Organizational Culture

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”. It went viral. After a million online views in 17 different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

Tribalism is our most misunderstood buzzword. We’ve all heard pundits bemoan its rise, and it’s been blamed for everything from political polarization to workplace discrimination. But as acclaimed cultural psychologist and Columbia professor Michael Morris argues, our tribal instincts are humanity’s secret weapon. Ours is the only species that lives in tribes: groups glued together by their distinctive cultures that can grow to a scale far beyond clans and bands. Morris argues that our psychology is wired by evolution in three distinctive ways.

Hustle culture. Burnout. Quiet quitting. Today we're either sacrificing ourselves on the altar of success or we're rejecting the idea of ambition entirely. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. There is a way to create meaningful work as part of a balanced life, and it's called 'slow productivity'. Examining the stories and habits of ancient and modern scientists, philosophers, artists and scholars who worked in this way, author Cal Newport reveals just how transformative the slow productivity approach can be to producing a meaningful body of work.

Carol Dweck’s multi-million-copy bestseller Mindset transformed our view of individual potential, coining the terms “fixed” and “growth” mindset: in a “fixed” mindset, talent and intelligence are viewed as predetermined traits, while in a “growth” mindset, talent and intelligence can be nurtured. In Cultures of Growth, Dweck’s protégé, Mary Murphy, a social psychologist at both Stanford and Indiana University, shows that mindset transcends individuals.

At the Heart of Work challenges leaders to rethink how they approach performance issues, emphasizing the importance of addressing both individual efforts and the organizational systems that shape them. The book introduces the concept of the Organizational Operating System (org OS), as a way for organizations to drive intentional and sustainable positive change. The 6 Levers Framework provides practical strategies for improving communication, meetings, decision-making, change management and more.

Many corporations have slick, flashy mission statements that ultimately do little to motivate employees and less to impress customers, investors, and partners. But there is a way to share your excitement for the future of your company in a clear, compelling, and powerful way, and entrepreneur and business growth expert Cameron Herold can show you how.

We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. After decades of award-winning research, Amy Edmondson is here to upend our understanding of failure and make it work for us. In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson provides the framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely.

We've all read about the experts: the artists, the scientists, the engineers - that special group of people known as Imagineers for The Walt Disney Company. But who are they? How did they join the team? What is it like to spend a day in their shoes?

Si no estás contento con tu actual situación laboral, si quieres averiguar cómo se podrían hacer mejor las cosas, si buscas una mayor satisfacción en el trabajo y una vida menos agitada, este libro te indicará el camino. Daisley comparte los resultados de sus descubrimientos a través de 30 sencillas recomendaciones que son aplicables a todos los aspectos de la vida profesional del siglo XXI, y que combinan inspiración, experiencia empírica y soluciones prácticas y realistas en igual medida.

Fast-paced and down-to-earth, Delivering Happiness shows how a different kind of corporate culture is a powerful model for achieving success, and concentrating on the happiness of those around you can dramatically increase your own.

Today's ways of working are not working - even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition, and underperformance. "Flexible" work policies and corporate lip service about "work-life balance" don't come close to fixing the problem.

Mindfulness isn't anything that we think; it's what we don't think. Mindfulness isn't something that other people do; it's something that we all do. Mindfulness is an ancient, life-enhancing, healing technique that can help us remember our natural state of happiness and health, even if we think we are too modern and too busy to prioritize what's really important--being fully alive and fully alive to our full life potential.

In the tradition of Phil Knight's Shoe Dog comes the incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company—all revealed by cofounder and first CEO Marc Randolph. From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don't. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere - from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi.

"Silos" are organizations' vertical structures—but the word has become synonymous with barriers to workplace effectiveness and connotes deep political infighting. Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals. They cause stress, exasperation, and disappointment by forcing employees to fight bloody, unwinnable battles with people who should be teammates.

In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek, internationally best-selling author of Start With Why, investigates these great leaders from Marine Corps Officers, who don't just sacrifice their place at the table but often their own comfort and even their lives for those in their care, to the heads of big business and government - each putting aside their own interests to protect their teams.

Everything equal, customers choose whether they will return based on the feeling they get when interacting with your brand. Research reveals that a high number of customers will go through the trouble of switching brands due to a bad experience. Great businesses know how to make a customer feel seen, understood, and valued. Those satisfied customers trust you more and come back—and they tell their friends. Backed by plenty of on-the-ground research and real-life examples, The Come Back Culture shows you how to create an experience that keeps people coming back for more.

Culture cannot be a set-it-and-forget-it aspect of your business. Weaving culture-building into your daily and weekly activities strengthens the engagement of your people and reinforces the key principles of your desired culture, making it a reality. In Cultivating Culture, author, speaker, and leadership coach Brad Federman provides actionable tools for immediately promoting better teamwork, creating two-way conversations with your people, and gaining better feedback about how things are really going.

Why work harder than you have to? One manager kept his senior execs happy by secretly hacking into the company’s database, providing them the reports they needed in one-third the time. Hacking is a powerful solution to every stupid procedure, tool, rule, and process we are forced to endure. Benevolent hackers are saving business from itself. It would be so much easier to do great work if not for lingering bureaucracies, outdated technologies, and deeply irrational rules and procedures.

Building a fully engaged, energized workforce is the key to business success. The Power of Thanks reveals how leading companies like Intuit, JetBlue Airways, IHG, Symantec, ConAgra Foods, and The Hershey Company empower employees through social recognition, in which the practice of mutual appreciation and trust directs and rewards higher performance. Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine, executives at the world-renowned employee recognition firm Globoforce, explain why social recognition is so powerful and how you can apply it in your company.