Drawing on knowledge from process improvement, organisation theory, human resource management, change management, occupational health and safety, and other fields, the book is a practical, easy-to-read guide to problem solving. Illustrated with a series of short case studies, this book provides an integrated approach to problem solving in the workplace. Collaborative Problem Solving walks through the steps in the problem solving process, introducing dozens of tools, techniques, and concepts to use throughout. Chris J. Shannon describes the behaviours to practice which are most conducive to creating a positive problem solving culture based on curiosity, collaboration, and evidence-based thinking. This book explains why successful problem solving is a collaborative process and provides tools and techniques for responding to other people's behaviour when designing and implementing solutions. Offering practical advice on problem solving in an easy-to-understand way, this book is aimed at people working in office environments, service industries, and knowledge organisations, enabling them to feel confident in applying the knowledge from the book in their own workplace.

With the shift of emphasis from the West to emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India, organisations need to restructure to adapt to the new global economy. Teams and projects are increasingly being scattered all over the world, and a manager operating in this environment can't connect face to face with people in their team. Not only will managers need to adapt to develop their skills for new environments, they will have to work better, quicker and faster. Managing Successful Teams prepares you to meet the challenges of building and leading teams, showing you how to improve performance and achieve the best results. Offering valuable advice and instant strategies, it covers each aspect of managing teams in new cultural shifts, including developing team creativity and innovation, realigning the teams identity with your leadership style and effective team leadership. The only book on the market to incorporate emerging trends and shifts in business practice, Managing Successful Teams addresses the practical and realistic issues you face in your everyday working life.

Let's face it. Some people just don't listen, don't care, and aren't willing to compromise. And you probably work with some of them. For all those coworkers who drive you crazy, there's a solution. The bestselling author of Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People turns her insightful eye to the workplace, showing you how to get along with and work successfully beside the people who drive you up the wall. Her expert advice will help workers in any profession learn how to be unflappable, imperturbable, and unflustered when dealing with difficult people in the workplace.

From the creator of hit podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat comes a revolutionary re-envisioning of how to enjoy your job.

Do you want to get more done, feel less stressed and love your job again?

Sometimes having a job can feel like hard work. But between Monk Mode mornings, silent meetings and crisp Thursdays, the solutions are at your fingertips.

Bruce Daisley knows a thing or two about the workplace. In the course of a career that has taken him from some of the world’s biggest media companies to Twitter, via Google and YouTube, he has become a leading expert on how we work now. And in his hugely popular podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat, he has explored ways to fix it. Now he shares 30 brilliant – and refreshingly simple – tips on how to make your job more productive, more rewarding – and much, much more enjoyable.

‘With just 30 changes, you can transform your work experience from bland and boring (or worse) to fulfilling, fun, and even joyful.’ Daniel Pink, author of When and Drive

After the local newspaper where she worked as a reporter closed, Emily Guendelsberger took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon fulfillment center outside Louisville, Kentucky. There, the vending machines were stocked with painkillers, and the staff turnover was dizzying. In the new year, she travelled to North Carolina to work at a call center, a place where even bathroom breaks were timed to the second. And finally, Guendelsberger was hired at a San Francisco McDonald's, narrowly escaping revenge-seeking customers who pelted her with condiments.Across three jobs, and in three different parts of the country, Guendelsberger directly took part in the revolution changing the U.S. workplace. ON THE CLOCK takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand the future of work in America - and its present. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest - and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity.ON THE CLOCK explores the lengths that half of Americans will go to in order to make a living, offering not only a better understanding of the modern workplace, but also surprising solutions to make work more humane for millions of Americans.

In the wake of the dot-com shakeout of 2000, the time is ripe for a reappraisal of how information technology (IT) has created new environments for businesses and workers in the US and Europe. This book draws on the experiences of the 1990s to discern successful strategies for competing and winning in the New Economy. The lessons are most sharply defined in specific regional clusters of innovation. Accordingly, contributors are mainly on-the-scene observers and practitioners from Silicon Valley, New England and Europe. The common theme is the attempt to find innovative ways (in part through non-traditional business models) to create and build increasingly networked, flexible, participatory companies. Drawing on the notion of entrepreneurial behavior as "the pursuit of goals that are beyond the means currently available," the collection examines management, leadership, and innovation issues in start-up and established companies alike. While recognizing the hard realities of the new competition, the book highlights emerging win-win scenarios. Enabled in part by the new IT systems, these new approaches help companies succeed by seeking and rewarding decision-making, initiative and creativity on the part of all employees.

Dan Pontefract is on a mission to change the world of work. Lead. Care. Win is his fourth book, and like the previous three is the product of relentless focus, observations and research that have led him to define 9 insightful yet super-practical leadership lessons. His latest thinking will help you become a more caring and engaging leader, one that will fully (and completely) understand the critical importance of crafting meaningful, respectful relationships among all your stakeholders. Every human interaction is crucial. Every exchange can be mutually beneficial. These 9 leadership lessons center on your willingness to improve how you treat people, a call for meaningful change to: Be relatable and empathetic Act not out of ego but out of purpose Share knowledge to build a wise organization Stay present and attentive to the needs of others Embrace change and the opportunity for growth it offers Stay curious and adopt lifelong learning Think and act with clarity Commit to balance and inclusivity in all your dealings Act with humility and thoughtfulness The bottom line is that when you care enough to champion others, the workplace becomes happily infectious and the organization benefits in more ways than one. It's time to care. Full potential is possible.

The ultimate handbook for fostering and cultivating a strong team culture, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code and The Talent Code.

Building a team has never been harder than it is right now. How do you create connection and trust? How do you stay focused on your goals? In his years studying the ways successful groups work together, Daniel Coyle has spent time with elite teams around the world, observing the ways they support each other, manage conflict, and move toward a common goal. In The Culture Playbook, he distills everything he has learned into sixty concrete, actionable tips and exercises that will help your team build a cohesive, positive culture.

Great cultures, Coyle has found, are built on three essential skills: safety, vulnerability, and purpose. Within this framework, he shows us how we can better serve our teammates, ourselves, and our shared purpose, including:

• scheduling regular team “tune-ups” to place an explicit spotlight on the team’s inner workings and create conversations that surface and improve team dynamics
• creating spaces for remote coworkers to connect with their colleagues to foster a team spirit even across distances
• holding an anxiety party to serve as a pressure-relief valve, as well as a platform for people to connect and solve problems together

With reflections, exercises, and practical tips that will prove invaluable to companies, athletes, and families alike, and replete with black-and-white illustrations, The Culture Playbook is an indispensable guide to ensuring that your team performs at its best.

Why too much work and too little time is hurting workers and companies-and how a proven workplace redesign can benefit employees and the bottom line Today's ways of working are not working-even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition, and underperformance. "Flexible" work policies and corporate lip service about "work-life balance" don't come close to fixing the problem. But this unhealthy and unsustainable situation can be changed-and Overload shows how. Drawing on five years of research, including hundreds of interviews with employees and managers, Kelly and Moen tell the story of a major experiment that they helped design and implement at a Fortune 500 firm. The company adopted creative and practical work redesigns that gave workers more control over how and where they worked and encouraged managers to evaluate performance in new ways. The result? Employees' health, well-being, and ability to manage their personal and work lives improved, while the company benefited from higher job satisfaction and lower turnover. And, as Kelly and Moen show, such changes can-and should-be made on a wide scale. Complete with advice about ways that employees, managers, and corporate leaders can begin to question and fix one of today's most serious workplace problems, Overload is an inspiring account about how rethinking and redesigning work could transform our lives and companies.

50+ Tasty Solutions to the Eternal Workday Dilemma: "What Should I Have for Lunch?" Tackling your midday cravings has never been easier, thanks to Talia Koren's debut cookbook. The founder of the meal plan subscription service and blog Workweek Lunch shares her secret tricks for saving time, money and stress by meal-prepping lunches you can't wait to eat. Skip waiting in line for expensive takeout and make one of Talia's dozens of mouthwatering, easy-to-pack recipes instead. Each recipe is designed to be cooked in bulk, so you can get all of your cooking for the week done in just one afternoon. With your meals ready to grab and go, you'll love sleeping in a little longer before your morning commute. There are tons of tasty dishes to whip up, like a hearty Italian Turkey Meatball Orzo Bowl or some cheesy Kimchi Mushroom Quesadillas. No microwave at work? No problem! Talia's got you covered with options like Turmeric Chickpea Avocado Sandwiches and Chicken Banh Mi-Inspired Wraps. Busy week? Try one of her satisfying low-maintenance meals, like the Chorizo Sweet Potato Black Bean Skillet, or plan ahead with a freezer stash option like Veggie Chili Mac 'N' Cheese, which is specifically designed for you to make then reheat on hectic days. Talia also shares smart storage and reheating tips, as well as innovative ways to remix your meal preps throughout the week, guaranteeing that your lunches stay fresh and never boring. Whether you're trying to save cash, free up some extra time or are just seeking exciting new meals to brighten up your midday routine, level up your workweek with these lunches!

A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented experiment that reshaped white-collar work and turned remote work into a kind of "new normal." Now comes the hard part. Many employees want to continue that normal and keep working remotely, and most at least want the ability to work occasionally from home. But for employers, the benefits of employees working from home or hybrid approaches are not so obvious. What should both groups do? In a prescient new book, The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli lays out the facts in an effort to provide both employees and employers with a vision of their futures. Cappelli unveils the surprising tradeoffs both may have to accept to get what they want. Cappelli illustrates the challenges we face by in drawing lessons from the pandemic and deciding what to do moving forward. Do we allow some workers to be permanently remote? Do we let others choose when to work from home? Do we get rid of their offices? What else has to change, depending on the approach we choose? His research reveals there is no consensus among business leaders. Even the most high-profile and forward-thinking companies are taking divergent approaches: Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies say many employees can work remotely on a permanent basis. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and others say it is important for everyone to come back to the office. Ford is redoing its office space so that most employees can work from home at least part of the time, and GM is planning to let local managers work out arrangements on an ad-hoc basis. As Cappelli examines, earlier research on other types of remote work, including telecommuting offers some guidance as to what to expect when some people will be in the office and others work at home, and also what happened when employers tried to take back offices. Neither worked as expected. In a call to action for both employers and employees, Cappelli explores how we should think about the choices going forward as well as who wins and who loses. As he implores, we have to choose soon.

Despite our deep desire to feel a sense of belonging, many of us feel isolated. The rise of technology and modern workplace practices have led people to be even more disconnected, even as we remain constantly contactable. And as our human interactions have decreased, so too have our happiness levels. This is sparking a crisis in mental health that will have repercussions for years, leaving people lonelier and organizations less productive and profitable, too. What Christine Porath has discovered in her research is that leaders, organizations, and managers of all stripes may recognize there is a cost but have few solutions for how to implement the cure: Community. With her signature depth and grasp of research across myriad industries including business, healthcare, hospitality, and sports, Porath extrapolates from the statistics on the experiences of hundreds of thousands of people across six continents to show us the potential for change. Through uniting people and sharing information, unleashing them with autonomy, creating a respectful environment, practicing radical candor, providing a sense of meaning, and boosting personal well-being, anyone can help a community truly flourish. The applications of Porath's findings are endless, and the stories and case studies are positive and uplifting. This insightful exploration of the real nature of community-building will inspire readers to unite and grow their communities-be it in the workplace, the PTA, sports, or places of worship-and make them thrive.

Containing the largest bank of test questions on the market, How to Pass Advanced Verbal Reasoning Tests provides advice, practice and exercises to help you prepare for the rigorous tests used by employers, helping you to build up speed, accuracy and confidence. Testing expert Mike Bryon offers practice on a range of areas, including: - English usage - Written assessments - Presentations - Group exercises - Assessment centres Including four timed realistic tests with interpretations of your score, How to Pass Advanced Verbal Reasoning Tests covers word links, word swaps, sentence sequence, decision analysis, reading comprehension as well as critical reasoning, giving you everything you need to boost your ability and face the challenge head on.

Who hasn't suffered at one time or another from exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of effectiveness? But combine them over time and you're flirting with a disaster of catastrophic magnitude - burnout. Elegantly defined as the depletion of personal agency - the apparatus driving our ability to initiate and execute actions - burnout effectively wipes out our ability to be effective, much less engaged. And the cost of burnout is astronomical in all its forms and phases, not to mention the profound and lasting effects it has on employees and workplace cultures. Based on extensive research and full of real-world stories and examples, workplace culture experts Rob and Terri Bogue take a deep dive into the signs, sources, and solutions of burnout and deliver an essential resource that helps anyone identify, prevent, and recover from burnout.

In a time of unusual stress, with a pandemic raging and economic insecurity and dislocation increasing, we need to rediscover the values that make us human, that give us a sense of meaning in order to increase our potential for productivity and success. What stands in the way, however, is a professional culture where human connectedness is a lost art: the frenzied numbers-obsessed, bottom-line thinking, the "scratch and claw" workplace, and organizations where the boss can literally be an algorithm. Through moving stories and a modern spin on the ancient framework of Socratic dialogue, David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer show how to move forward and build workplaces fit for humans through what uniquely defines us as human beings: our ability to think, talk, and create. By thinking carefully about a challenge, engaging peers in dialogue via open-ended questioning, and building a strategy collaboratively. Think Talk Create enables us to cultivate trust and define collective values, seemingly "soft" attributes that nonetheless markedly increase innovation and, ultimately, financial performance. Think: Step back, slow down, avoid impulsive, short-sighted decision making. Talk: Ask non-judgmental, open ended questions, with your mind as a blank slate, pursuing the problem like an empirical scientist or a judge presiding in court. Create: Bring something new and meaningful into play, a novel solution to a pesky problem that can move the world in surprising, positive directions.

When faced with a 'human error' problem, you may be tempted to ask 'Why didn't these people watch out better?' Or, 'How can I get my people more engaged in safety?' You might think you can solve your safety problems by telling your people to be more careful, by reprimanding the miscreants, by issuing a new rule or procedure and demanding compliance. These are all expressions of 'The Bad Apple Theory' where you believe your system is basically safe if it were not for those few unreliable people in it. Building on its successful predecessors, the third edition of The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' will help you understand a new way of dealing with a perceived 'human error' problem in your organization. It will help you trace how your organization juggles inherent trade-offs between safety and other pressures and expectations, suggesting that you are not the custodian of an already safe system. It will encourage you to start looking more closely at the performance that others may still call 'human error', allowing you to discover how your people create safety through practice, at all levels of your organization, mostly successfully, under the pressure of resource constraints and multiple conflicting goals. The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' will help you understand how to move beyond 'human error'; how to understand accidents; how to do better investigations; how to understand and improve your safety work. You will be invited to think creatively and differently about the safety issues you and your organization face. In each, you will find possibilities for a new language, for different concepts, and for new leverage points to influence your own thinking and practice, as well as that of your colleagues and organization. If you are faced with a 'human error' problem, abandon the fallacy of a quick fix. Read this book.

______________________ 'Too much to do? Stop and read this' - Guardian 'For a fresh take on an eternal dilemma, Overwhelmed is worth a few hours of any busy woman's life - if only to ensure that she doesn't drop off the bottom of her own "To Do" list' - Mail on Sunday ______________________ In her attempts to juggle work and family life, Brigid Schulte has baked cakes until 2 a.m., frantically (but surreptitiously) sent important emails during school trips and then worked long into the night after her children were in bed. Realising she had become someone who constantly burst in late, trailing shoes and schoolbooks and biscuit crumbs, she began to question, like so many of us, whether it is possible to be anything you want to be, have a family and still have time to breathe. So when Schulte met an eminent sociologist who studies time and he told her she enjoyed thirty hours of leisure each week, she thought her head was going to pop off. What followed was a trip down the rabbit hole of busy-ness, a journey to discover why so many of us find it near-impossible to press the 'pause' button on life and what got us here in the first place. Overwhelmed maps the individual, historical, biological and societal stresses that have ripped working mothers' and fathers' leisure to shreds, and asks how it might be possible for us to put the pieces back together. Seeking insights, answers and inspiration, Schulte explores everything from the wiring of the brain and why workplaces are becoming increasingly demanding, to worldwide differences in family policy, how cultural norms shape our experiences at work, our unequal division of labour at home and why it's so hard for everyone - but women especially - to feel they deserve an elusive moment of peace. ______________________ 'Every parent, every caregiver, every person who feels besieged by permanent busyness, must read this book' - Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of Why Women Still Can't Have It All

Business success begins with trust. Trust is the basis for all that we do as leaders and as organizations. Employees who trust their employers are more productive and creative. Businesses that earn their customers' trust maintain better relationships and reap better results. Meanwhile, breaches of trust between companies and the public are becoming more frequent-and more costly. If you read nothing else on trust, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you build, maintain, and repair trust, both as a leader and as a company. This book will inspire you to: Develop trust through competence, legitimacy, and impact Understand the neuroscience of trust Follow through on your commitments to stakeholders Negotiate better with an untrustworthy counterpart See your company through the eyes of your customers Rebuild relationships after a breakdown of trust This collection of articles includes "Begin with Trust," by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss; "The Neuroscience of Trust," by Paul J. Zak; "Dig, Bridge, Collectively Act," by Tina Opie and Beth A. Livingston; "Rethinking Trust," by Roderick M. Kramer; "How to Negotiate with a Liar," by Leslie K. John; "The Enemies of Trust," by Robert M. Galford and Anne Seibold Drapeau; "Don't Let Cynicism Undermine Your Workplace," by Jamil Zaki; "The Trust Crisis," by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta; "Customer Data: Designing for Transparency and Trust," by Timothy Morey, Theodore "Theo" Forbath, and Allison Schoop; "Operational Transparency," by Ryan W. Buell; and "The Organizational Apology," by Maurice E. Schweitzer, Alison Wood Brooks, and Adam D. Galinsky. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.

If you read nothing else on managing yourself, read these definitive articles from Harvard Business Review. You have the power to position yourself for success, cut your own career path, develop your skills, and shape the life you'll live. HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself 2-Volume Collection provides enduring ideas and practical advice to help you stay engaged, be productive, and continue to grow throughout your working life. Bringing together HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself and HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself, Vol. 2, this collection includes twenty articles selected by HBR's editors and features the indispensable article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen. From timeless classics to the latest game-changing ideas from thought leaders Peter F. Drucker, Daisy Dowling, Daniel Goleman, and Jennifer Petriglieri, and more, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself 2-Volume Collection will inspire you to: Identify areas for personal growth Consider your strengths, work preferences, values, and contributions Build your skills and stay relevant Develop learning agility Balance work, home, community, and self Replenish your physical and mental energy Rebound from tough times Prepare for your next opportunity Stay engaged throughout your 50+-year work life HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.

Furious customers? Missed deadlines? Failed products? The problems your business faces may stem from a single issue: lack of empathy. Being empathetic at work means seeing the situation from another's perspective, and using that vantage point to shape your leadership style, workplace culture, and branding strategy. Pairing her knowledge as a branding expert with proven research and fascinating stories from executives, change-makers and community leaders, Maria Ross reveals exactly how empathy makes brands and organizations stronger and more successful. Ross shows why your business needs to cultivate more empathy now, and shares the habits and traits of empathetic leaders who foster more productivity and loyalty. She gives practical tips, big and small, for how to align your mission and values and hire the right people, cultivating a more empathetic-and innovative-workplace culture. Finally, she gives you the goods on building your empathetic brand in an authentic and proactive way, and shows how doing so results in happier customers, innovative work cultures and increased profits. In this practical playbook for businesses of all types, Maria Ross proves that empathy is not just good for society-it's great for business, and may transform you at a personal level, too.

Flexible Work: Designing Our Healthier Future Lives examines flexible working through the lens of social science, in particular using psychological perspective to address not only what forms of flexible working there are and how they are evolving but also their prospect in the future of work. Bringing together views from thought-leaders and underpinned by research evidence, this book addresses two of the most fundamental business challenges for large and medium organisations - mental health and productivity - calling for the bridging of science and policy to design flexible working for our future healthier lives. Growing from these foundations, this book explains the latest landscape in flexible working, looking at employee psychological health and productivity, including showing up for work sick. Perspectives are provided from around the world on leadership, line management, 'over attachment' with technology, commuting, skill-based inequality and control over working time. Readers are offered insights into the relevance of flexible working for a diverse workforce - invisible disabilities, disabilities, older workers and blended families. Throughout, the book offers suggestions for shaping future policy, practice and research. Each chapter concludes with recommendations, making this essential reading for students, academics, human resource practitioners, policy-influencers, policymakers and professionals interested in flexible work.