Assertiveness at Work tackles the realities of modern business life the uncomfortable situations that can arise with flatter structures, tough workloads, demanding hours, and the need to exert influence across traditional boundaries. In these situations, successful people need assertiveness in order to achieve their goals.Whether you are a line manager, project leader, specialist, or key member of a team, this book gives practical guidance for developing your own natural assertiveness to benefit both yourself and your organisation.About the AuthorsKen and Kate Back have specialised in assertiveness training for more than twenty years. In this practical book, Ken and Kate have brought together their experiences in training thousands of people to be more assertive at work. In addition to books, they have written many articles, advised on and produced videos and appeared on television programmes about assertiveness. They have made a significant contribution to the development and spread of assertiveness training both in the UK and overseas.Ken and Kate can be contacted via their website kenandkateback.com.

Freud said that "love and work" are the central therapeutic goals of psychoanalysis; the twin pillars for a sound mind and for living the "good life." While psychoanalysis has masterfully contributed to understanding the experience of love, it has only made a modest contribution to understanding the psychology of work. This book is the first to explore fully the psychoanalysis of work, analysing career choice, job performance and job satisfaction, with an eye toward helping people make wiser choices that bring out the best in themselves, their colleagues and their organization. The book addresses the crucial questions concerning work: how does one choose the right career; what qualities contribute to excellence in performance; how best to implement and cope with organizational change; and what capacity and skills does one need to enjoy every day work? Drawing on psychoanalytic thinking, vocational counseling, organizational psychology and business studies, The Psychoanalysis of Career Choice, Job Performance, and Satisfaction will be invaluable in clinical psychoanalytic work, as well as for mental health professionals, scholars, career counselors and psychologists looking for a deeper understanding of work-based issues.

In Superconnect, Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood show that success is less about who you are than how you connect a chance meeting with an old colleague leads to a swanky new job; two businessmen collaborate online and cofound a successful start-up; a friend introduces a promising entrepreneur to a millionaire looking to invest. But why do these lucky breaks always happen to other people? Personal and professional networks shape everything we do, but simply knowing that they exist won t help you harness your connections for maximum success. With an eye toward business applications, Superconnect outlines the new rules of our densely linked society. At the core of the analysis are three simple network components strong relationships, weak relationships, and hubs that interact in surprising, counterintuitive ways. Understanding how these components mesh, and connecting unrelated people, is the way to achieve in today s hyper-connected world.

Remote working is the new reality, and transactional work - provided by freelancers, contract employees or consultants - has increased exponentially. It is forecast that as much as half the labor force will be working independently and virtually by 2020. Most organizations are still grappling with how to effectively manage their virtual staff and how to effectively support and motivate them - an increasingly urgent task as more Millennials join the workforce, bringing changed attitudes to work satisfaction. This book, the fruit of the author's three decades of experience planning and implementing remote working environments, provides expert guidance for anyone planning a shift to remote working, managing teams of teleworkers, or themselves working in a virtual team. The author's key message is that, in an environment where there is no face to face and informal contact, virtual working requires the creation of a matrix of distributed teams, and that their success depends on the right preparation, changing corporate culture and rewards, and implementing appropriate strategies at the management level to create team cohesion and motivate team members. Working Virtually is for the executive leading changes in an enterprise that is preparing for virtual work or seeking to improve current performance. It offers tools to assess readiness, advice on creating appropriate reward policies, and strategies to adapt performance management processes to be more team-driven and technology leveraged. Working Virtually is written to and for the virtual leader who wants to establish high performing virtual teams. It provides an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of managing a virtual team, offering a wealth of advice on creating the conditions for collaboration, motivating team members, and identifying and defusing problems. Working Virtually is for the professional who works remotely from home, on the road, or in an office with remote colleagues. It is for anyone who wants to succeed in this new work environment by developing skills and networks to create a sustained and satisfying career path. With this new edition providing a 360 Degrees view of the roles and objectives of all stakeholders in the virtual workspace, this book uniquely provides readers with a rounded picture of the policies, processes, work habits, and commitments needed to achieve the shared goal of high performance remote teams.

A new perspective on tackling diversity and difference in the workplace. Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling Diversity and Difference takes a fresh look at the issue of equality, diversity and inclusion at work. It critiques the current thinking and practices that are responsible for slow progress in this area, while providing readers with a new, holistic and tactical perspective that leverages what we know about influencing and changing people's mind-sets. The issue of difference sits at the core of many of the world's crises. Large corporations are a microcosm of the globalized world we inhabit, and hold significant power in shaping our societies and ideas. Despite decades of work in diversity and inclusion, little progress has been made because current approaches focus on specific contexts, short-term results and commercial returns, rather than taking into account what we know about human behaviour and addressing the social and economic cultures in which we operate. This book argues that in order to achieve sustainable positive change, we need to focus on how to create a culture of openness, empathy and inclusion - which in turn enables corporate strategy and drives innovation. The authors, who have worked in a number of leading organizations, including Caterpillar, American Express, HSBC, Towers Watson and the NHS, put forward a new approach, based on years of experience of achieving both individual and organizational change. They present: * A causal map, which describes a wide range of social, biological, psychological, evolutionary and organizational factors that influence how we think and operate. * A unique step-by-step approach to rewiring our fundamental psychological processes and creating change at an individual, organizational and cultural level. This book offers corporate executives and social leaders a fresh perspective on diversity and difference, along with the tools to create more inclusive, effective and innovative environments.

'Powerful and perceptive . . . belongs on the shelves - and in the hearts and minds - of leaders everywhere' - Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of To Sell is Human From Kim Scott, author of the revolutionary New York Times bestseller Radical Candor, comes Just Work: How to Confront Bias, Prejudice and Bullying to Build a Culture of Inclusivity - that will help you recognize, attack and eliminate workplace injustice - and transform our careers and organizations in the process. We - all of us - consistently exclude, underestimate and under-utilize huge numbers of people in the workforce even as we include, overestimate and promote others, often beyond their level of competence. Not only is this immoral and unjust, it's bad for business. Just Work is the solution. Just Work by Kim Scott reveals a practical framework for both respecting everyone's individuality and collaborating effectively. This is the essential guide leaders and their employees need to create more just workplaces and establish new norms of collaboration and respect.

The aim of this book is to equip any person working in an office environment with the basic knowledge, skills and attitudes to communicate effectively in the administrative and office environment. To ensure effective communication, it is necessary to have a basic knowledge of communication and this text will enable one to: understand the importance of good communication in an office environment, as well as the elements of the communication process (verbally and written communication); compile business letters, memoranda and reports; use different forms of electronic communication in the office; and organise all aspects of a meeting and take the minutes.

Containing the largest bank of test questions on the market, How to Pass Numerical Reasoning Tests provides advice, practice and exercises to help you prepare for the rigorous tests used by employers, helping you to build up speed, accuracy and confidence. An overview of the basics is followed by a step-by-step guide to numerical tests, covering: - Fractions and decimals - Rates - Percentages - Ratios and proportions - Data interpretation Also containing practice on mathematical problems in written word format to aid your analytical skills, How to Pass Numerical Reasoning Tests gives you everything you need to boost your ability and face the challenge head on.

How much 'say' should employees have in the running of business organizations, and what form should the 'voice' take? This is both the oldest and latest question in employment relations. Answers to these questions reflect our fundamental assumptions about the nature of the employment relationship, and inform our views on almost every aspect of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Employment Relations. Voice can also mean different things to different people. For some, employee voice is a synonym for trade union representation which aims to defend and promote the collective interests of workers. For others voice, is means of enhancing employee commitment and organisational performance. Others advocate workers control as an alternative to conventional capitalist organisations which are run for shareholders. There is thus both a moral and political argument for a measure of democracy at work, as well as a business case argument, which views voice as a potential link in the quest for increased organisational performance. The key debate for employment relations is which of the approaches 'works best' in delivering outcomes which balance competitiveness and productivity, on the one hand, and fair treatment of workers and social justice on the other. Policy makers need pragmatic answers to enduring questions: what works best in different contexts, what are the conditions of success, and what are the drawbacks? Some of the most significant developments in employee voice have taken place within the European Union, with various public policy and employer experiments attracting extensive academic research. The book offers a critical assessment of the main contemporary concepts and models of voice in the UK and Europe, and provides an in-depth theoretical and empirical exploration of employee voice in one accessible and cohesive collection.

The aim of this book is to equip any person working in an office environment with the basic knowledge, skills and attitudes to communicate effectively in the administrative and office environment. Communication is the basis of all relationships. All business matters depend on the exchange of information, and the success of the organisation's performance depends on the effective exchange of this information.

In this "deeply empowering and practical book"(Cecilia Muñoz), two technology and innovation leaders reveal dozens of tactics that enabled them to accomplish seemingly impossible reforms in organizations of all types and sizes.

Whether you just started your first entry-level job, run the entire company, or just feel trapped by your condo association bylaws, it’s time to it’s time to learn how to get big things done and make a lasting impact with Hack Your Bureaucracy.

From local government to the White House, Harvard to the world of venture capital, Marina Nitze and Nick Sinai have taken on some of the world’s most challenging bureaucracies—and won. Now, they bring their years of experience to you, teaching you strategies anyone can use to improve your organization through their own stories and those of fellow bureaucracy hackers, including:

• Find Your Paperclip: use small steps to achieve big change
• Set Your North Star: keep your end goal in sight
• Cultivate the Karass: assemble an adept team and network
• Don’t Waste a Crisis: turn every opportunity into a chance for change and more!

Change doesn’t happen just because the person in charge declares it should, even if that person is the CEO of your company or the President of the United States. Regardless of your industry, role, or team, Hack Your Bureaucracy shows how to get started, take initiative on your own, and transform your ideas into impact.

Affirmative action is still a reality of the American workplace. How is it that such a controversial Federal program has managed to endure for more than five decades? Inside Affirmative Action addresses this question. Beyond the usual ideological debate and discussions about the effects of affirmative action for either good or ill upon issues of race and gender in employment, this book recounts and analyzes interviews with people who worked in the program within the government including political appointees. The interviews and their historical context provide understanding and insight into the policies and politics of affirmative action and its role in advancing civil rights in America. Recent books published on affirmative action address university admissions, but very few of them ever mention Executive Order 11246 or its enforcement by an agency within the Department of Labor - let alone discuss in depth the profound workplace diversity it has created or the employment opportunities it has generated. This book charts that history through the eyes of those who experienced it. Inside Affirmative Action will be of interest to those who study American race relations, policy, history and law.