This book is about meetings and providing a new perspective from behavioural economics called nudging to make meetings more productive and enjoyable. Nudging hacks into the fast, automatic, subconscious system in human reasoning to breed success in every get-together. Once you know the foundations of focus, orientation, involvement, and commitment, the advantages of nudging are evident. The authors provide an explanation of nudge theory and 6 principles of how nudging affects our behavior. Examples from the actions and choices of the Dalai Lama, Ray Dalio, and Barack Obama demonstrate how nudging can make a difference. Based on theory, the book also gives 100 very practical nudges to improve meeting productivity that can be used by any meeting leader or participant.

This Element discusses the concept and applications of strategy tools. Strategy tools are frameworks, techniques, and methods that help individuals and organizations to create their strategies. After a brief overview of different ideas on strategy and strategic thinking, we move on to define and discuss what strategy tools are and elaborate on the promise and perils of using them to implement strategic management. We review the most commonly used, classic tools and techniques, but also less well-known tools of the strategy trade, as proposed by scholars writing in the leading strategy journals. We conclude by offering suggestions on how to improve strategic design and the effectiveness of the resultant strategy through the selective use of the most appropriate tools. Overall, this Element provides a quick overview of the tools that are available to those tasked with creating organizational strategies and making strategic decisions.

The best leaders are born, not made. The best leaders are always in control. The best leaders are those with the highest IQs. But are they really? The thinking about what makes the greatest leaders is increasingly muddled by stereotypes, false promises and pseudo-science. The best leaders rely on fact, not fads. Myths of Leadership blasts away the fluff and confronts false legends head on. Jo Owen uses the most credible research to analyze each myth, using international business case studies, leadership theory and insightful interviews, to uncover the truth. This is a compelling examination of the most pervasive misconceptions about leadership that will help you elevate your own leadership abilities, better inspire your team and empower your organization by thinking differently. Entertaining and accessible Myths of Leadership throws out the management jargon and skewers over-hyped leadership trends to bring you the best practical tips you need to become a better leader. About the Business Myths series... The Business Myths series tackles the falsehoods that pervade the business world. From leadership and management to social media, strategy and the workplace, these accessible books overturn out-of-date assumptions, skewer stereotypes and put oft-repeated slogans to the test. Entertaining and rigorously researched, these books will equip you with the insight and no-nonsense wisdom you need to succeed.

The essence of any root cause analysis in our modern quality thinking is to go beyond the actual problem. This means not only do we have to fix the problem at hand but we also have to identify why the failure occurred and what was the opportunity to apply the appropriate knowledge to avoid the problem in the future. Essential Statistical Concepts for the Quality Professional offers a new non-technical statistical approach to quality for effective improvement and productivity by focusing on very specific and fundamental methodologies and tools for the future. Written by an expert with more than 30 years of experience in management, quality training, and consulting, the book examines the fundamentals of statistical understanding, and by doing so demonstrates the importance of using statistics in the decision making process. The author points out pitfalls to keep in mind when undertaking an experiment for improvement and explains how to use statistics in improvement endeavors. He discusses data interpretation, common tests and confidence intervals, and how to plan experiments for improvement. The book expands the notion of experimentation by dealing with mathematical models such as regression to optimize the improvement and understand the relationship between several factors. It emphasizes the need for sampling and introduces specific techniques to make sure accuracy and precision of the data is appropriate and applicable for the study at hand. The author's approach is somewhat new and unique; however, he details tools and methodologies that can be used to evaluate the system for prevention. These tools and methodologies focus on structured, repeatable processes that can be instrumental in finding real, fixable causes of the human errors and equipment failures that lead to quality issues.

For undergraduate and graduate level courses that combines introductory statistics with data analysis or decision modeling. A pragmatic approach to statistics, data analysis and decision modeling. Statistics, Data Analysis & Decision Modeling focuses on the practical understanding of its topics, allowing readers to develop conceptual insight on fundamental techniques and theories. Evans' dedication to present material in a simple and straightforward fashion is ideal for student comprehension.

This book offers a fast track route to mastering business decision making. It covers the key areas of decision making, from decision support systems and global templates to contemplation and implementation. It contains examples and lessons from some of the world's most successful businesses, including Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, The Valio Group, Best Buy, and Scandic Hotels, and ideas from the smartest thinkers, including Mary Altomare, Mike Aristedes, David L. Cooperrider, Andre L. Delbecq, J. D. Eveland, Brian Hsieh, Don Mankin, Paul Nutt, Daniel Power, and Morris Raker. It also includes a glossary of key concepts and a comprehensive resources guide.

Even the best-run companies can get blindsided by disasters they should have anticipated. These predictable surprises range from financial scandals to operational disruptions, from organizational upheavals to product failures. In "Predictable Surprises", Max H. Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins show you how to minimize your risk by understanding and lowering the psychological, organizational, and political barriers preventing you from foreseeing calamity. They then describe the powerful tools - including incentives and formal coalitions - that business leaders can use to ferret out and fend off threats invisible to insiders. Failure see what's coming exposes your company to predictable surprises. Given the stakes involved, this book should count among every business leader's most trusted resources.

****The Power of Purpose has been officially shortlisted in the 'Thought Leader' category for The Business Book Awards 2018, as announced on 17th January 2018.****

In a world where volatility is the new norm and change is a constant, the individuals and organisations that are flourishing are those with a clear sense of purpose based on authentic ethical values.

Purpose is the secret ingredient - with purpose you have the key to exceptional performance, greater wellbeing and clarity in a VUCA world. But how do you find such purpose and ensure it propels your business forward?

The Power of Purpose shares a simple 6-step framework you too can identify, clarify and shape your business purpose. You’ll gain a competitive advantage and boost your bottom line, but the benefits are not just commercial – you’ll also inspire a new generation of employees, foster innovation, simplify decisions and build customer and brand loyalty.

Based on qualitative interviews with well-established and emerging leaders on how they bring ethical purpose in business to life, as well as sharing the results from a questionnaire with purpose-led businesses you’ll find a step-by-step approach for applying purpose to simplify complexity, harness a purpose-powered workforce and create customer loyalty.

How can purpose provide clarity? How can it accelerate success? How can it build a long term sustainable business?

The Power of Purpose is your secret ingredient.

Do you want to have great ideas? Do you want to break out of the rut of conventional thinking? Would you like to be a genius? Would presenting brilliant ideas help in your job, career and social life? How to be a Brilliant Thinker will help you to achieve all these ideals, by helping you to think in powerful new ways. It shows you how to harness techniques in lateral thinking, analytical thinking, problem analysis, idea generation and other areas so that you become much more creative. You will be able to conceive, evaluate and implement great ideas as well as improve your memory, sell your ideas and win arguments. It is packed with practical methods that you can put to immediate use, backed up by exercises, puzzles, quizzes, graphics and illustrations.

A consultant friend worked for an international corporation. For the first three years he worked very hard, introducing lean production techniques into the business. This meant introducing measurement systems, benchmarking methodologies and eliminating waste in many forms through involvement and empowerment. He also made recommendations that led to new information systems whose implementation he led. The arrival of the interest in the learning organization allowed him to integrate everything he had laboured over into a coherent whole. When the knowledge revolution began to grow, he was convinced that what he had been doing had been part of that revolution. But one day, after three years of hard work across the corporation's plants around the world, he was allowed a glimpse of the real business knowledge that drove the organization. And to his initial sense of disbelief, this 'real' knowledge had nothing to do with efficiency, utilization or the involvement of large numbers of people. This 'real' knowledge turned out to be about knowing when to get into a market, when to get out; how to create value in that market and manage its decline. This knowledge was shared between three key individuals and by being allowed to see it, my friend was being invited to participate in a very privileged game. The question he kept asking himself, was: how could he have missed the real knowledge for so long? How could he have confused what turned out to be minor tactics with a strategy?
Victor Newman
(Excerpt from The Knowledge Activist's Handbook)

NEW from the bestselling HBR's 10 Must Reads series. Learn why bad decisions happen to good managers--and how to make better ones. If you read nothing else on decision making, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps. Leading experts such as Ram Charan, Michael Mankins, and Thomas Davenport provide the insights and advice you need to: * Make bold decisions that challenge the status quo * Support your decisions with diverse data * Evaluate risks and benefits with equal rigor * Check for faulty cause-and-effect reasoning * Test your decisions with experiments * Foster and address constructive criticism * Defeat indecisiveness with clear accountability Looking for more Must Read articles from Harvard Business Review? Check out these titles in the popular series: HBR's 10 Must Reads: The Essentials HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication HBR's 10 Must Reads on Collaboration HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing HBR's 10 Must Reads on Teams

This graduate-level textbook covers modelling, programming and analysis of stochastic computer simulation experiments, including the mathematical and statistical foundations of simulation and why it works. The book is rigorous and complete, but concise and accessible, providing all necessary background material. Object-oriented programming of simulations is illustrated in Python, while the majority of the book is programming language independent. In addition to covering the foundations of simulation and simulation programming for applications, the text prepares readers to use simulation in their research. A solutions manual for end-of-chapter exercises is available for instructors.

This book discusses an emerging area in computer science, IT and management, i.e., decision sciences and management. It includes studies that employ various computing techniques like machine learning to generate insights from huge amounts of available data; and which explore decision-making for cross-platforms that contain heterogeneous data associated with complex assets; leadership; and team coordination. It also reveals the advantages of using decision sciences with management-oriented problems. The book includes a selection of the best papers presented at the International Conference on Decision Science and Management 2018 (ICDSM 2018), held at the Interscience Institute of Management and Technology (IIMT), Bhubaneswar, India.

Today's most successful companies are "Intelligent Companies" that use the best available data to inform their decision making. This is called Evidence-Based Management and is one of the fastest growing business trends of our times. "Intelligent Companies" bring together tools such as Business Intelligence, Analytics, Key Performance Indicators, Balanced Scorecards, Management Reporting and Strategic Decision Making to generate real competitive advantages.

As information and data volumes grow at explosive rates, the challenges of managing this information is turning into a losing battle for most companies and they end up drowning in data while thirsting for insights. This is made worse by the severe skills shortage in analytics, data presentation and communication.

This latest book by best-selling management expert Bernard Marr, will equip you with a set of powerful skills that are vital for successful managers now and in the future. Increase your market value by gaining essential skills that are in high demand but in short supply.

Loaded with practical step-by-step guidance, simple tools and real life examples of how leading organizations such as Google, CocaCola, Capital One, Saatchi & Saatchi, Tesco, Yahoo, as well as Government Departments and Agencies have put the principles into practice.

The five steps to more intelligent decision making are: Step 1: More intelligent strategies - by identifying strategic priorities and agreeing your real information needsStep 2: More intelligent data - by creating relevant and meaningful performance indicators and qualitative management information liked back to your strategic information needsStep 3: More intelligent insights - by using good evidence to test and prove ideas and by analysing the data to gain robust and reliable insightsStep 4: More intelligent communication - by creating informative and engaging management information packs and dashboards that provide the essential information, packaged in an easy-to-read wayStep 5: More intelligent decision making - by fostering an evidence-based culture of turning information into actionable knowledge and real decisions

"Bernard Marr did it again This outstanding and practical book will help your company become more intelligent and more successful. Marr takes the fields of business-intelligence, analytics and scorecarding to bring them together into a powerful and easy-to-follow 5-step framework. The Intelligent Company is THE must-read book of our times."
--Bruno Aziza, Co-author of best-selling book "Drive Business Performance" and "Worldwide Strategy Lead, Microsoft Business Intelligence"

"Book after book Bernard Marr is redefining the fundamentals of good business management. 'The Intelligent Company' is a must read in these changing times and a reference you will want on your desk every day "
--Gabriel Bellenger, Accenture Strategy

This long-awaited textbook provides a unified perspective of a rich and varied field. Using a set of illustrative examples, Decision Sciences synthesizes current research about different types of decision making, including individual, group, organizational, and societal. Special attention is given to the linkage between problem finding and problem solving. The principal message emerging from the book is that decision making entails a complex set of processes that need to be understood in order to develop sound prescriptions or policy advice.

Numerical methods for the solution of financial instrument pricing equations are fast becoming essential for practitioners of modern quantitative finance. Among the most promising of these new computational finance techniques is the finite difference method–yet, to date, no single resource has presented a quality, comprehensive overview of this revolutionary quantitative approach to risk management.

Pricing Financial Instruments, researched and written by Domingo Tavella and Curt Randall, two of the chief proponents of the finite difference method, presents a logical framework for applying the method of finite difference to the pricing of financial derivatives. Detailing the algorithmic and numerical procedures that are the foundation of both modern mathematical finance and the creation of financial products–while purposely keeping mathematical complexity to a minimum–this long-awaited book demonstrates how the techniques described can be used to accurately price simple and complex derivative structures.

From a summary of stochastic pricing processes and arbitrage pricing arguments, through the analysis of numerical schemes and the implications of discretization–and ending with case studies that are simple yet detailed enough to demonstrate the capabilities of the methodology– Pricing Financial Instruments explores areas that include:

• Pricing equations and the relationship be-tween European and American derivatives
• Detailed analyses of different stability analysis approaches
• Continuous and discrete sampling models for path dependent options
• One-dimensional and multi-dimensional coordinate transformations
• Numerical examples of barrier options, Asian options, forward swaps, and more

With an emphasis on how numerical solutions work and how the approximations involved affect the accuracy of the solutions, Pricing Financial Instruments takes us through doors opened wide by Black, Scholes, and Merton–and the arbitrage pricing principles they introduced in the early 1970s–to provide a step-by-step outline for sensibly interpreting the output of standard numerical schemes. It covers the understanding and application of today’s finite difference method, and takes the reader to the next level of pricing financial instruments and managing financial risk.

Praise for Pricing Financial Instruments

"Pricing Financial Instruments is the first broad and accessible treatment of finite difference methods for pricing derivative securities. The authors have taken great care to clearly explain both the origins of the pricing problems in a financial setting, as well as many practical aspects of their numerical methods. The book covers a wide variety of applications, such as American options and credit derivatives. Both financial analysts and academic asset-pricing specialists will want to own a copy."–Darrell Duffie, Professor of Finance Stanford University

"In my experience, finite difference methods have proven to be a simple yet powerful tool for numerically solving the evolutionary PDEs that arise in modern mathematical finance. This book should finally dispel the widely held notion that these methods are somehow difficult or abstract. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the implementation of these methods in the financial arena."–Peter Carr, Principal Bank of America Securities

"A very comprehensive treatment of the application of finite difference techniques to derivatives finance. Practitioners will find the many extensive examples very valuable and students will appreciate the rigorous attention paid to the many subtleties of finite difference techniques."–Francis Longstaff, Professor The Anderson School at UCLA

"The finite difference approach is central to the numerical pricing of financial securities. This book gives a clear and succinct introduction to this important subject. Highly recommended."–Mark Broadie, Associate Professor School of Business, Columbia University

For updates on new and bestselling Wiley Finance books: wiley.com/wbns

Named #1 Best Business Book of 2011, by Patriot-News-PennLive.com If you have ever flown in an airplane, used electricity from a nuclear power plant, or taken an antibiotic, you have benefited from a brilliant mistake. Each of these life-changing innovations was the result of many missteps and an occasional brilliant insight that turned a mistake into a surprising portal of discovery. In Brilliant Mistakes, Paul Schoemaker, founder and chairman of Decision Strategies International, shares critical insights on the surprising benefits of making well-chosen mistakes. Brilliant Mistakes explores why minimizing mistakes may be the greatest mistake of all, situations when mistakes are most beneficial and when they should be avoided, the counter-intuitive idea that we should deliberately permit errors at times, and how to make the most of brilliant mistakes to improve business results. Brilliant Mistakes is based on solid academic research and insights from Schoemaker's work with more than 100 organizations, as well as his provocative Harvard Business Review article with Robert Gunther, "The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes." Schoemaker provides a practical roadmap for using mistakes to accelerate learning for your organization and yourself.

Strategy is an essential part of business, but strategizing often gets ignored or left behind. In this exciting new work, Eric J. Bolland introduces strategizing as a key component of strategy development and execution, showing strategizing as a way to aid organizations with their futures. To strategize successfully, businesses need a set of well-developed tools to help them perform specific actions continuously. Starting by tracing the origin and evolution of strategy and strategic planning, this exciting new guide puts forward advice on how to put strategy research into strategizing practice. In detailed chapters, Bolland addresses how strategizing works, with twenty real-world cases to show how theory can become reality, citing art, history, literature, science, psychology and philosophy to explore the human impulse to strategize. A valuable accompaniment for business students of strategy, as well as a practical handbook for staff and mid- and upper-level managers, this book is an essential read for anyone seeking guidance about planning the futures of their organizations.

1. Introduction to Bayesian Methods in Reliability.- 1. Why Bayesian Methods?.- 1.1 Sparse data.- 1.2 Decision problems.- 2. Bayes' Theorem.- 3. Examples from a Safety Study on Gas transmission Pipelines.- 3.1 Estimating the probability of the development of a big hole.- 3.2 Estimating the leak rate of a gas transmission pipeline.- 4. Conclusions.- References.- 2. An Overview of the Bayesian Approach.- 1. Background.- 2. Probability Concepts.- 3. Notation.- 4. Reliability Concepts and Models.- 5. Forms of Data.- 6. Statistical Problems.- 7. Review of Non-Bayesian Statistical Methods.- 8. Desiderata for Decision-Oriented Statistical Methodology.- 9. Decision-Making.- 10. Degrees of Belief as Probabilities.- 11. Bayesian Statistical Philosophy.- 12. A Simple Illustration of Bayesian Learning.- 13. Bayesian Approaches to Typical Statistical Questions.- 14. Assessment of Prior Densities.- 15. Bayesian Inference for some Univariate Probability Models.- 16. Approximate Analysis under Great Prior Uncertainty.- 17. Problems Involving many Parameters: Empirical Bayes.- 18. Numerical Methods for Practical Bayesian Statistics.- References.- 3. Reliability Modelling and Estimation.- 1. Non-Repairable Systems.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Describing reliability.- 1.3 Failure time distributions.- 2. Estimation.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Classical methods.- 2.3 Bayesian methods.- 3. Reliability estimation.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Binomial sampling.- 3.3 Pascal sampling.- 3.4 Poisson sampling.- 3.5 Hazard rate estimation.- References.- 4. Repairable Systems and Growth Models.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Good as New: the Renewal Process.- 3. Estimation.- 4. The Poisson Process.- 5. Bad as old: the Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process.- 6. Classical Estimation.- 7. Exploratory Analysis.- 8. The Duane Model.- 9. Bayesian Analysis.- References.- 5. The Use of Expert Judgement in Risk Assessment.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Independence Preservation.- 3. The Quality of Experts' Judgement.- 4. Calibration Sets and Seed Variables.- 5. A Classical Model.- 6. Bayesian Models.- 7. Some Experimental Results.- References.- 6. Forecasting Software Reliability.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Software Reliability Growth Problem.- 3. Some Software Reliability Growth Models.- 3.1 Jelinski and Moranda (JM).- 3.2 Bayesian Jelinski-Moranda (BJM).- 3.3 Littlewood (L).- 3.4 Littlewood and Verrall (LV).- 3.5 Keiller and Littlewood (KL).- 3.6 Weibull order statistics (W).- 3.7 Duane (D).- 3.8 Goel-Okumoto (GO).- 3.9 Littlewood NHPP (LNHPP).- 4. Examples of Use.- 5. Analysis of Predictive Quality.- 5.1 The u-plot.- 5.2 The y-plot, and scatter plot of u's.- 5.3 Measures of 'noise'.- 5.3.1 Braun statistic.- 5.3.2 Median variability.- 5.3.3 Rate variability.- 5.4 Prequential likelihood.- 6. Examples of Predictive Analysis.- 7. Adapting and Combining Predictions; Future Directions.- 8 Summary and Conclusions.- Acknowledgements.- References.- References.- Author index.