Creative Leadership

At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. The one extra degree makes the difference. This simple analogy reflects the ultimate definition of excellence. Because it's the one extra degree of effort, in business and life, that can separate the good from the great. The stories in 212 Service reflect real-life examples of companies that have taken their customer service to the next degree.

From Seth Godin, one of the world's most influential business thinkers and bestselling author of This is Marketing, comes an essential guide to thinking strategically in a complex, ever-changing world. This is Strategy is a modern classic that offers perspectives you'll find yourself returning to again and again. Rather than providing step-by-step formulas, Godin offers something more valuable: a new way of seeing and thinking about the challenges you face.

The audio edition of this Shingo Prize-winning bestseller provides critical insights and approaches to make any lean transformation an ongoing success. It tells you how to implement a sustainable, successful transformation by developing a culture that has your stakeholders throughout the organizational chart involved and invested in the outcome.

In Eat, Sleep, Innovate, innovation expert Scott Anthony and his impressive team of coauthors use groundbreaking research in behavioral science to provide a first-of-its-kind playbook for empowering individuals and teams to be their most curious and creative - every single day.

Most leaders feel the inevitable interruptions in their jam-packed days are troublesome. But in TouchPoints, Conant and Norgaard argue that these - and every point of contact with other people - are overlooked opportunities for leaders to increase their impact and promote their organization's strategy and values. Through previously untold stories from Conant's tenure as CEO of Campbell Soup Company and Norgaard's vast consulting experience, the authors show that a leader's impact and legacy are built through hundreds, even thousands, of interactive moments in time.

Esteemed business school professors and renowned marketing consultants Alex Rovira and Fernando Trías de Bes have advised such multinational corporations as Bayer, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Pepsi, and Sony. Written to counter the belief in blind chance, this international best seller is a simple yet profound fable that teaches us to stop waiting for good luck but to start cultivating the conditions that make success possible.

Wondering how to reconcile your calling with your need to make a living wage, or what to do once your art starts selling, or how to achieve success in your field, or what it even means to be successful? David Nichtern offers his lived, learned experience as an entrepreneur, musician, and Buddhist teacher to first help you figure out what "success" means to you and then show you how to get there. He offers advice on the creative process and principles of business and ethics, and provides mindfulness exercises to help you integrate inspiration and aspiration, vocation, and avocation.

Church Unique is written by church consultant Will Mancini - an expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important audiobook, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

Presenting 12 breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment.

There's a Customer Born Every Minute reveals the lost wisdom of famous entrepreneur and showman, P. T. Barnum. Barnum was much more than a showman; he was a dedicated businessman and entrepreneur with a razor-sharp mind. In this delightful and absorbing new edition, Joe Vitale reveals the secrets of Barnum's success and shares the 10 key business practices that Barnum developed and lived by.

Ever wondered where big breakthrough ideas come from? How do innovators manage to spot the opportunities for industry revolution that everyone else seems to miss? Contrary to popular belief, innovation is not some mystical art that's forbidden to mere mortals. The Four Lenses of Innovation thoroughly debunks this pervasive myth by delivering what we've long been hoping for: the news that innovation is systematic, it's methodical, and we can all achieve it.

Packed with behind-the-peel stories, hard-earned lessons, and a few other surprises, Fans First teaches you how to stand out in your marketplace, drive explosive growth, and inspire fanatical loyalty.

Are your organization's ideas growing stale? Do your employees need to refresh their thinking? We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the 10 most important ones to help you instill creativity across your organization.

From the bestselling authors who taught the world how to have Crucial Conversations comes the new edition of Crucial Influence (previously published as Influencer). Drawing on cases studies of remarkable leaders and the research of renowned behavioral scientists, this guide explains why people do what they do and how leaders can influence behavior to drive results. It all comes down to a powerful yet simple model—the Six Sources of Influence®.

We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativity demystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical approach, grounded in reality.

Kindness and leadership aren't often synonymous. The purpose of this book is to teach leaders how to lead with kindness so they can influence the people they lead to create kinder workplaces, organizations, and the world. This book gives you a deep theoretical understanding of the importance of leading with kindness and also provides practical exercises for you to use. By the time you finish the book, you will feel confident in your ability to lead with kindness and also to address organizational problems at work, at home, and in the community with kindness.

The traditional attitude toward creativity in the American business world is to "think outside the box": to brainstorm without restraint in hopes of coming up with a breakthrough idea, often in moments of crisis. Sometimes it works, but it’s a problem-specific solution that does nothing to engender creative thinking more generally. Inside the Box demonstrates Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), a method that systemizes creativity as part of the corporate culture. SIT requires thinking "inside the box", working in one’s familiar world to create new ideas independent of specific problems.

In the world of work, the single greatest asset of successful individuals, teams, and organizations is their mindset - what happens in between their ears. It's not the corporate strategy, the sales compensation plan, or the market segments they're pursuing. It is what each leader, team member, and employee chooses to focus on, to believe, and to create for themselves and others.

Everyone seems to understand that healthy organizations nurture flourishing individuals and societies—what Jesus desires for all. How can Christian business and ministry leaders create a positive organizational culture and identity? Justin Irving has spent twenty years studying, teaching, and reflecting on organizational leadership. Drawing wisdom from the Bible, contemporary leadership theory, and the insights of over two hundred executive leaders, Irving provides a theological framework that makes human flourishing the driving motivation for leading organizations well.

Former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman shares lessons and stories on the power of creativity drawn from almost three decades of experience within Nike. A celebration of ingenuity and a call-to-arms for brand-builders to rediscover the human element in forming consumer bonds, Emotion by Design is an insider’s guide to unlocking inspiration within a brand and building stronger emotional connections with consumers.