The level of complexity in most organizations today is staggering-and it's only getting worse. There are so many choices to be made, people to involve, processes to manage, and facts to analyze, it's impossible to get things done. And in today's hypercompetitive world, that can be fatal. Yet complexity doesn't happen on its own. Managers unwittingly create it, often through well-intended decisions. In Simply Effective, Ron Ashkenas provides a playbook for regaining control, focused on the four major causes of complexity: -Constant changes in organizational structures -Proliferation of products and services -Evolution of business processes -Time-wasting managerial behaviors The author provides a diagnostic for identifying how these causes of complexity are affecting your organization-and presents practical tactics for combating each one. Ashkenas also explains how to craft a strategy that will make simplification an ongoing driver of your company's success-no matter where you work in your organization. Abundant examples from companies like ConAgra Foods, GE, Cisco, Zurich Financial Services, and Johnson & Johnson illuminate his points. A crucial resource in today's overly complex age, Simply Effective should be required reading for everyone on your management team.

Companies with corporate soul are superior—both in business performance and in being good corporate citizens. Building Corporate Soul sets out to transform the performance and value of organizations and to make soul-less companies a thing of the past. Ralf Specht’s unique framework, The Soul System™, aligns value-creating employee behaviors with corporate strategy through shared understanding and shared purpose. Companies that operate within this framework outperform their peers by a factor of 3 compared with Dow Jones over 5 years, proving that leadership behaviors that build soul are synonymous with the behaviors that build success. Targeting existing and future global leaders, this is the first book to provide a sound framework for implementation as well as demonstrating (via the Soul Index) that this approach is commercially viable.

Although its author does not put it that way, the book bearing that title could well be put as "A story that needs to be told." Indeed, the chronicle of a mighty transformation that is too often overshadowed by other events. . At the beginning of the 20th century the steam locomotive powered train was supreme in transportation. Then by mid century it had all but disappeared. Yet at the dawn of the new century the auto, truck, and airplane was little more than a hobby of the few. That railroad at the turn of the century had a dramatic excitement and position in the culture of its own. Yet now, at the present beginning of the new 21st century that "railroad" still occupies a prominent place in the world of transportation. It did not suffer the fate of the horse and buggy, as commonplace in the late 19th, century. Instead, the railroad underwent a transformation as dynamic as the auto, truck and plane, and even the oncoming telephone, radio, moving picture and television and computer. That steam powered Iron Horse has been replaced by the diesel-electric locomotive, the "electric" train, and even as the 21st century emerged, the "floating train" maglev. But there was far more to that transformation indeed. That is the story that has been told more comprehensively than ever before in the just public book of that title. And it shows together how well man and machine have worked together to draw upon other emerging technologies and advances that swept into reality far more in the 20th century than any time in the history of man.

Could a mindset that works for a former NFL player work for a teacher? How could the CEO of a successful snack food company inspire a teacher? If the dedication of a teacher works for students, can it work for a city-based construction company? Discover the seemingly unparalleled connections between classrooms and Greater Philadelphia businesses! Leaders in both arenas find common ground and identify the approaches that best serve the game plan of success. In this unique collection of classroom-business mindsets for personal growth, relational growth, and service growth, you will be powerfully encouraged to maximize who you are so you can be and give your best to others. Teachers improving classrooms and influencing students; business leaders stimulating companies and motivating employees . . . with the same strategies and the same perspectives! The two realms have finally merged in a book that will ignite your heart to live with fire, passion, and purpose. As if there is any other way!

This books provides the necessary information that is not taught in today's education system. The information needed to make a solid financial foundation for your life.

Seize the benefits of the five-generation workforce. Generational distrust and ageism are seeping into organizations worldwide. Differences over communication style, technology preferences, identity, and politics are fueling harmful stereotypes and hurting team performance. It doesn't need to be this way. Smart leaders are harnessing age diversity and encouraging mutual learning, cross-generational collaboration, and a culture that embraces both similarities and differences across age groups. Multigenerational Workplace: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you bridge divides, reduce prejudice, and unlock the benefits of age-diverse teams. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

The fundamentals of Team Quotient (TQ) is based on a 10-year study with 108 teams from Fortune 500 and other global companies, on the essential elements of High Performance Teams. Using numerous case studies from the companies with which he has worked, Douglas describes how he helped to turn mediocre and even dysfunctional teams into High Performance and WINNING teams with measurable results.

Building Family Business Champions provides a theoretically sound and practical framework for understanding the challenges that family businesses face. Drawing on three decades of consulting with more than 250 companies, their own experience running a family-owned firm, and sound research, Eric G. Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle explain that the success of these companies hinges upon the dual management of family functionality and the company's infrastructure. They present a set of managerial tools for planning, structuring the business, measuring performance, and managing culture. After laying this groundwork, they attend to issues that uniquely pertain to these companies, such as succession and the challenges of familial dysfunction. Finally, the book offers a set of short self-assessments that can be used in any family business. Richly illustrated with stories of companies at various stages of growth from around the globe, this book provides a comprehensive guide for building businesses that thrive from generation to generation.

Author and consultant Jennifer Garvey Berger has worked with all types of leaders—from top executives at Google to nonprofit directors who are trying to make a dent in social change. She hears a version of the same plea from every client in nearly every sector around the world: "I know that complexity and uncertainty are testing my instincts, but I don't know which to trust. Is there some way to know what to do when I can't know what's next?" Her newest work is an answer to this plea. Using her background in adult development, complexity theories, and leadership consultancy, Garvey Berger discerns five pernicious and pervasive "mind traps" to frame the book. These are: the desire for simple stories, our sense that we are right, our desire to get along with others in our group, our fixation with control, and our constant quest to protect and defend our egos. In addition to understanding why these natural impulses steer us wrong in a fast-moving world, leaders will get powerful questions and approaches that help them escape these patterns.

This book places special focus on the importance of trust building, particularly in economies where formal legal arrangements are lacking. Taking the case of Africa, the author provides a framework of how indigenous institutions specify and define the rules, thereby allowing entrepreneurship to thrive. In particular, the book delves into the distinct evidence of institutional rivalry within Africa where competing institutions co-exist, leading to the emergence of dominant hybrid institutional forms. By placing enforcements at the heart of the issue, the author makes a convincing case for trust in a range of indigenous institutional arrangements. Based on an investigation of entrepreneurs operating across West Africa, the book explores how indigenous arrangements are sufficient in enforcing credible commitments to agreements. In the process, the author argues that trust is essential in stimulating entrepreneurial incentives in Africa. The book brings the real-world situation of local actors in live situations that almost every African entrepreneur can identify with. In a bold new step, the book attempts to show how African entrepreneurs have been able to respond to the specific socio-economic challenges of their environment and raises questions about the role of alternative indigenous institutions. For those interested in African studies, the book’s chapters and readings capture fresh insights and renewed enthusiasm for African entrepreneurship.

This book offers a distinctive moral defense of capitalism. Unlike most such defenses, this book avoids the summoning of concepts and ideas drawn from the modern philosophical tradition that arose out of the 17th-18th century Enlightenment. It rejects the idea of supporting capitalism on the grounds of self-ownership, human dignity, property rights, social utility, or a social contract. Confidence in the power of human reason to demonstrate any of these notions has waned since the Enlightenment, and justifiably so. Capitalism stands in desperate need of different philosophic foundations. This book's thesis is that capitalism can be more sturdily defended on a pre-modern basis. Adopting the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero as a guide, this book acknowledges the limits of human reason. It applies the ancient skepticism that Cicero represents, a school of thought that teaches us to be content with probabilities and to focus upon the practical dimensions of human existence. Philosophical inquiry is best directed to the task of identifying the means of securing both life and the good life for human beings. As such, this book stresses the overriding importance of maintaining social co-operation and advancing human excellence. It argues that capitalism satisfies both these imperatives.

Explore the true potential and impact of business automation Digital transformation of the business landscape is well underway, and businesses are being reshaped faster than ever before. Agility and adaptability are now critical components of these business' survival. But building these traits requires a holistic approach with an unrelenting focus on automation. How does one go about developing that focus? In The New Automation Mindset: The Leadership Blueprint For An Age When Anyone Can Automate Anything With AI, renowned entrepreneur and tech strategists Vijay Tella, Scott Brinker, and Massimo Pezzini deliver a guide to implementing automation in the real world, avoiding jargon and vague bromides in favor of concrete examples of the successful integration of automated technologies and descriptions of the positive results they had on the companies that deployed them. In the book, you'll also find: Hands-on advice for C-suite executives, front-line managers, and everyday employees to implement effective automation frameworks Insightful explorations of the innovation and growth advantages of automation Deep treatments of how automation is about more than just RPA—or Robotic Process Automation—and efficiency An inspiring and practical presentation of one of the most essential topics in business today, The New Automation Mindset will earn a place on the bookshelves of founders, entrepreneurs, managers, shareholders, tech enthusiasts, knowledge workers, and anyone else with an interest in digital transformation and commerce.

Turner Publishing proudly presents a fully-updated edition of The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution FINALIST, Ben Franklin Awards, Independent Book Publishers Association, Business Category The world changes continuously and rapidly. It’s foolhardy to believe that strategies should not do so as well. Nonprofit leaders already know this, but traditional strategic planning has locked them into a process that’s divorced from today’s reality. That’s why plans sit on the shelf and why smart executives are always seeking workarounds in between planning periods. The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution offers a nimble and powerful alternative. In this groundbreaking book, strategy expert David La Piana introduces “Real-Time Strategic Planning,� a fluid, organic process that engages staff and board in a program of systematic readiness and continuous responsiveness. With it, your nonprofit will be able to identify, understand, and act on challenges and opportunities as they arise. At the heart of this practical book is the Real-Time Strategic Planning Cycle. Based on four years of research and testing with a variety of nonprofits, this proven process guides you through the steps to sound strategy. You’ll find tools for clarifying your competitive advantage; generating a strategy screen—criteria for evaluating strategies to be able to respond quickly; handling big questions; developing and testing strategies; and implementing and adapting strategies. This useful guide also includes exhibits and case examples showing how concepts play out in real-life; a total of 27 tools—10 of which are essential for forming strategies; Theory to Action sidebars telling you which tool to use for a given task; and a link to downloadable content with all the tools and interactive worksheets you’ll need, as well as a Facilitator’s Guide to Real-Time Strategic Planning that gives you everything you need: the day’s agenda, instructions for preparing flip charts, prework to be done, handouts, and worksheets. Use The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution and get the clarity and direction you need for maximum mission success.

"a provocative new book" -- The New York Times AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value. Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, allow massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning--to drive ever more accurate, complex, and sophisticated predictions. When traditional operating constraints are removed, strategy becomes a whole new game, one whose rules and likely outcomes this book will make clear. Iansiti and Lakhani: Present a framework for rethinking business and operating models Explain how "collisions" between AI-driven/digital and traditional/analog firms are reshaping competition, altering the structure of our economy, and forcing traditional companies to rearchitect their operating models Explain the opportunities and risks created by digital firms Describe the new challenges and responsibilities for the leaders of both digital and traditional firms Packed with examples--including many from the most powerful and innovative global, AI-driven competitors--and based on research in hundreds of firms across many sectors, this is your essential guide for rethinking how your firm competes and operates in the era of AI.

This is the first book to explore this emergent role of the nursing profession. It examines the unique legal, regulatory and professional issues this neoteric mode of nursing practice presents. Telenursing as a subset of telehealth is defined and a review of its history, present status, and future in the U.S. health care system is discussed. Concomitant legal accountability and risk for malpractice liability are examined. Risk management strategies and survival tactics in the event of a lawsuit are presented--particularly the legal significance of, and essential need for, defensive nursing documentation. A brief overview of malpractice law is provided and the essentials of requisite malpractice insurance for the telenurse practitioner are outlined.

The book also addresses a number of other professional, regulatory, and licensure issues, particularly the contentious issue of multistate licensing and the various models to facilitate it that are being offered, and rejected, by nursing organizations and associations. The anticipated changes in our health care delivery system that will be engendered by breakthroughs in science and technology are described. The implications of such changes for patients as consumers of health care are analyzed--particularly the privacy and confidentiality of electronic medical records.

When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context--whether in the private or the public sector--many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work. Ron Heifetz first defined this problem with his distinctive theory of adaptive leadership in Leadership Without Easy Answers. In a second book, Leadership on the Line, Heifetz and coauthor Marty Linsky highlighted the individual and organizational dangers of leading through deep change in business, politics, and community life. Now, Heifetz, Linsky, and coauthor Alexander Grashow are taking the next step: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership is a hands-on, practical guide containing stories, tools, diagrams, cases, and worksheets to help you develop your skills as an adaptive leader, able to take people outside their comfort zones and assess and address the toughest challenges. The authors have decades of experience helping people and organizations create cultures of adaptive leadership. In today's rapidly changing world, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership can be your handbook to meeting the demands of leadership in the midst of complexity.

In the era of e-commerce and digitalization, new commercial patterns and opportunities are emerging. For example, in addition to traditional reselling marketing channels, manufacturers can easily open direct channels using a variety of digital marketing strategies. These new marketing channels will cause conflict and competition between manufacturers and resellers. This raises the important question of how to make optimal decisions for multiple players in dual-channel supply chain contexts. Within changing and uncertain operation environments, business enterprises must face tougher challenges than before to survive in competitive markets. This book aims to address representative decision-making problems in dual-channel supply chains with risk-averse channel members. The most recently developed risk assessment technique, Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR), will be adopted as the predominant criterion to measure the risk-averse attitude. Based on game theory, important issues such as channel selection, pricing, order quantity, manufacturer encroachment, greening strategy, consumer return policies, financing strategies, channel coordination, contract design, information asymmetry, and capacity constraint will be modeled and analyzed. This book will help readers better understand operations management in dual-channel supply chain contexts with risk-averse behaviors, and will also provide effective techniques and tools for researchers and offer managerial insights for practitioners.

Robotic Process Automation will continue its exponential growth over the next five years. With more than 54 vendors, different kinds of tools, generic applicability and as a cognitive and AI platform, RPA has fast become an opportunity that is too good to miss. So, how do you leverage the massive potential business value? Based on four years of research into over 420 business deployments, this book identifies the distinctive leading practices of front-runners, and a Total Value of Ownership (TVO) framework to drive out value across the RPA life-cycle. This book brings a new focus on RPA's strategic potential: the innovations made possible and how to deliver through effective sourcing stakeholder-buy-in, governance, change management, and capability development practices. RPA as a platform, linking with cognitive and AI technologies as part of digital transformation is highlighted. The central messages - think and behave strategically, start right, institutionalize fast, and innovate continuously - are demonstrated, with multiple client experiences, trials and lessons. From dealing with old world process and IT challenges, RPA is now being applied towards building the new digital world and becoming strategic in its application. * Based on extensive new research by world renowned authors * Comprehensive market overview * A systematic set of action principles across the RPA life-cycle * Challenges, and where value is being left on the table * A focus on metrics and Total Value of Ownership * Multiple client case studies * RPA as a foundation for cognitive and AI

Ditch the Doom and Gloom, and take a break with Why Are You Laughing? Here is an accumulation of anecdotes from the extensive career of Jim Knaus, nationally renowned financial planning expert. All stories are true, allegedly humorous and utterly memorable. Here are some reactions from prominent professionals: "What Was I Thinking?" is a phrase we've all used many times - but Jim Knaus' book, Why Are You Laughing? puts a new spin on it - and shows that Life doesn't always work that way; it's not always thinking that makes the difference; it's what we do - and how we do it - and whom we do it with - that counts. Jim's book will make you smile at all the silly pranks and things you wish you'd dreamed up yourself - or done --- Stephan R. Leimberg, JD, AEP Just when we need it most, Jim Knaus has tapped his vast arsenal of experience to share pithy observations packed with wit and wisdom. His eye for the absurd and his storytelling prowess make for a spicy, mood-lifting read that reminds us all not to take life's fumbles and foibles too seriously. What else would you expect from a man who's chosen "Light My Fire" as the theme song for his eventual cremation? But Jim's also an irrepressible teacher -- and a good one -- so underlying the lighthearted laughs are sage lessons every professional should keep in mind, through good times and bad. --- Melissa Preddy, financial journalist & former personal finance editor for The Detroit News It's amazing that Jim Knaus has been able to get away with all of this for so long. We're better off though, now that he has recorded all this lunacy for our enjoyment. --- Terry R. Altman, CLU, ChFC, CFP

Think of the toughest problems in your organization or community. What if they'd already been solved and you didn't even know it? In The Power of Positive Deviance, the authors present a counterintuitive new approach to problem-solving. Their advice? Leverage positive deviants--the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change. With vivid, firsthand stories of how positive deviance has alleviated some of the world's toughest problems (malnutrition in Vietnam, staph infections in hospitals), the authors illuminate its core practices, including: * Mobilizing communities to discover "invisible" solutions in their midst * Using innovative designs to "act" your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting * Confounding the organizational "immune response" seeking to sustain the status quo Inspiring and insightful, The Power of Positive Deviance unveils a potent new way to tackle the thorniest challenges in your own company and community.

Think tanks and research organizations set out to influence policy ideas and decisions--a goal that is key to the very fabric of these organizations. And yet, the ways that they actually achieve impact or measure progress along these lines remains fuzzy and underexplored. "What Should Think Tanks Do? A Strategic Guide for Policy Impact" is the first practical guide that is specifically tailored to think tanks, policy research, and advocacy organizations. Author Andrew Selee draws on extensive interviews with members of leading think tanks, as well as cutting-edge thinking in business and non-profit management, to provide concrete strategies for setting policy-oriented goals and shaping public opinion. Concise and practically-minded, "What Should Think Tanks Do?" helps those with an interest in think tanks to envision a well-oiled machine, while giving leaders in these organizations tools and tangible metrics to drive and evaluate success.

A radical vision for a better future: an economy that works for us, rather than the other way around. As this major German bestseller reports, our world is at a tipping point, and we feel it every day. Costs are rising, the gap between the rich and poor is increasing, natural resources are depleted, and the effects of climate change are starting to take hold. We are under increasing social and environmental stress. But, as leading economist Maja Göpel argues here, there is another path forward. She invites us to imagine what we want our future to look like, and offers solutions that will help us to get there. It’s time to question our principles, set new goals, and re-evaluate our priorities. Time to rethink our world and find new ways of living that don’t drain our planet any further. We need a fair distribution of wealth, and a way to reconcile the social with the ecological. We need to work smarter, not harder. Critical, yet full of encouragement, Maja Göpel chooses surprising and enlightening examples to illustrate how we can leave behind our familiar ways of living to achieve a better future.

Optimization is the act of obtaining the "best" result under given circumstances. In design, construction, and maintenance of any engineering system, engineers must make technological and managerial decisions to minimize either the effort or cost required or to maximize benefits. There is no single method available for solving all optimization problems efficiently. Several optimization methods have been developed for different types of problems. The optimum-seeking methods are mathematical programming techniques (specifically, nonlinear programming techniques). Nonlinear Optimization: Models and Applications presents the concepts in several ways to foster understanding. Geometric interpretation: is used to re-enforce the concepts and to foster understanding of the mathematical procedures. The student sees that many problems can be analyzed, and approximate solutions found before analytical solutions techniques are applied. Numerical approximations: early on, the student is exposed to numerical techniques. These numerical procedures are algorithmic and iterative. Worksheets are provided in Excel, MATLAB(R), and Maple(TM) to facilitate the procedure. Algorithms: all algorithms are provided with a step-by-step format. Examples follow the summary to illustrate its use and application. Nonlinear Optimization: Models and Applications: Emphasizes process and interpretation throughout Presents a general classification of optimization problems Addresses situations that lead to models illustrating many types of optimization problems Emphasizes model formulations Addresses a special class of problems that can be solved using only elementary calculus Emphasizes model solution and model sensitivity analysis About the author: William P. Fox is an emeritus professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. He received his Ph.D. at Clemson University and has taught at the United States Military Academy and at Francis Marion University where he was the chair of mathematics. He has written many publications, including over 20 books and over 150 journal articles. Currently, he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Mathematics at the College of William and Mary. He is the emeritus director of both the High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling and the Mathematical Contest in Modeling.