Organizational Health

Self-awareness is the bedrock of emotional intelligence that enables you to see your talents, shortcomings, and potential. But you won't be able to achieve true self-awareness with the usual quarterly feedback and self-reflection alone. This book will teach you how to understand your thoughts and emotions, how to persuade your colleagues to share what they really think of you, and why self-awareness will spark more productive and rewarding relationships with your employees and bosses. This volume includes the work of Daniel Goleman, Robert Steven Kaplan, and Susan David.

After a period of tremendous upheaval, it is necessary for organizations to transform alongside their employees and welcome new ways of working. While it is impossible to predict which changes will be successful, it is crucial for leaders to now ask: what should work look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe organizations? In Brave New Workplace, Julian Barling argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions.

It's easy to look around and find folly among leaders. Corporations prioritize short-term benefits over long-term effects on society. Organizations follow charismatic leaders' whims at the expense of the people they serve. Churches are known more for hypocrisy and dysfunction than truth and grace. Yet it's not always easy to avoid our own foolishness, recognize wisdom, and lead others well.

Positive organizational psychology, with its focus on the identification and development of strengths, is a natural ally to executive development and leadership coaching. However, this approach is only just beginning to come to the attention of organizations and consequently, the research base for strength-based coaching is in its early stages of development. Strength-Based Leadership Coaching in Organizations reviews strength-based approaches to positive leadership development and evaluates the evidence for their effectiveness, critically assesses their apparent distinctiveness and more.

Amidst the deluge of advice for businesspeople, there lies an overlooked tool, a key to thriving in today's fast-paced, unpredictable environment: improvisation. In Getting to "Yes And" veteran improv performer, university professor, CEO, and consultant Bob Kulhan unpacks a form of mental agility with powers far beyond the entertainment value of comedy troupes.

For the past few years, mindfulness has begun to transform the American workplace. Many of our largest companies, such as General Mills, Ford, Target, and Google, have built extensive programs to foster mindful practices among their workers. Mindful Work is the first audiobook to explain how all sorts of businesses and any kind of worker can benefit from meditation, yoga, and other mindful techniques.

In The Design of Future Things, best-selling author Donald A. Norman presents a revealing examination of smart technology, from smooth-talking GPS units to cantankerous refrigerators. Exploring the links between design and human psychology, he offers a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrows thinking machines.

You will never come across a business person who wishes for his or her business to end when he or she leaves. If an organization chooses not to embrace change, it will have no customers because people only buy things that meet their needs. For this reason, an organization needs to ensure that it stays ready for what is to come. The way to do this is to continually sharpen own tools by creating a learning environment so that own employees learn all business and change-related tricks to help them maneuver the business world.

Trust is the basis for all that we do as leaders and as organizations. Employees who trust their employers are more productive and creative. Businesses that earn their customers' trust maintain better relationships and reap better results. Meanwhile, breaches of trust between companies and the public are becoming more frequent—and more costly. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on trust, listen to these ten articles.

We made some incorrect assumptions about work, and those assumptions are killing us. We allowed a narrative that is solely about earnings to replace what we know to be true about human motivation. Human beings are hardwired to seek purpose, but according to data, most people don't feel a sense of purpose in their work. Work has become a grind, an endless series of tasks that lack meaning.

This is the go-to guide on working with anyone in your office - from the difficult or negative to the toxic and destructive - whether they are your manager, a team member, or someone who’s just waiting out the clock. Chock-full of useful advice that will make your workday happier and more productive.

In The Best Place to Work, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D. uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work. Combining powerful stories with cutting edge findings, Friedman shows leaders at every level how they can use scientifically-proven techniques to promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance.

Peak is the popular, transformative guide to doing business better, written by a seasoned entrepreneur/CEO who has disrupted his favorite industry not once but twice. Author Chip Conley, founder and former CEO of one of the world's largest boutique hotel companies, turned to psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs at a time when his company was in dire need.

Leadership isn't something you're born with or gifted as a reward for an abundance of charisma; true leadership stems from core skills that can be learned. Get more of the leadership ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

Many factors shape the success or failure of a new business, whether it's a stand-alone start-up or a venture inside a larger corporation. But the most important and least understood of these factors is the personality of the entrepreneur - the particular combination of beliefs and preferences that drives his or her motivation, decision making, and leadership style. And your builder personality is the one resource you can directly control in growing a business that wins. Simply put, who you are shapes how you build for growth.

For decades, alarms have sounded about declining engagement. Yet companies continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the low productivity and unhappiness that go with them. Why is "culture" so difficult to improve? What makes so many good employees check out? Neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers. It all boils down to trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate.

Are you a good boss - or a great one? Get more of the management ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you master the innumerable challenges of being a manager.

Human beings have been organizing to accomplish work for as long as we’ve existed. So why is organizational behavior still so elusive and mysterious? In this book, one of the greatest scholars in his field reframes his career’s work around the seven forces that drive all organizations. Mintzberg identifies them as efficiency, proficiency, consolidation, collaboration, culture, division, and conflict.

Research shows that 1 in 4 adults will have a mental health issue in their lifetime, and yet we're still ill-equipped at work to address this common experience. The HBR Guide to Better Mental Health at Work collects advice from a variety of experts on addressing an array of mental health issues in the workplace, from supporting someone in a panic attack to navigating sensitive conversations to creating systemic and structural supports for all employees. Whether you suffer from a chronic condition or you manage someone who does, you'll find practical advice.

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.