Workplace Management

Tom Kelley, author of The Art of Innovation and the general manager of IDEO, the world-famous design firm, illuminates the strategies IDEO used to beat the devil's advocate and drive creativity throughout the organization.

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.

Generations at Work offers a refreshing way to root out the causes of workplace clashes and bridge the generational gaps. Now updated to include the Millennial newcomers to the workplace, the audiobook serves as both a sweeping overview of generational differences and a solutions-based managerial guide to molding each group into loyal employees who work effectively with everyone, from tech-savvy, high-needs young people to conformist, hardworking seniors.

Is it possible to create a positive workforce in negative times? Yes, it is, says speaker, strategist and consultant Liz Jazwiec, RN. But first, you have to get real about how tough a job in healthcare really is and also about the negative things you and your staff members do to make it even tougher. In her audiobook, Liz gets real about all that and more. In her darkly humorous, ever-so-slightly sarcastic style - after all she was an ER nurse - she builds a case for the powerful benefits of a positive workplace.

The Human Relations Matrix 2.0 is more than a framework. It is a call to place people at the center of how we lead, manage, and grow organizations. This second edition brings the model into today’s workplace, where transformation is constant, equity is expected, and culture is the foundation of performance.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND THE ECONOMIST “Slaughter’s gift for illuminating large issues through everyday human stories is what makes this book so necessary for anyone who wants to be both a leader at work and a fully engaged parent at home...

Ori Brafman and management consultant Judah Pollack dramatically demonstrate how even the best and most efficient organizations - from Fortune 500 companies to today's US Army - can become more innovative by allowing a little unstructured space and "contained chaos" into their planning and decision-making. Through their consulting work, they realized that while structure and hierarchy are essential both in large corporations and small groups, too much of either can stifle creativity.

In Ego vs EQ, Jen Shirkani shares strategies for using emotional intelligence (EQ) as a primary prevention tool to avoid career derailment. The executive leadership failure rate is high: two in five CEO’s fail in the first 18 months on the job and two thirds of business’ will disappear just a decade after founding. This book teaches you how to identify the most common reasons for leadership ineffectiveness, including the cascading consequences they create, and learn tools to prevent them.

Bring Joy Back to Leadership—And Watch Your Team Thrive. Burnout is rampant. Employee disengagement is at an all-time high. Leaders are stuck between driving productivity and maintaining well-being—but what if the missing ingredient is joy? In Joyosity, leadership expert Jenn Whitmer presents a groundbreaking approach to workplace culture that prioritizes joy as a strategic advantage.

There are dark forces at work breeding separation, disunity, disengagement, and denying their role in maintaining a status quo rife with injustices and inequities that keep them in power and everyone else subjugated. But there is an equally and opposite force for good pushing back. Leaders who understand that business must be more by creating culture where injustices are mitigated, inequities are eradicated, diversity is highly prized, and inclusion is the norm.

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.

A decade ago, Millennials came of age, and many workplaces were not prepared to integrate a new generation that thought and worked differently. As a result, some organizations lost out on the best in young talent or were paralyzed by generational infighting.

It's people who make organizations great, so how can leaders best help their people achieve that greatness? As Ken Jennings and John Stahl-Wert show in this new edition of their best seller, you can't just demand greatness - you have to inspire it. The most effective leaders don't just stand in front of their people, they stand behind them too. As one of the characters in the book notes, "You qualify to be first by putting other people first."

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now. In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea - that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

In a quick, easy listen, you can take the main principles from Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs! John Doerr spells out the recipe for efficiency in corporations by using objectives and key results. A seasoned pro, Doerr traces on his history with OKRs and uses several examples from case studies by people who have implemented his system of utilizing OKRs.

Research indicates that emotional intelligence (EI) accounts for an astonishing 70-80 percent of management success. Technical expertise just isn't enough anymore: Project managers need strong interpersonal skills and the ability to recognize emotional cues in order to lead their teams to success. Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers introduces listeners to all facets of EI and shows how emotions can be leveraged to meet project goals.

Can enlightenment be found at the office? From the co-author of Buddha's Diet comes another book that shows how the wisdom of Buddha can apply to our modern lives -- this time exploring how Buddha's guidance can help us navigate the perils of work life. Without setting foot in an office, Buddha...

Does it seem that good ideas go nowhere at your company, that meetings are often a waste of time, and that nobody seems to be in charge? In Getting It Done, Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp tackle the inertia that afflicts many groups. The authors advance the idea of lateral leadership as a means of breaking apart the logjams that inhibit collaboration in organizations, and they offer surefire ways to help anyone get better results from coworkers.

The Loudest Duck is a book for managers and executives faced with the productivity and leadership challenges of a heterogeneous, multicultural workplace. It's a book for anyone working his or her way up the ladder in this new corporate world order. It's a book for anyone who belongs to a non-dominant group, be it women, people of color, short people, or employees who don't play golf but whose bosses do.

In the modern workplace, employees collaborate. Managers are expected to be effective team leaders and employees are expected to be valued teammates. But many teams struggle. Being part of a struggling team can be unpleasant, but it can also hurt your career and waste company resources.