Organizational Behavior Management

Artificial intelligence, big data, modern science, and the internet are all revealing a fundamental truth: The world is vastly more complex and unpredictable than we've allowed ourselves to see. Now that technology is enabling us to take advantage of all the chaos it's revealing, our understanding of how things happen is changing - and with it our deepest strategies for predicting, preparing for, and managing our world. This affects everything, from how we approach our everyday lives to how we make moral decisions and how we run our businesses.

We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up-to-date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Michael E. Porter to Katrina Lake and company examples from Alibaba to 3M, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips.

Your only job as a leader is to make sure that Monday morning doesn't suck. At least, that’s what Eric Harkins thinks. In his first book, Eric talks about his 25-year journey working in corporate America and the many lessons he learned about leadership. He was lucky enough to work for a company that made sure Monday morning didn’t suck, but even luckier to work for several that didn’t. And he learned a lot about what it takes to create a culture high performers want to be a part of.

The Principles of Scientific Management by F.W. Taylor is a tremendously important book, the essence of which has had irreversible impact on the way we think about organized labour and management today. It is a product of many years of experimentation, uncertainty, and hard work, fused with thoroughly modernist ideals of a pedantic mind. This book is a culmination of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s career as, perhaps, the most famous management consultant. It stands on the shoulders of his previous examinations of the wage system and the operational characteristics of machine tools.

One of your most important responsibilities as a manager is to motivate your employees to do their absolute best. Managers who create positive, rewarding, high-energy environments reduce absenteeism and turnover while dramatically increasing productivity and quality. In Motivation, success expert Brian Tracy draws on his decades of experience bringing out the best in others to provide 21 of the fastest, most powerful methods ever discovered for increasing the effectiveness of any individual or group.

Cheryl Bachelder joined an ailing restaurant chain and turned it into the darling of the industry - by daring to serve the people in her organization well. When Bachelder was named CEO of Popeyes in the fall of 2007, guest visits had been declining for years, restaurant sales and profit trends were negative, and the company stock price had dropped from $34 in 2002 to $13. The brand was stagnant, and relations between the company and its franchise owners were strained.

Leading Change offers an alternative. It provides a framework for change that opens opportunities for people within the organization to play a significant role in the process. Supported by academic research, and grounded with a range of examples and cases, the book offers a valuable approach to successful change management.

In Why Smart Executives Fail, Sydney Finkelstein uncovers - with startling clarity and unassailable documentation - the causes regularly responsible for major business breakdowns. Why Smart Executives Fail relates the stories of great business disasters and demonstrates that there are specific, identifiable ways in which many businesses regularly make themselves vulnerable to failure.

After interviewing and analyzing the stories of top business leaders, Jason Jennings delivers their hard- earned, battle-tested strategies, which will inspire any new leader to take the helm and start delivering.Filled with engaging stories and lessons from the cream of the crop, Hit the Ground Running will help new leaders at every level balance short- and long-term goals as well as the needs of shareholders, employees, customers, and the community.

Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions - but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done.

In this candid and personal account, Vineet Nayar—HCLT's celebrated CEO—recounts how he defied the conventional wisdom that companies must put customers first, then turned the hierarchical pyramid upside down by making management accountable to the employees, and not the other way around.

Traditional business structures love stability and predictability. Yet many organizations believe the two essential ingredients for long-term success are creativity and innovation. Kirsten May and Alex Varricchio, founders of the marketing agency UpHouse, call the relationship between these two opposing expectations the Proximity Paradox - the belief that those who are closest to a subject are best-qualified to innovate for it, when, in reality, intense proximity limits creativity.

In existence for decades, ERGs originated out of affirmative action policies and have evolved into powerful sources of employee activity and engagement. Organizations can leverage ERGs to support business goals, but ERGs can also play a critical role in creating a more inclusive work environment for marginalized individuals.

What really drives workplace equity and inclusion - beyond strategies and systems? The truth is, all historically excluded persons who have broken through to greater levels of professional belonging and achievement have succeeded not by policy and systems change alone, but because of leaders who chose to remove barriers, open doors, and guide them toward their goals. The bottom line? Someone made a way for them. Using case studies, data, and candid storytelling, Tara Jaye Frank outlines how leaders with power and position can clear the path to workplace equity.

Remote working is on the rise. Whether or not we are remote workers, it is likely we are all part of a global workforce. We need to learn to interact remotely, because we are all remote from someone in some way. Rather than simply simulating the way we'd usually work together via digital means, we have to learn new communication skills and adopt a different mindset in order to work remotely effectively, efficiently, and, most importantly, healthily. We'll start by getting you set up with the right equipment and habits. Then, we'll learn the mindset of treating everyone as remote.

When it comes to running a business, the most important decisions a leader makes are not about products or locations - they're about people. For the past 33 years, Dee Ann Turner has been recruiting, training, and retaining some of the best employees in the restaurant business. Now she's ready to share her secrets on how to build, sustain, and grow an organizational culture that attracts world-class talent and consistently delights customers, no matter what your industry.

The ever-increasing pace of change in today's organizations requires us all to understand and quickly adapt to constant shifts in the way our companies operate and how work gets done. Developing your own and your team's learning agility will keep your skills fresh, and help you stay flexible, grow from mistakes, and successfully respond to unexpected challenges.

This timely and practical book is for any employee, manager, or leader who wants to understand mental health at a deeper level, and learn how to talk about it really well in the workplace.

From the pioneers of the management strategy that's transforming businesses worldwide, Making Work Human shows how to implement a culture of performance and gratitude in the workplace—and seize a competitive edge, increase profitability, and drive business momentum.

Imagine walking up to a stranger on the subway and asking them for their seat. What about asking a random person on the street if you could borrow their phone? If the idea makes you squeamish, you're not alone - social psychologists have found that doing these very things makes most of us almost unbearably uncomfortable. But here's the funny thing: even though we hate to ask for help, most people are wired to be helpful. And that's a good thing, because every day in the modern, uber-collaborative workplace, we all need to know when and how to call in the cavalry.