Harold Smart has been leading people of all ages since he was in his teens, and to get the job done, he's had to live up to his last name. For instance, when he teamed up with his brother-in-law to open a service station in a mid-sized town, a competitor told them they?d be out of business in six months. Someone was out of business that soon?but not them! In this guide for business professionals, Smart shuns excuses from managers and business owners who don't get the job done. He reveals how to: avoid flawed management models; cultivate loyalty among employees; eliminate unnecessary layers of management; and succeed by keeping things as simple as possible. When you come right down to it, good management is all about solving problems. To get better at problem solving, it's imperative that you listen to people who?ve been in the trenches fixing things their entire lives.

Why Service Matters is a collection of over fifty essays that Raul Pupo asserts will change the way you think about service. What consumers in business, education, and government receive by way of service has gotten progressively worse over time. What is most distressing, however, is that there does not appear to be any cause for optimism that the shoddy service being dished out to consumers will improve any time soon. That is, not unless and until leaders come to grips with the fact that service to the customer is grounded in four critical success factors or foundational propositions: a leadership that unequivocally believes they are in business, first and foremost, to serve the customer; a strategic planning regimen centered on the customer; an ethic of service to guide the organization to always err on behalf of the customer; and a competent, motivated, supported, and empowered front-line organization.

In the ever-changing landscape of personal finance and investing, investors need to understand where they are in relation to their long-term goals. It is easy to look at an account statement and see how much we have. But understanding how much that amount will provide for us in the future is a much more complicated task. Nurturing Financial Freedom: A Guide to Modern Financial Planning will address many of the concerns facing savers today. Among them are:

Management education is currently adapting to several societal changes. Due to increased workload and outside pressures heaped on students, business education programs are undergoing a unique transformation to keep up with shifting industry expectations. Innovative Management Education Pedagogies for Preparing Next-Generation Leaders facilitates the discussion on a variety of teaching methods and practices being used in current business education programs. Highlighting the ways that technology can be used to aid students in the advancement of their studies as well as career development and preparation, this text covers a range of topics, from leadership expectations and workforce requirements to electronic course materials. The timely research-based practices and methods included in this publication are beneficial to school administrators, instructional designers, instructors, and researchers in the fields of business and higher education.

The highly dynamic world of information technology service management stresses the benefits of the quick and correct implementation of IT services. A disciplined approach relies on a separate set of assumptions and principles as an agile approach, both of which have complicated implementation processes as well as copious benefits. Combining these two approaches to enhance the effectiveness of each, while difficult, can yield exceptional dividends. Balancing Agile and Disciplined Engineering and Management Approaches for IT Services and Software Products is an essential publication that focuses on clarifying theoretical foundations of balanced design methods with conceptual frameworks and empirical cases. Highlighting a broad range of topics including business trends, IT service, and software development, this book is ideally designed for software engineers, software developers, programmers, information technology professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.