Creativity directly impacts results and productivity, yet few of us understand how it happens or how to put it into practice. This book shows you not only how to get things done, but how to do them better and more creatively. The Creative Thinking Handbook provides the correct application for creative thinking and action, by offering clear, practical tools and strategies so that you can develop creative thinking skills and help find brilliant solutions for any professional challenge. Based on research and proven-to-work creative thinking models, Chris Griffiths and Melina Costi present a clear introduction to what creative thinking is, explain why we all need to do it and will help you generate ideas and make better decisions. The Creative Thinking Handbook gets you to think differently by thinking creatively.

Thought leader John Adair provides the techniques and insights you need to find solutions, spark creativity and confidently make the right decisions. This 5th edition now features even more practical exercises, useful templates, and top tips to provide a clear framework that can generate ideas and inspire confidence in your team - so you can spot the solution in every problem, and create ideas to rival even the best strategists. The Creating Success series of books... Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.

Covers both multicriteria decision and multiobjective optimization and helps readers understanding the mathematics behind the methods Includes several levels of exercises and solutions aiming the developing of readers' problem-solving skills and to promote concepts retention Designed for a 12 weeks course in multiple attribute decision modelling taken by advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in the mathematical sciences, engineering, and economics and management Includes supplementary teaching materials as slides presentations and self-evaluation exercises Provides models built in GAMS that can be solved and analysed with the software free version

Master data analysis, modeling and the effective use of spreadsheets with the popular BUSINESS ANALYTICS: DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, 7E. The quantitative methods approach in this edition helps you maximize your success with a proven teach-by-example presentation, inviting writing style and complete integration of the latest version of Excel. The approach is also compatible with earlier versions of Excel for your convenience. This edition is more data-oriented than ever before with a new chapter on the two main Power BI tools in Excel -- Power Query and Power Pivot -- and a new section of data visualization with Tableau Public. Current problems and cases demonstrate the importance of the concepts you are learning. In addition, a useful Companion Website provides data and solutions files, SolverTable for optimization sensitivity analysis and Palisade DecisionTools Suite. MindTap online resources are also available.

What do you do when the algorithm doesn't have the answer? Countless tools and frameworks claim to make decisions objective and bias-free. But in reality, the defining decisions that leaders face are complex ones with subjective information sources and conflicting courses of action. That's why the toughest choices are left to the leaders, and that's why formulas won't answer them. In Difficult Decisions: How Leaders Make the Right Call with Insight, Integrity, and Empathy, leadership expert and CEO of YSC Consulting, Eric Pliner, delivers a set of practical tools for readers to make sense of these complex, subjective decisions quickly and with integrity. It presents a path to understanding your own subjectivity, and how your morals, ethics, and responsibilities affect how leaders make the most important decisions. Difficult Decisions is ideal for executives, managers, and business leaders to examine their own intuition and navigate the most conflicted choices they make. It's a challenging read and an indispensable resource to help readers develop self-reflection, clarify their values, and ultimately make the choice that is most "right" to them.

Are you looking for a more compassionate, caring and loving way to lead? Do you want to be a leader that makes a meaningful difference, who opposes injustice and strives to make the world a better place? In this unique, empowering and inspiring guide, Business Leader and BCorp Ambassador Paul Hargreaves challenges you to banish outdated, paternalistic, acommand and control' leadership and instead embrace the positive, proactive and purpose-led styles that have the power to energise, empower, elevate and change the world. Using an enlightening and thought-provoking mix of stories, quotes and case-studies, Paul will guide you on a journey through 50 essential leadership qualities. Day by day he'll equip you with ingenious ideas, inspiration and the mindset you need to become a leader who: Nurtures, supports and cherishes the planet as well as your people. Releases love, compassion and care throughout your organisation. Challenges the status quo and is a catalyst for positive change. Uses empathy, trust and mutual respect to drive success and encourage the best in others. By becoming a genuinely dynamic and human leader who's driven by principle, purpose and passion, you'll make a more profound impact on your business and the world as you create a legacy to be proud of.

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world's most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If . anyone can make it Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer . everyone in management . should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and . even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is the second edition of a book which has already become a management 'standard' both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. Brain of the Firm develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system, and is a basic text from the author's theory of viable systems. Despite the neurophysiology, the book is written for managers to understand. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text. "Stafford Beer's works represent required reading for everyone who believes that a capacity for rigorous thinking is an essential attribute of today's successful managers and administrators. Brain of the Firm shows a first-rate intellect at work and provides concepts, models and inspiration for both practitioners and teachers." Sir Douglas Hague, CBE

This new edition Workbook has been fully updated for 2019 and covers Theme 3 Business behaviour and the labour market A-level Paper 1 Markets and business behaviour, and A-level Paper 3 Microeconomics and Macroeconomics will both draw on topics from Theme 3. Up-to-date and focused to help students practice their skills and improve their subject knowledge both inside and outside the classroom, this Practice Workbook: - Covers specific aspects of the course, providing targeted support for complex and challenging topics - Reinforces students' understanding, with more new practice questions and exam-style questions to develop their skills and improve their confidence - Includes more sample answers with commentary to help students meet the demands of the specification - Adapts easily and flexibly to existing textbooks and schemes of work - Provides opportunities for self-directed learning and self-testing, helping students revise on their own terms

From the author of Expecting Better and The Family Firm, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting. "Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down." -LA Times "The book is jampacked with information, but it's also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer." -NPR With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule-or three-for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they're ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren't necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time. Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert-and mom of two-who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions-and stay sane in the years before preschool.

High-value talent management must be relevant to today's workplace Misplaced Talent takes a hard look at the cluttered field of Talent Management, and offers a clear guide to making better people decisions in any organization. Deliberately challenging practitioners to do more, this insightful discussion sorts through the tools and techniques developed over the last century to examine their true relevance to the modern workplace. You'll learn which activities show the greatest potential to improve the lives of employees and the organizations they work for, and identify which of your existing practices don't really add enough value to be worth the expenditure of time, money, and potentially lost talent. The author asks you to make up your own mind about which approaches work best for your own specific talent decisions, but provides the best theory and practice available today as a foundation upon which to formulate a more relevant strategy. In a world of big data, the potential to understand employees and react appropriately has never been greater. So why is Talent Management as an industry relying on outdated theory and practices? This book is a guide to bringing HR up to date, giving you the tools, techniques, and perspective you need to demonstrate more value to your organization. * Adopt the tools and techniques most effective in today's workplace * Identify and discard methods that don't add value to the organization * Implement critical changes that can transform the HR function * Make better people decisions based on psychology and research Fundamentally, not much has changed in what constitutes good people practice. Practitioners must demonstrate the value of Talent Management, but the solutions implemented often fall short of the rigor and discipline they deserve. Misplaced Talent provides the insight you need to refocus attention and engage your organization about the value of better people decisions.

According to the Project Management Institute, over 80 percent of a project manager's job is communication--yet most project management books hardly discuss it. Certified project management professional G. Campbell explains how to ensure every component of a project is understood by the people responsible for execution to drive your project to completion and success. Communications Skills for Project Managers does this by focusing on communication skills such as how to: keep those on the project team--as well as upper management--involved and informed; establish a plan for communication; effectively present to stakeholders; compete with other initiatives within the organization; convey reasons for change; and more. Even a project that is brought in on time and on budget can be considered a failure if those outside the project team weren't kept informed about progress and goals. This important guide provides practical advice and strategies for overcoming shifting organizational priorities, constantly evolving expectations, and leadership turnover through the power of clear communication to consistently produce results.

"The recent rash of corporate scandals--and the ensuing financial ruin of companies and their stockholders -- proves that even the bluest of blue chip businesses cannot bank on the blind faith of consumers and investors. More than ever, corporations must rebuild, restore, and strengthen bonds of trust. Al Golin has helped create trust strategies for global business leaders including The Walt Disney Company, Hewlett-Packard, McDonald's, Toyota, Owens-Corning, and many others. " Trust or Consequences" shows what makes such strategies work, and reveals the eye-opening results of a survey of over 700 business professionals. This essential book reveals how to:

* create an effective trust strategy

* determine the impact of trust issues on stakeholders

* assess trust-building performance and calculate the difficulty of restoring trust

* create a ""trust bank"" for saving deposits of good will to draw on as needed

"Trust or Consequences" offers tools for identifying trust opportunities, as well as numerous inside accounts of trust-building successes and failures by high-profile organizations and leaders. Filled with provocative ideas about why many companies overlook trust issues, " Trust or Consequences "brings the subject to center stage -- where it must remain if companies are to regain stakeholder loyalty and competitive advantage."

"From tragic accidents to public relations fiascos, we live in an increasingly crisis-ridden society. In fact, half of the major industrial accidents of the past century occurred in the last 20 years. Incidents such as Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez have become embedded in our consciousness, cultural icons of the worst sort. Other crises, less devastating but with serious impact on their businesses, occur almost daily. Why is this--and what can be done to reverse this disturbing trend? According to Ian Mitroff, one of the world's leading experts on crisis management, the rise in the crisis rate is due to an ingrained ""it-can't happen-to-us"" mentality--which, in turn, leads to a total lack of preparedness for crises. His solution? Find out in Managing Crises Before They Happen. This fascinating book provides readers with a powerful framework that will help them: * Recognize the early warning signals that almost always precede a crisis * Focus on the big picture, not just the details * Avoid becoming either the victim or the villain in a crisis situation * Understand the importance of personal character, corporate culture, and thinking outside the box to effective crisis management * Learn from one crisis things that can prevent or ameliorate the next."

"Like many companies over the last few years, yours has probably done a great deal to reassess its physical, strategic, and financial vulnerabilities. But there is a huge difference between business continuity planning and true crisis management. Do your company and employees have the necessary ""IQ"" not only to withstand a crisis but also to come through it with strength and confidence?

Ian Mitroff, recognized around the world as an authority in crisis management, has created a plan that goes well beyond ""disaster preparedness"" to help your company get accustomed to working in the face of some unsettling facts:

* In an age of terror, cyberattacks, large-scale corporate fraud and more, crisis is no longer a question of if, but of when.

* Your company, no matter its size, industry, or location, is not immune from this reality.

* Your contingency planning will only be as effective as the human beings charged with putting it into action.

Mitroff outlines seven distinct competencies your organization needs to handle crises effectively:

* Right Heart (emotional IQ): By accepting crisis as an inevitability, you can process much of the shock and grief beforehand, and avoid making the effects of the crisis even worse through an unconstructive response.

* Right Thinking (creative IQ): ""Crises don't give a damn for the ways in which we have organized the world,"" so out-of-the-box thinking is essential.

* Right Social and Political IQ: Understand that your business is subject not only to the particular pitfalls of its industry, but also to the universal and complex challenges that threaten all companies.

* Right Integration (integrative IQ): Realize that crises are perceived differently by different stakeholders, and are never simple ""exercises"" that can be ""solved."" Identify and reconcile these perceptions now so that the path is clear when the crisis strikes.

* Right Technical IQ: ""Think like a controlled paranoid"" to uncover ways in which malicious forces could cause a crisis in your company. Question every assumption about what is ""normal,"" ""impossible,"" or ""absurd.""

* Right Aesthetic IQ: Reconsider the classic design of the corporation, which is meant to address problems as they arise, and move toward one in which crisis management is an overarching discipline on a par with, for example, finance.

* Spiritual IQ: Reject the notion that people's physical, mental, and spiritual beings are completely separate; recognize that crises cause us to question the very meaning of our lives and what we do, and establish ahead of time why our work is, and must remain, important to us on many different levels.

Although crisis management has taken on new urgency in recent turbulent times, the need for careful planning did not originate on September 11, 2001. Mitroff's examples, drawn from interviews conducted both after the 2001 attacks and during his 25-year career as an expert in crisis management, demonstrate the need for action -- and offer a blueprint for taking it."

"When Wilbur and Orville Wright executed the first successful manned flight on December 17th, 1903, they stunned the world. Man could fly Where had these two brothers come from? The impact was astonishing. (Imagine if Neil Armstrong had landed on the moon in a craft he built himself and paid for with a part-time job )

In ushering in the age of flight, the Wright brothers got past numerous obstacles the world's other scientists hadn't even begun to tackle. " The Wright Way" defines seven essential problem-solving principles the brothers used in accomplishing this enormous feat, and shows readers how to apply them to common business problems. The book presents practical, inspirational principles for achievement, including:

* Hammering out problems through constructive conflict

* Addressing the toughest issues -- or ""worst things"" -- first

* Achieving perfection through ""inveterate tinkering""

* Pursuing useful knowledge through ""forever learning""

The book gives business leaders and managers constructive tips they can use to tackle their most difficult -- and rewarding -- challenges and opportunities. A perfect combination of savvy management guidance and historical adventure story, "The Wright Way" shows readers how to make their business soar when others can't even get off the ground."

'Highly instructive . . . provides thoughtful analysis' Financial Times 'Exactly what any prospective-or sitting-board member needs' Arianna Huffington 'A must read . . . highly engaging . . . an indispensable guide to how boards function, malfunction, and, most importantly, should operate better' Mohamed A. El-Erian Corporate boards are under great pressure. Scandals and malpractice at companies like GE, Theranos and WeWork have raised justified questions among regulators, shareholders, and the public about the quality of corporate governance. Boards face ever-louder demands to weigh in on questions of climate change, racial and gender equity, data privacy, and other social issues that range far beyond their traditional mandate: choosing the CEO and endorsing corporate strategy. In HOW BOARDS WORK, prizewinning economist, veteran board director, and bestselling author Dambisa Moyo offers an insider's view of corporate boards as they are buffeted by the turbulence of our times. Drawing on her decade of experience serving on corporate boards, Moyo lays out what it is that boards actually do, and she outlines how they must adapt to survive the challenges of coming years. Corporations need boards that are more transparent, more knowledgeable, more diverse, and more deeply involved in setting the strategic course of the companies they lead. HOW BOARDS WORK is an urgent road map for how boards can steer companies through tomorrow's challenges and ensure they thrive to benefit their employees, shareholders, and society at large.

An insightful and inspiring book on using "both/and" thinking to make more creative, flexible, and impactful decisions in a world of competing demands. Life is full of paradoxes. How can we each express our individuality while also being a team player? How do we balance work and life? How can we improve diversity while promoting opportunities for all? How can we manage the core business while innovating for the future? For many of us, these competing and interwoven demands are a source of conflict. Since our brains love to make either-or choices, we choose one option over the other. We deal with the uncertainty by asserting certainty. There's a better way. In Both/And Thinking, Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis help readers cope with multiple, knotted tensions at the same time. Drawing from more than twenty years of pioneering research, they provide tools and lessons for transforming these tensions into opportunities for innovation and personal growth. Filled with practical advice and fascinating stories-including firsthand tales from IBM, LEGO, and Unilever, as well as from startups, nonprofits, and even an inn at one of the four corners of the world-Both/And Thinking will change the way you approach your most vexing problems.

Mark Schwartz, author of leadership classics A Seat at the Table and The Art of Business Value, reveals a new (empowering) model for the often soul-shattering, frustrating, Kafkaesque nightmare we call bureaucracy. Through humor, a healthy dose of history and philosophy, and real-life examples from his days as a government bureaucrat, Schwartz shows IT leaders (and the whole of business) how to master the ways of the Monkey, the Razor, and the Sumo Wrestler to create a lean, learning, and enabling bureaucracy. For anyone frustrated by roadblocks, irritated the business can't move fast enough, or suffering under the weight of crushing procedures, this book is for you. No matter your role, you need a playbook for bureaucracy. This is it. With this playbook, you can wield bureaucracy as a superpower and bust through it at the same time

The bestselling book that thoroughly explores the remarkable benefits of teams at all levels of the organization. The authors provide dozens of real accounts and case studies that illustrate successes and failures and demonstrate what can be learned from these examples. A must-read guide for business leaders.

Global virtual teams (GVTs) have evolved as a common work structure in multinational corporations due to their efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The cultural differences can produce great benefits in terms of perspective, creativity, and innovation, but can also exacerbate interpersonal tensions, miscommunications, and clashing decision-making behaviors. This book outlines cultural competencies specific to GVTs and sheds light on management strategies for creating an optimal inter-cultural GVT environment. It covers theory, decision making strategies, and activities for cultural competence and problem resolution, all told through vignettes and lessons-learned.

Includes 10 handy do's and don'ts of strategy development

* Need powerful decision-making tools at your fingertips?

* Want to get the most out of strategic thinking models like Porter's Five Forces?

* Only want what you need to know, rather than reams of theory?

With the critical strategy tools required to drive your business forward, this book tells you what you need to know, fast.