.

Utilizing examples from Carol Sanford’s decades of work, learn the flaws in the feedback trap and build conditions for employees to flourish for long-term success.