Organizational Management

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And if you believe people don’t change, then you would be right. In a world where instability is constant and exhausting, learning curves are endless, and transformation is the buzzword of the day, the challenge is actually this: people don’t like change. This groundbreaking book turns the dog in that demoralizing axiom on its head. When leaders step up to create an organizational culture that encourages positive shifts, and team members realize how beneficial change can be, people do change . . . and for the better.

The founder of Menlo Innovations and author of the business culture cult classic Joy, Inc. offers an inspirational guide to leaders seeking joy in the challenge of leading others. Filled with colorful anecdotes from Sheridan's personal journey and wisdom from many leadership mentors, Chief Joy Officer offers an approachable, down-to-earth philosophy and practice that will help even the most disillusioned of middle managers bring a renewed sense of purpose to their work building others.

Culture Rules is a clarion call for leaders around the world. The pandemic has magnified the essential role that culture plays in an organization's health, vitality, and sustainability—some passed the test with flying colors while others are seeing with fresh eyes, deeply rooted issues and challenges within their culture. After completing a global study with over 5,000 participants from ten countries, Mark Miller and his team have exposed the most predominant fissures and their fixes.

The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide. It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every endeavor, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies, and even communities can undo their “learning issues” and achieve superior performance. If ever a work gave meaning to the phrase hands-on, this is it.

Jay Steinfeld, founder and CEO of Blinds.com (acquired by Home Depot), never planned to create the biggest online window blinds retailer in the world. Against all odds to succeed, Steinfeld's journey in business included failed acquisitions, partnerships gone wrong, perpetual self-doubt, deaths in his family, corporate buy-outs, brutal market competition, and a complete disruption of industry leaders, including Amazon and big-box retailers. To build something meaningful like Steinfeld, you need to do more than dream about it. You need to Lead from the Core.

Reward and recognition programs can be costly and inefficient, and they primarily reward employees who are already highly engaged and productive performers. Worse still, these programs actually decrease employee motivation because they can make individual recognition, rather than the overall success of the team, the goal. Yet many businesses turn to these measures first-unaware of a better alternative. So, when it comes to changing your organizational culture, carrots and sticks don't work!

In this book, Mike Robbins dives deep into the ways great businesses build trust, collaborate, and operate at their peak level. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, Mike draws on more than 20 years of experience working with top companies like Google and Microsoft, as well as his baseball career with the Kansas City Royals. And, while each team and organization have their own unique challenges, goals, and dynamics, there are some universal qualities that allow teams to truly come together and thrive.

Coachability: The Leadership Superpower combines notable research, best-practice strategies, and stories of leaders on all parts of the coachability spectrum. Author Kevin Wilde has been developing leaders for major corporations, executive MBA leadership courses, and coaching hundreds of new and experienced leaders for over 30 years. Kevin shares his insights here with you.

The Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership unpacks the fresh strategies and new mindset required today from a next-generation leader. Author Dr. Tim Elmore helps leaders of all kinds navigate increasingly complex, rapidly changing environments, as well as manage teams who bring a range of new demands and expectations to the workplace that haven’t been seen even one generation prior.

In A New Kind of Diversity, best-selling author Tim Elmore brings his decades of research and leadership experience to bear on what might be the biggest, most dramatic, and most disruptive shift the American workforce has ever seen: the vast diversity of several generations living—and working—together.

Deliberate Discomfort follows the journey of Jason Van Camp as a new Green Beret commander taking over a team of combat-hardened Special Forces veterans. This true story tells firsthand the intense, traumatic battles these warriors fought and won, sharing lessons learned from their incredible backgrounds. A cadre of scientists further break down each experience, translating them into digestible and relatable action items, allowing the listener to apply these lessons forged under fire to their own lives.

In their eagerly awaited book, Kim and Spear bring to light a new theory of high-achieving organizations. They examine how companies solve the most important problems better, faster, and easier than their competitors by quickly and regularly closing the gap between aspirations and real-world success. This book teaches companies that are struggling to perform how to achieve the continual greatness seen in the best of the best.

How does a suburban pizza joint end up profiled on national magazine covers and network TV news? (Hint: The secret is not in the sauce.) When Nick Sarillo decided to open a family-friendly pizza restaurant in the suburbs of Chicago, people thought he was nuts. Having worked as a carpenter for much of his adult life, he lacked any formal experience in restaurants or in managing a small business. Everyone told him no one else would ever care about his place the way he did.

A few rare leaders have learned to embrace a new organizational shape and mindset: Constellations. Organizations designed as constellations are dynamic and flexible networks of distinct yet interwoven individuals. Each member of the team feels like a singular star and is also connected to others to form something greater. That is how Visa reimagined how we pay for things, how Wikipedia beat the richest company in the world and how Barack Obama and his grassroots team revolutionized political campaigning. These leaders did what most leaders dread - they gave away power.

Stop chasing hot trends and start driving real growth. It's Not Rocket Science blasts through the trends and false promises permeating the business world to help you and your company get back to basics and get things done. Why doggedly pursue the "next big thing" when the most effective drivers of growth are right under your nose? This audiobook asserts that you've already heard, been taught, and know well the key fundamentals that spell business success.

New edition, expanded and updated. With the release of Theory U almost 10 years ago, Otto Scharmer set in motion a revolution in thought. Scharmer explained that what we pay attention to and how we pay attention is key to what we create. What prevents us from attending to situations more effectively is that we aren't fully aware of and in touch with the inner place from which attention and intention originate.

It's difficult to ask anybody "how are you?" without hearing the word "busy" somewhere in their response. We feel overwhelmed by busyness because of the demands on our time: our inboxes and our to-do lists are bulging, a huge amount of people expect things from us and our organisations are trying to do more with fewer people. But it doesn't have to be that way. In reality, busyness isn't essential. Yes, there is a lot to do, but believing you're always busy because you have so much to do is both false and unhelpful.

Listen to this book at your own risk. It contains ideas that may lead to a profound self-awakening. An introspective journey for those in the trenches of today's modern organizations, Deep Change is a survival manual for finding our own internal leadership power. By helping us learn new ways of thinking and behaving, it shows how we can transform ourselves from victims to powerful agents of change. And for anyone who yearns to be an internally driven leader, to motivate the people around them, and return to a satisfying work life, Deep Change holds the key.

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.

In his new audiobook, The Heart-Led Leader, Spaulding turns his focus to ourselves - to who we are. Authentic leaders, Spaulding says, live and lead from the heart. The values and principles that guide our lives and shape our ability to lead others is far more important than our titles or our ability to crunch numbers or the impressive degrees we display on our walls. To effect true transformational change, heart-led leaders draw on the qualities of humility, vulnerability, transparency, empathy, and love.