Entries Tagged as 'Management Skillz'
Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin, a BusinessWeek bestseller, taught readers the power of brainstorming and communicating with pictures. It presented a new and exciting way to solve all kinds of problems-from the boardroom to the sales floor to the cubicle jungle.
The companion workbook, Unfolding the Napkin, helps readers put Roam's principles into practice with step-by-step guidelines. It's filled with detailed case studies, guided do-it-yourself exercises, and plenty of blank space for drawing. Roam structured the book as a complete four-day visual-thinking seminar, taking readers step-by-step from "I can't draw" to "Here is the picture I drew that I think will save the world."
The workbook teaches readers how to:
•Improve their three "built-in" visual problem solving tools.
•Apply the four-step visual thinking process (look-see-imagine-show) in any business situation.
•Instantly improve their visual imaginations.
•Learn how to recognize the type of problem to choose the best visual solution.
If The Back of the Napkin was a guide to fine dining, Unfolding the Napkin is the cookbook that will soon be heavily marked up and dogeared.
Tags: Management Skillz
John T. Chain, Jr., rose from a second lieutenant to four-star general and led our national missile defense program.
Mike Harper led ConAgra Foods from $636 million to $20 billion in 20 years and increased its stocks value 150 times over.
Ask Gary Cohen what these remarkable leaders have in common and his answer will be straightforward: They use questions to generate fresh ideas, inspire committed action, and build an army of forward-thinking leaders.
In Just Ask Leadership, Cohen steers you away from the all-too-common idea that if you don’t assert yourself with strong statements, you will not be respected. On the contrary, statistics prove that 95 percent of employees prefer to be asked questions rather than be told what to do. Involving employees and colleagues in decision making processes builds an environment rich with energy, excitement, and innovative problem solving.
Just Ask Leadership outlines not only specific questions to ask in certain contexts, but also how to implement question-based leadership as a whole. Learn how to
- Spend more time on long-term goals—and less on short-term crises
- Build a culture of accountability
- Create unity and trust throughout your workforce
- Steer decision making to the most appropriate parties
- Develop rapport while instilling respect
When you ask questions, you show respect —and you are respected in turn. It is that simple.
A combination of Cohen’s proven expertise and interviews with nearly 100 highly effective leaders, Just Ask Leadership explains how to harness the power of questions to make your organization more competitive, more profitable, and a better place to work.
Tags: Randome · Management Skillz
In this sober guide to understanding and moving past 'bullsh*t' at work, author and management professor Culbert (Don't Kill the Bosses!) explains the value of and strategy behind 'straight-talk relationships' in the office Unlike others who have tackled the subject (most notably Harry Frankfurt), Culbert emphasizes bullsh*t's vital role in many situations.
Tags: Management Skillz
October 8th, 2005 · 1 Comment
Jacobs, founder of the Amherst Consulting Group and managing partner of One Eighty Partners, debunks management myths in this provocative, counterintuitive volume, demonstrating how relying on emotions—rather than logic—leads to better business decisions. Jacobs draws on the latest research showing that positive and negative reinforcement don't improve performance, quantifiable objectives cause workers to fixate on the short term and sacrifice long-term focus and certain common management practices produce the opposite of the intended effect. He examines the limitations of current organizational strategy in light of brain science, using layman's language to map out how the brain interprets experience and responds to feedback, reward and punishment. He asserts that organizations that are able to apply brain science to their businesses will have a decided advantage over the competition, and he shows how his findings can enhance performance at every level of a company. Well argued and substantiated, this book turns prevalent management theory on its head and will have lasting impact on how it is taught in business schools and implemented in organizations
Tags: Management Skillz
According to successful authors and marketing business leaders Thaler and Koval, paying attention to the small things can improve your effectiveness in both personal and professional situations. Written in an appropriately succinct style, Thaler and Koval make a big deal of simple steps like paying better attention to what you're saying ("Bill Clinton... waits until he has come to the end of a sentence to shift his attention to another person") and picking up after yourself ("Professional organizer Molly Boren... says to put away three things in the morning and three things at night"). Some chapters are more professionally oriented, like a chapter on gaffes at work ("Little Mistakes Spell Disaster"), but widely-applicable, everyday advice gets much of the attention, as in the "Take Baby Steps" chapter: "Smaller, more attainable goals will also give you quicker, more frequent mini-rewards." Though not necessarily for front-to-back reading, quick dips should yield enough practical inspiration for most seekers. Clean, simple writing, familiar to anyone who picked up the authors' bestselling The Power of Nice, ensures a fast-paced reading experience, and an admirable example of the subtle, considered approach it advocates.
Tags: Management Skillz
Got carrotphobia? Do you think that recognizing your employees will distract you and your team from more serious business, create jealousy, or make you look soft? Think again.The Carrot Principle reveals the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. With independent research from The Jackson Organization and analysis by bestselling leadership experts Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, this breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel.
Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group, bestselling authors Gostick and Elton show how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing increases in operating results--whether measured by return on equity, return on assets, or operating margin. And they show how great managers lead with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so achieve higher
* Productivity * Engagement * Retention * Customer satisfaction
The Carrot Principle illustrates that the relationship between recognition and improved business results is highly predictable--it's proven to work. But it's not the employee recognition some of us have been using for years. It is recognition done right, recognition combined with four other core traits of effective leadership.
Gostick and Elton explain the remarkably simple but powerful methods great managers use to provide their employees with effective recognition, which all managers can easily learn and begin practicing for immediate results. Great recognition doesn't take time--it can be done in a matter of moments--and it doesn't take budget-busting amounts of money. This exceptional book presents the simple steps to becoming a Carrot Principle manager and to building a recognition culture in your organization; it offers a wealth of specific examples, culled from real-life cases, of the ways to do recognition right. Following these simple steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.
Tags: Management Skillz
