A Pathway to Profit is more than a management book; it is also a primer giving a behind-the-scenes picture of developing a culture linking people and profit. The authors' step-by-step pathway provides a strategic overview, describes a recommended architecture on which to build an organization's culture, and presents a plan for developing leaders to ensure associate participation in achieving results. This management philosophy guides for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations; it works with different ages and diverse backgrounds; in fact, it works for any team with a leader. Sharing actual experiences to illustrate each step, the authors take their own advice and offer wisdom that seems to come from an old friend.

__________________________ The definitive book on the Scrum methodology from its co-creator and the CEO of Scrum, Inc., Jeff Sutherland. Scrum is the revolutionary approach to project management and team building that has helped to transform everything from software companies to the US military to healthcare in major American hospitals. In this major new book its originator, Jeff Sutherland, explains precisely and step by step how it operates - and how it can be made to work for anyone, anywhere. Take the FBI attempt to digitize its records, for example. As with so many software projects the first attempt failed, having taken four years and cost over $400 million.Then the FBI turned to Scrum, and just over a year later unveiled a functioning system that cost less than a tenth of the first project and employed a tenth of the staff. And it's not just grand projects that Scrum can help with. Every organisation, whatever its size, constantly has to come to grips with delivering a product or service on time and on budget. Scrum shows you how. It explains how to define precisely what it is that you are seeking to achieve, how to set up the team to achieve it, and how to monitor progress until the project is successfully completed. Filled with practical examples drawn from all types and organisation it will make you rethink the fundamentals of successful management - and show you how to get things done however everyday or ambitious, however small or large your organisation. __________________________ 'Full of engaging stories and real-world examples. The project management method known as Scrum may be the most widely deployed productivity tool among high-tech companies. On a mission to put this tool into the hands of the broader business world for the first time, Jeff Sutherland succeeds brilliantly.' - ERIC RIES, New York Times bestselling author of THE LEAN STARTUP 'Engaging, persuasive and extremely practical... Scrum provides a simple framework for solving what seem like intractable and complicated work problems. Amazingly, this book will not only make your life at work and home easier, but also, better and happier.' - SHAWN ACHOR, New York Times bestselling author of BEFORE HAPPINESS and THE HAPPINESS ADVANTAGE 'Scrum is mandatory reading for any leader, whether they're leading troops on the battlefield or in the marketplace. The challenges of today's world don't permit the luxury of slow, inefficient work. Success requires tremendous speed, enormous productivity, and an unwavering commitment to achieving results. In other words, success requires Scrum.' - U.S. General BARRY McCAFFREY 'Jeff Sutherland is the master of creating high-performing teams. The subtitle of this book understates Scrum's impact. If you don't get three times the results in one-third the time, you aren't doing it right!' - SCOTT MAXWELL, Founder & Senior Managing Director, OpenView Venture Partners 'This deceptively simple system is the most powerful way I've seen to improve the effectiveness of any team. I started using it with my business and family halfway through reading the book. - LEO BABAUTA, creator of ZEN HABITS '[Scrum] dramatically increases productivity while reducing employees' frustrations with the typical corporate nonsense. This book is the best description I've seen of how this process can work across many industries. Senior leaders should not just read the book - they should do what Sutherland recommends.' - PROFESSOR JEFFREY PFEFFER, Stanford Business School; co-author of THE KNOWING-DOING GAP

Soft skills have become a game-changing competence in the modern world of work, which demands socially adept, professional leaders who are able to contribute and add value to multiple facets of an organisation. When people understand and learn to control their own behaviour, thoughts, feelings, attitudes and motives, it gives them a definite strategic advantage, both in the workplace and in society. Developing soft skills for success: a guide for modern professionals provides a foundation for cultivating excellence in emerging leaders.

Developing soft skills for success: a guide for modern professionals offers fresh, current and applicable content from a southern African perspective. It includes a range of real-life examples, scenarios and case studies as well as practical group and individual exercises to facilitate learning in an interactive, challenging and fun way.

Developing soft skills for success: a guide for modern professionals is aimed at students in higher education as well as practising professionals and managers.

LEARN THE TECHNIQUES YOU NEED TO STOP PROCRASTINATING AND START GETTING THINGS DONE Every day we begin new projects, or try to find pleasure in the ones we're working on - and above all, we hope one day we'll finish them! But in a disjointed, distracting world it's often hard to find the motivation and focus necessary. This compact book brings together 41 of the best productivity models. From world-famous techniques to the best-kept secrets of the professionals, this book is full of big ideas that actually work - distilled to their essence. You'll find out how to achieve deep work, compartmentalise tasks and identify your priorities - as well as how to build confidence, find your circle of competence and even learn to work with difficult people. Stylish and compact, this little book is a powerful asset. Whether you need to pull off a new project, assess what you've achieved so far, or even just understand your own working habits, this unique book has all the tools you need.

Ever since Sutherland coined the term 'white-collar crime', researchers have struggled to understand and explain why some individuals abuse their privileged positions of trust and commit financial crime. This book makes a novel contribution to the development of convenience theory as a framework to understand and explain 'white-collar crime'. The framework integrates well-known theories from criminology, management and other fields to explain the occurrence of offenses. It is found that autobiographies indicate a strong presence of neutralization techniques in the behavioral dimension of convenience theory, while internal investigations indicate a strong presence of organizational opportunities to commit 'white-collar crime'. Survey research, on the other hand, is found to indicate a strong belief that chief executives sometimes have the motive to commit financial crime in times of crisis, in times of great challenges, and in times of greed. The book concludes that the only feasible avenue to combat this type of crime is to make it less convenient. This book will appeal to criminology and criminal justice students at both bachelor and master levels, as well as those studying business and law. Practitioners, including consultants in global auditing firms, attorneys and police academy students will also benefit from the overview of convenience theory research.

Skills are frequently in the news and in the public eye in every country. Stories highlight concerns about education and literacy standards, grades, learning by rote, and university students being unprepared for work, as well as debates surrounding internships and apprenticeships, and social exclusion through skills policy. The recent financial crisis has forced education and training to take a back seat, and has caused an increase in youth unemployment. Skill and skilled work are widely considered important for promoting both prosperity and social justice. But how do we define skill? Skills and Skilled Work brings together multiple perspectives- economics, sociology, management, psychology, and political science- to present an original framework for understanding skills, skilled work, and surrounding policies. Focussing on common themes across countries, it establishes the concept and measurement of skill, and investigates the role of employers, workers, and other social actors. It considers a variety of skill problems and how a social response from the government can be understood. Based on the findings of economics, management science, and theories of social determination, it develops a rationale for social intervention beyond market failure. This book weighs up both the prospects and the limitations of what can be achieved for societies with a better emphasis on skills and skilled work, and it promotes the study of skill in modern economies as a distinct sub-field.

Perfect Phrases for the Right Situation, Every Time

Whether it's hiring employees or creating teams, the Perfect Phrases series has the tools for precise, effective communication in any situation. With Perfect Phrases books, you have all the phrases you need to get things done, right at your fingertips!

How well do governments do in converting the resources they take from us, like taxes, into services that improve the well-being of individuals, groups, and society as a whole? In other words: how well do they perform?
This question has become increasingly prominent in public debates over the past couple of decades, especially in the developed world but also in developing countries. As the state has grown during the second half of the 20th century, so pressures to justify its role in producing public services have also increased. Governments across the world have implemented all sorts of policies aimed at improving performance.
But how much do we know about what actually improves performance of public organisations and services? On what theories, explicit or more often implicit, are these policies based? The answer is: too much and too little. There are dozens of theories, models, assumptions, and prescriptions about 'what works' in improving performance. But there's been very little attempt to 'join up' theories about performance and make some sense of the evidence we have within a coherent theoretical framework.
This ground-breaking book sets out to begin to fill this gap by creatively synthesising the various fragments and insights about performance into a framework for systematically exploring and understanding how public sector performance is shaped. It focuses on three key aspects: the external 'performance regime' that drives performance of public agencies; the multiple dimensions that drive performance from within; and the competing public values that frame both of these and shape what public expects from public services.

The vast amount of information that must be considered to solve inherently ill-structured and complex strategic problems creates a need for tools and techniques to help decision-makers recognize the complexity of this process and develop a rational model for strategy evaluation. Decision Making Theories and Practices from Analysis to Strategy is a definitive focus on analytical strategic decision-making. This work is comprised of sophisticated tools and methodologies developed by researchers and vendors to improve decision making for business strategy. Extracting from a wide range of disciplines, including accounting, finance, information systems, international management, marketing, organizational management, operations research, production and operations management, and strategic management, this volume provides a conceptual and a utilitarian guide to decision making, perfect for both researchers and practicing professionals alike.

Deanships in the world are often OTJ (On the job training) positions. Prior to this series, there was very little about this specific position and how to be innovative and successful on the job. This book is the second in the series of Management for Deans and includes advanced techniques employed by deans around the world to manage their boards, planning, donors, and careers. If you've been a dean or are considering this position, the series Management for Deans and Advanced Management for Deans will introduce you to the position and offer you many ideas from experienced deans around the world that can accelerate your success and help you avoid the pitfalls of OTJ.

Given the breadth in the conflict and conflict management literatures, there have been few if any compilations that offered good coverage and quality depth, until now. This work provides both a good and timely review as well as insightful integration and extension of existing conflict research. As we would expect from these authors, the writing is good throughout and the chapters are well-organized, focused and concise. This is good reading that is sure to become a staple for conflict researchers.' - Allen C. Amason, Dean, College of Business Administration, Georgia Southern University, US'The Handbook of Conflict Management Research is an important integration of the research literature that has blossomed over the last couple of decades. This volume of spectacular pieces of work will be a critical addition to the library of any serious scholar of conflict.' - Max H. Bazerman, Harvard Kennedy School, US Managing conflict in the workplace is one of the major challenges facing the leaders and managers of modern organizations. This comprehensive Handbook draws together current thoughts and research in conflict management. Specifically, it brings a wealth of knowledge from authorities in the field on emerging issues such as power in conflict, cognition and emotions in conflict, leading conflict from multiple perspectives and cultural orientations, the role of context in conflict and the teaching of conflict management. By enhancing the knowledge base around conflict and conflict management, this Handbook provides guidance to improve human interactions at the individual, dyad, team, organizational and societal levels. Altogether, the Handbook provides a crucial avenue for researchers and practitioners continued engagement in conflict research and management theory. Contributors: N.M. Ashkanasy, O.B. Ayoko, B. Barry, J. Bear, K. Behfar, C. Bendersky, J. Brett, K. Bollen, J. Brett, E.R. Burris, R.R. Callister, N. Chen Yi-feng, D. Conlon, R.E. de Vries, F.R.C. De Wit, S. Einarsen, M. Euwema, A.J. Ferguson, C.M. Fisher, M.J Gelfand, D.E. Gibson, E. Giebels, B. Gray, L.L. Greer, E.Hall, K. Hamilton, J.R. Harrington, A.C. Homan, K.A. Jehn, P.J. Jordan, A.A. Kane, S-H Kim, M.A. Korsgaard, L.M. Leslie, R.J. Lewicki, E.L. Lingo, B.J. Lucas, K.L. McGinn, S. Mohammed, M. Muchiri, P.C. Patel, R.S. Peterson, R.L. Pinkley, R.E. Ployhart, J.T. Polzer, R.A. Posthuma, M. Redeker, E.M. Rehel, F.A. Rink, S. Rispens, J. Sanchez-Burks, P. Satterstrom, J.E. Sawyer, D. Scheepers, M. Schweitzer, D.L. Shapiro, S-I. Shih, J. S. Tan, R. Tesler, D. Tjosvold, S.M.B. Thatcher, L.L. Thompson, G. Todorova, A.C. Troth, E.G. Ufkes, M. Ulrich, K.J.P.M. van Erp, R. Volkema, R. Wei, L.R. Weingart, K.M. Westerlaken, A. Wong