Download or read book Quick and Nimble written by Adam Bryant and published by Times Books. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than two hundred CEOs reveal their candid insights on how to build and foster a corporate culture that encourages innovation and drives results In Quick and Nimble, Adam Bryant draws on interviews with more than two hundred CEOs to offer business leaders the wisdom and guidance to move an organization faster, to be quick and nimble, and to rekindle the whatever-it-takes collective spark of a start-up workplace, all with the goal of innovating and thriving in a relentlessly challenging global economy. By analyzing the lessons that these leaders have shared in his regular "Corner Office" feature in The New York Times, Bryant has identified the biggest drivers of corporate culture, bringing them to life with real-world examples that reflect this hard-earned wisdom. These men and women—whose ranks include Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Angie Hicks of Angie's List, Steve Case of Revolution (and formerly AOL), and Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania—offer useful insights and strategies for creating a corporate culture of innovation and building a high-performing organization that unleashes the passion and energy of its employees. As the world shifts to more of a knowledge economy, the winners will be companies that can attract and retain the best and brightest employees by creating an environment where they can grow, contribute, and feel rewarded. Through the wisdom of these leading chief executives, Quick and Nimble offers a keen understanding of leadership, recruiting, and the forces that shape corporate culture and a clear road map to bring success and energy to any organization.

Download or read book Harvard Business Review on the High performance Organization written by and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing leading minds and landmark ideas in an easily accessible format, from preeminent thinkers, this book delivers the fundamental information to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.

Download or read book The Corporate Athlete written by Jack L. Groppel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1999-12-28 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As Jack Groppel so aptly explains, the rigor of corporate athletics is often even more demanding than that of professional athletes. In my world, one does not have the luxury of an off-season. . . . This book is a must read for all those striving for the gold."-Arthur M. Blank, CEO and President, The Home Depot "Wow! This is an incredible book. Every person in business should read The Corporate Athlete from cover to cover and apply it every day."-Brian Tracy, author of Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed Today's corporate world is much like the world of professional sports-it is fiercely competitive and mentally and physically demanding, and it requires constant, vigilant training. More than ever, to maintain health, happiness, and career success, executives and employees must become Corporate Athletes. In this book, top business consultant, trainer, and lecturer Jack Groppel shows you how to use the training mentality of elite professional athletes. Based on the latest scientific research, The Corporate Athlete shows corporate competitors how to achieve maximum performance levels-both inside and outside the corporate world. Drawing on the parallels between sports and business, Jack Groppel reveals the integral roles that nutrition, fitness, and self-improvement-mental, physical, and emotional-play in giving Corporate Athletes their winning edge. It's an edge that's crucial if you need to come to a meeting fresh off the plane, pull out all the stops on a big presentation, cut the major deals-and still have the energy to enjoy time with family and friends. This practical and beneficial 21-day program will give you, no matter how overworked you are, the stamina and commitment to develop a world-class career. Learn to: * Have as much energy for your family at 8 p.m. as you have at the office at 8 a.m. * Be on when you need to be on * Respond to change, adversity, and crisis more constructively * Display more positivity and confidence * Eat properly on the road, in the air, and before and during business meetings * Slow down the aging process Take advantage of the same secrets that Dr. Groppel has used to help high-stress professionals-from Olympic athletes and NHL stars to fast-lane executives at major companies like Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Estée Lauder, and Bristol-Myers Squibb-get themselves in fighting shape. Here is the program that will train you to perform at the highest possible levels in both your professional and your family life-because taking optimum care of yourself, mentally and physically, is the best way to take care of business. "Outstanding . . . The Corporate Athlete is a truly comprehensive program to help you achieve both your personal and your professional goals. It will help you take control of your life and effect positive physical, mental, and spiritual change."-Darlene Hamrock, Regional Vice President, Clinique Why do so many top performers call themselves Corporate Athletes? "Today's challenging business climate requires every top executive to be perfectly fit both mentally and physically. The Corporate Athlete is must reading for everyone who wants to manage his or her business, career, or profession effectively while living a balanced life. Buy it-it's a great investment."-Leonard Lauder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. "This is the book to teach you how to perform your job at the highest level possible while maintaining maximal health and happiness."-Jim Courier, French Open champion and former world No. 1 tennis player

Download or read book Return on Character written by Fred Kiel and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the character of our leaders matter? You may think this question was answered long ago. Countless business authors and analysts have assured us that great leadership demands great character. Time and again, we’ve seen that truth play out, as once-thriving organizations falter and fail under the guidance of leaders behaving badly. Why, then, do so many executives remain skeptical about the true value of leadership character? A winning strategy and a sound business model are what really matter, they argue; character is just the icing on the cake. What’s been missing from this debate is hard evidence: data that shows not only that leadership character matters for organizational success, but how it matters; and concrete evidence that it leads to better business results. Now, in this groundbreaking book, respected leadership researcher, adviser, and author Fred Kiel offers that evidence—solid data that demonstrates the connection between character, leadership excellence, and organizational results. After seven years of rigorous research based on a landmark study of more than 100 CEOs and over 8,000 of their employees’ observations, Kiel’s findings show that leaders of strong character achieved up to five times the ROA for their organizations as did leaders of weak character. Return on Character goes on to reveal: • How leadership character is formed, how it creates value, and how that value spreads throughout the organization • How low-character leaders undermine the success of even the best business plans • How leaders at any level can develop the habits of strong character and “unlearn” the habits of poor character The book also provides a character-building methodology—step-by-step advice and techniques for assessing your own character habits and improving your performance and that of your organization. Return on Character provides the blueprint for building your own leadership character and creating a character-driven organization that achieves superior business results.

Download or read book The Discipline of Teams written by Jon R. Katzenbach and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Discipline of Teams, Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith explore the often counter-intuitive features that make up high-performing teams—such as selecting team members for skill, not compatibility—and explain how managers can set specific goals to foster team development. The result is improved productivity and teams that can be counted on to deliver more than just the sum of their parts. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

Download or read book Lift written by Ryan W. Quinn and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2015-07-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as the Wright Brothers combined science and practice to finally realize the dream of flight, Ryan and Robert Quinn combine research and personal experience to demonstrate how to reach a psychological state that elevates us and those around us to greater heights of achievement, integrity, openness, and empathy. It's the psychological equivalent of aerodynamic lift, and it is the fundamental state of leadership. This book draws on recent advances in positive psychology and organizational science to describe four questions that, when asked in any situation, will help us experience the fundamental state of leadership. Engaging personal stories illustrate how the Quinns and others have applied these concepts at work, at home, and in the community. --

Download or read book Beyond Performance written by Scott Keller and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secret of achieving and sustaining organizational excellence revealed In an ever-changing world where only a third of excellent organizations stay that way over the long term, and where even fewer are able to implement successful change programs, leaders are in need of big ideas and new tools to thrive. In Beyond Performance, McKinsey & Company's Scott Keller and Colin Price give you everything you need to build an organization that can execute in the short run and has the vitality to prosper over the long term. Drawing on the most exhaustive research effort of its kind on organizational effectiveness and change management, Keller and Price put hard science behind their big idea: that the health of an organization is equally as important as its performance. In the book's foreword, management guru Gary Hamel refers to this notion as "a new manifesto for thinking about organizations." The authors illustrate why copying management best practices from other companies is more dangerous than helpful Clearly explains how to determine the mutually reinforcing combination of management practices that best fits your organization's context Provides practical tools to achieve superior levels of performance and health through a staged change process: aspire, assess, architect, act, and advance. Among these are new techniques for dealing with those aspects of human behavior that are seemingly irrational (and therefore confound even the smartest leaders), yet entirely predictable Ultimately, building a healthy organization is an intangible asset that competitors copy at their peril and that enables you to skillfully adapt to and shape your environment faster than others—giving you the ultimate competitive advantage.

Download or read book The Corporate Lattice written by Cathleen Benko and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With roots planted firmly in the industrial age, the corporate ladder has been the metaphor used to describe the prevailing one-size-fits-all model for success. At its heart, the ladder is derived from inflexible, hierarchical, organization models in which prestige, individual rewards, information flow, power and influence are tied to the rung each employee occupies. Yet the workplace as we know it is in transition -- evolving away from the linear, one-size-fits-all model of the corporate ladder toward a multidimensional approach that Cathy Benko calls the corporate lattice. This book will serve to widen an organization's strategic lens, representing a fundamentally new way to work and run a company. It offers a framework to help senior leaders and HR directors harness the talent in their company in a way that provides a strategic advantage, not only for recruiting but also for achieving and maintain better individual performance. In the bestselling book Mass Career Customization (Harvard Business Press/2007), Cathy Benko and Deloitte provided the breakthrough MCC dashboard for understanding the important variables of individual employees' career-life profiles, but she also coined a new metaphor -- the corporate lattice -- as a way to think about the changed career landscape. This book delves much deeper into the power of the lattice for organizations, fully exploring its contours and applying it to real-life practice throughout a company. It explores how the corporate lattice model creates value by: 1. Ensuring a flow of talent into and through the organization. 2. Increasing the efficiency of and return on organizational investments. 3. Improving financial and operating results through greater employee engagement. The three-part framework of the book presents specific ways managers and organizations can use The Corporate Lattice to manage talent, measure results, collaborate across teams, engage employees, and reor"

Download or read book HBR s 10 Must Reads on Leadership Lessons from Sports featuring interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson Kareem Abdul Jabbar Andre Agassi written by Harvard Business Review and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leadership and management lessons from the sports world. The world's elite athletes and coaches achieve high performance through inspiring leadership, mental toughness, and direction-setting strategic choices. Harvard Business Review has talked to many of these high performers throughout the years to learn how their success translates to the world of business. If you read nothing else on management lessons from the world of sports, read these 10 articles by athletes, coaches, and leadership experts. We've combed through our archive and selected the articles that will best help you drive performance. This book will inspire you to: Improve on your weaknesses, not just your strengths Take care of your body for sustained mental performance Increase your confidence and manage your energy before an important event Turn a struggling team around Understand the limits of performance metrics Focus on long-term goals to overcome setbacks Understand where the analogy of sports and business doesn't work This collection of articles includes "Ferguson's Formula," by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson; "Life's Work: An Interview with Greg Louganis"; "The Making of a Corporate Athlete," by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz; "The Tough Work of Turning a Team Around," by Bill Parcells; "How an Olympic Gold Medalist Learned to Perform Under Pressure: An Interview with Alex Gregory"; "Mental Preparation Secrets of Top Athletes, Entertainers, and Surgeons," an interview with Daniel McGinn by Sarah Green Carmichael; "SoulCycle's CEO on Sustaining Growth in a Faddish Industry," by Melanie Whelan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar"; "Major League Innovation," by Scott D. Anthony; "Looking Past Performance in Your Star Talent," by Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov"; "How the Best of the Best Get Better and Better," by Graham Jones; "Life's Work: An Interview with Joe Girardi"; "Why There Is an I in Team," by Mark de Rond; "Life's Work: An Interview with Andre Agassi"; and "Why Sports Are a Terrible Metaphor for Business," by Bill Taylor.

Download or read book High Performance with High Integrity written by Benjamin W. Heineman and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This Memo to the CEO explains why the fusion of high performance with high integrity is the foundation of the contemporary corporation, and why it is necessary - not only to avoid the catastrophic impact of integrity lapses, but to sustain companies in today's ruthlessly competitive environment." "This Memo reframes crucial debates on corporate governance, pay for CEO performance, and the real sources of business ethics. It provides senior executives with a much-needed blueprint for fusing the twin goals of capitalism - high performance with high integrity - in the high-speed, high-pressure twenty-first-century global economy."--Jacket.

Download or read book How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead written by Ralph Stayer and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are your employees like a synchronized "V" of geese in flight-sharing goals and taking turns leading? Or are they more like a herd of buffalo-blindly following you and standing around awaiting instructions? If they're like buffalo, their passivity and lack of initiative could doom your company. In How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead, you'll discover how to transform buffalo into geese-by reshaping organizational systems and redefining employees' expectations about what it takes to succeed. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

Download or read book Deep Purpose written by Ranjay Gulati and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thinkers50 Top 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 A distinguished Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor. Having conducted extensive field research, Ranjay Gulati reveals the fatal mistakes leaders unwittingly make when attempting to implement a reason for being. Moreover, he shows how companies can embed purpose much more deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of and relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, and comprehensively than ever before. In this authoritative, accessible, and inspiring guide, Gulati takes readers inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to understand the secrets to their successes. He explores how leaders can pursue purpose more deeply by navigating the inevitable tradeoffs more deliberately and effectively to balance between short- and long-term value; building purpose more systematically into every key organizational function to mobilize stakeholders and enhance performance; updating organizations to foster more autonomy and collaboration, which in turn allow individual employees to work more purposefully; using powerful storytelling to communicate a reason for being, arousing emotions and building a community of inspired and committed stakeholders; and building cultures that don’t merely support purpose, but also allow employees to link the corporate purpose to their own personal reasons for being. As Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future. With capitalism under siege and relatively low levels of trust in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that businesses—and the rest of us—urgently need.

Download or read book The Progress Principle written by Teresa Amabile and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What really sets the best managers above the rest? It’s their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.

Download or read book Seven Strategy Questions written by Robert Simons and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simons presents the seven key questions a manager and his team must continually ask. Drawing on decades of research into performance management systems and organization design, "Seven Strategy Questions" is a no-nonsense, must-read resource for all leaders in any organization.

Download or read book Harvard Business Review on Becoming a High Performance Manager written by Harvard Business School Press and published by Tomislav Trajkovski. This book was released on 2002 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides executives with helpful advice on how to work more efficiently and become better managers. Selling Points Provides busy managers with strategies for more effective time and stress management as well as insights into what a manager’s job really entails. Features best-selling classics such as “Management Time, Who’s Got the Monkey?” and “What Effective Managers Really Do”

Download or read book Leading Change written by John P. Kotter and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.

Download or read book Time Talent Energy written by Michael C. Mankins and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing Your Scarcest Resources Business leaders know that the key to competitive success is smart management of scarce resources. That's why companies allocate their financial capital so carefully. But capital today is cheap and abundant, no longer a source of advantage. The truly scarce resources now are the time, the talent, and the energy of the people in your organization--resources that are too often squandered. There's plenty of advice about how to manage them, but most of it focuses on individual actions. What's really needed are organizational solutions that can unleash a company's full productive power and enable it to outpace competitors. Building off of the popular Harvard Business Review article "Your Scarcest Resource," Michael Mankins and Eric Garton, Bain & Company experts in organizational design and effectiveness, present new research into how you can liberate people's time, talent, and energy and unleash your organization's productive power. They identify the specific causes of organizational drag--the collection of institutional factors that slow things down, decrease output, and drain people's energy--and then offer a pragmatic framework for how managers can overcome it. With practical advice for using the framework and in-depth examples of how the best companies manage their people's time, talent, and energy with as much discipline as they do their financial capital, this book shows managers how to create a virtuous circle of high performance.