Responsibility at Work

"In this remarkable collection of essays, Gardner and his colleagues have given us an astonishing array of penetrating insights into the responsibilities, meaning, and ethics of work. Everyone, anyone, in any organization, can learn and profit from the wisdom in these pages."
--Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business and University Professor at the University of Southern California and author of On Becoming a Leader

"Gardner and his colleagues boldly confront the ever-present tensions between professional action and professional responsibility with superbly crafted individual case studies as well as broad theoretical arguments. Taken together, the writers deepen our understanding of the challenges of leadership--from classical ethical dilemmas to the seemingly mundane question of how to allocate one's time."
--Lee S. Shulman, President, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

"Responsibility at Work is a crucial book for our times. It is horrifying to think that a willingness to take responsibility has so long been eclipsed by a demand for rights. It is responsibility that is the cornerstone of our society and is the key to "good work." This insightful, penetrating book gives fresh understanding of that vital and essential concept and how it can be applied in the workplace."
--ALEX S. JONES, Director, Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Kennedy School, Harvard University

"The key to building community, as argued here, is for citizens to take responsibility toward others. But where do people gain that sensibility? What social forces encourage it? What can we do to enrich it? In short, how can we revive people's commitment to others? Drawing upon hundreds of interviews from the GoodWork(R) Project, the authors of these essays wrestle admirably with these questions. Taken together, these essays are not only richly rewarding but reassuring: perhaps it is just possible we can find our way again."
--DAVID GERGEN, Professor of Public Service and Director of the Center forPublic Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

Smaller companies are abundant in the business realm and outnumber large companies by a wide margin. Understanding the inner workings of small businesses offers benefits to the consumers and the economy. The Handbook of Research on Intrapreneurship and Organizational Sustainability in SMEs is a critical scholarly resource that examines the strategies and concepts that will assist small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve competitiveness. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as financial management, corporate sustainability, and organizational culture, this publication is geared towards business managers, professionals, graduate students, and researchers working in the field of smaller-scale business development initiatives.

What is the elusive factor that will elevate the impact of your most important work? You are an expert inyour field whose clients love what your business does. Business is good,yet your intuition tells you that something is missing. You could domore and Build Better Business, but how? Mastery is the key. Mastery has a remarkable power. Mastery defines who you are rather than just what you do. The insights you develop focus your knowledge, skills and experience and inspire trust. Mastery unleashes the power of word of mouth and your influence spreads far beyond your work. Mastery frees you to create the business you have always aspired to lead.

This text features essays that address the topic of equivalence in measurement. Among the issues covered are: perceptions of organizational politics in the USA and the Middle East; the importance of measurement equivalence in transnational research; and Alpha, Beta and Gamma change.

What are the secrets of all great leaders-the individuals who effortlessly persuade and gain the confidence of others? This book offers actionable, practical advice, explaining ten pivotal ways for leaders to foster and engender trust. Trust in the leaders of organizations-whether large or small, for-profit or non-profit, government or private-is of critical importance. Highlighting the centrality of trust to leadership, Inspiring Trust: Strategies for Effective Leadership presents ten proven methods that will enable readers to quickly gain the trust of those they lead. Written by a management consultant who has studied a wide variety of organizations, the book presents the author's findings from observing and working with some of America's best enterprises. The author explains how effective leadership involves enrolling and enfranchising others, which only occurs as a result of trusting the leader's competence and character; and offers specific practical advice on what to do to enhance trust-as well as what not to do. The chapters outline in detail specific techniques that have proved effective for getting others "on board" with a leader's vision, mission, goals, strategies, and tactics. The text also explains the five key drivers of high performance and the five core dimensions of interpersonal effectiveness. Aimed at aspiring managers of any age, this book explains how to move potential followers from superficial compliance to genuine alignment, resulting in internalization of the executive, manager, or supervisor's vision, mission, and goals. Identifies exactly what good leaders do in order to persuade and gain the confidence of their followers Explains why effective leadership requires much more than brains and drive alone Covers which decision-making mode to use under what circumstances as well as when to rely on analysis and when to rely on intuition Supplies leadership advice for specific situations, such as how to ask for feedback that provides actionable information rather than flattery or reassurance, and ways to persuade others to make sacrifices they might not otherwise make Provides ten illuminating profiles of the characteristics of good and bad leaders

Hey, manager: please shut up already Too many new managers, often promoted from the best of the front-line workers, lack the basic ability to interact effectively-speaking when they should be listening, and listening... well, not much. And when it comes to more advanced skills like improving worker performance, maximizing productivity, handling customers, and driving real success with their products, all bets are off. With no real background or training in management skills, today's managers-even with experience-too often struggle to engage with their teams, maximize performance, and achieve great results.

Here's the newer manager's greatest ally: a quick-start guide that rapidly and accessibly covers the essential skills that good managers need to lead their teams effectively. Building on the simplest possible foundation-"Shut Up and Listen "-this guide collects over 250 hints, tips, and tricks developed by an experienced manager and leader over more than a quarter century of technical management. Take your management career from zero to sixty-or discover how to lead your team to the next level-with one quick and easy read.

Mental Health Outcome Evaluation bridges the gap between traditional research and evaluation methods by presenting an alternative to the highly technical and statistical methods developed in the laboratory for mental health care professionals. It focuses on outcome evaluation of mental health services for adults, concentrating on the general principles that can be used to assess the service effectiveness of community health centers, clinics, and private practices. The book presents a formidable argument for descriptive outcome studies through its evaluation of the results and consequences of care and treatment as well as clinician ratings. It is written in a non-technical style, making it accessible to anyone in the mental health industry.
Key Features
* Addresses industry efforts to monitor and assess information about results and consequences of mental health care and treatment
* Evaluates use of clinician ratings as outcome information
* Offers accessible general principles for managers and mental health services researchers
* Presents the best argument for descriptive outcome studies

In recent years, such corporate giants as Boeing, Toyota, Nestlé, Philips, United Airlines, IBM, and Intel have increasingly turned to alliances in order to develop new products and technologies, enter new markets, and globalize their activities. Indeed, no one firm, however dominant, can beat the competition entirely on its own. Unfortunately, managers have found collaboration to be a difficult, and sometimes dangerous, strategy; they have often over-estimated the benefits of alliances while overlooking their pitfalls which only materialize over time. C.K. Prahalad notes in the foreword that "managers need a robust framework for navigating through these uncharted waters" and that "this book provides an invaluable source of ideas and practical guidance in their search". As the dynamics of the business landscape change and alliances become an increasingly used competitive weapon, Cooperative Strategy will enable managers to plan, implement and make the best use of strategic alliances.

"This book significantly advances the literature on strategic alliances. The case studies are fresh and the insights they provide are powerful. This book is a must read for both managers and academics interested in cooperative strategies." Nitin Nohria, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

"This book provides an excellent guide to the new skills needed in an environment where more and more managers must learn to collaborate in order to enhance the competitive position of their company. No-one can become a global leader alone." John M. Stopford, Professor of International Business, London Business School

"The framework developed by Pierre Dussauge and Bernard Garrette provides new and valuable insights on the strategic and managerial issues raised by alliances, in particular when these alliances bring together companies that compete in the same industries. Indeed, getting former competitors to collaborate efficiently is a difficult endeavour; this book offers managers guidelines that will make this challenge less daunting." Jean-Luc Lagardère, CEO, Matra-Hachette

"This excellent book provides insightful clarity on the various types of alliances and successfully explores the issues, pitfalls and traps which ensnare the misinformed. The examples are rich and the perspective truly global. In particular, it disentangles the more creative forms of ‘co-opetition’ between rival firms, and lays out the longer term outcomes of alliances. It is pragmatic and practical, bristling with concrete suggestions on how to make alliances successful." Bruce Simpson, Principal, McKinsey&Company

Have you ever felt the impact of poor leadership? Whether it is at work, church, or in everyday life, success starts with the leader. Leadership 102: The Next Great Lesson is the perfect resource for anyone who desires to become the most effective leader they can be. By reflecting upon meaningful experiences and scientific reasoning, author Dean Leav introduces innovative ideas for influencing and moving your followers into embracing your vision, starting with you, the leader. Acquire the essential tools necessary to make a lasting impact upon your organization as you discover the following: * Why being desperate is smart * How dissatisfaction will save your organization * Why followers are the leader's mirror * Why Jack Welch runs General Electric like a 'grocery store * Why volunteers are risking their lives in the Bronx * Why Rick Warren gives away 90% of the millions he makes * How effective leaders finish smart In addition to conveying leadership lessons and principles, Leav shows you why they work, giving you the insight necessary to make an impact upon your own organization. mind, allowing you to become the effective leader that empowers change.

Written by a team where the father is recognized as the world's foremost evolutionary systems scientist and the son is one of the youngest members of the top management of a Fortune 500 transnational company, "The Insight Edge," in the words of James Ogilvy, comes at a crucial time and speaks to the needs of the time. It is essential reading in an age where information is the new capital, and knowledge of the basic trends that shape our world is a vital part of the required information.

Managing postindustrial enterprises in today's information-linked and globalized business environment is vastly different from managing businesses in the bygone industrial era. Being a good manager in today's world means navigating in the turbulence of a global sea of rapid-fire interaction, and coping with myriad factors that are prone to change in a seemingly unpredictable fashion. Being a good manager also means living up to one's responsibilities, not only to one's company and stockholders, but also to one's coworkers, partners, customers, and society at large--even nature.

Meeting the challenge that confronts today's managers calls for a fresh knowledge base; one that includes, in addition to the necessary technical knowledge handed down in management schools and seminars, familiarity with the dynamics that generate the seemingly unpredictable--but by no means casual and unforeseeable--patterns of change in the contemporary business environment. This book offers such a knowledge base. It brings to leading managers, and to everyone concerned with the effective and responsible management of business companies, the essential minimum of up-to-date scientific knowledge: the readily acquired foundations of evolutionary literacy.

Innovations of Knowledge Management highlights the broad range of topics that fall under the term "knowledge management," thus emphasizing the large role knowledge management plays in organizations. As a compilation of some of the most recent work in the field, the included chapters truly present innovations in how organizations can and should manage their knowledge.

In May 2014, the French research laboratory ISEOR (Socio?Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations) and the University of St. Thomas co?sponsored a second conference on the application of the Socio?Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) paradigm and methodology in the United States. SEAM is a scientific approach to consultancy that focuses on uncovering the dysfunctions and hidden costs that exist in organizations, "hidden" in the sense that they are not captured by traditional accounting methodsand financial analyses. Through intervention that encompasses the entire organization - what the ISEOR team refers to as the HORIVERT approach (combining horizontal and vertical intervention) - the underlying goal is to enhance organizational performance by attacking the "TFW virus," a vestige of the early work by Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber that has sufficiently infiltrated our thinking about management and organization to the point where are falling well short of our own potential. The resultant dysfunctions this virus unleashes creates hidden costs that readily destroy a firm's value?added possibilities. The volume captures the ideas, applications, and exchanges of that meeting, attempting to bring the reader into the conference itself. Chapters include the contributors' presentations ("Chapter Prologue: Conference Remarks"), revised conference papers, and the question and answer dialogue for the session.

A fascinating look at the top women at Berkshire Hathaway and how they got there

Although proportionally women continue to lag far behind men as CEOs and board members at major institutions, there has been a marked uptick in the number of female business leaders in recent years. Looking at the changes that have happened at Berkshire Hathaway--Warren Buffett's holding company, "The Women of Berkshire Hathaway: Lessons from Warren Buffett's Female CEOs and Directors" provides a unique look at the gradual shattering of the glass ceiling at one of America's top firms.

An influx of female leadership over the past few years--today there are four female CEOs, up from just one a decade ago--has invigorated Berkshire Hathaway with energy and unique female insight. Profiling these remarkable women, the book provides motivational and management information for a wide range of readers, from business students to Buffett fans.Looks closely at the female board members of Berkshire Hathaway and the female managers who run Berkshire Hathaway companiesFollows the paths that brought these women to their current positionsExplores their working relationship with their employees and Warren Buffett, and how they balance work and their private lives

The only book focusing on eight of the most powerful women at Berkshire Hathaway, "The Women of Berkshire Hathaway" is an inspirational read about the triumph of a group of remarkable women within a company once dominated by men.

The graphic user interface took technology to the masses. This book does the same to management, facilitating accelerated learning and mastery of the critical set of sustained high performance competencies. Through visual semiotics, the integral meta-framework takes the reader to the philosophical foundations of management connecting the east and the west and the process of achieving mastery of these competencies. At a time when the very relevance of the discipline is at stake, the book is a welcome offering.