This book was previously titled, "The Way We're Working Isn't Working."
"Be Excellent at Anything "is one of those rare books with the power to profoundly transform the way we work and live.
Demand is exceeding our capacity. The ethic of "more, bigger, faster" exacts a series of silent but pernicious costs at work, undermining our energy, focus, creativity, and passion. Nearly 75 percent of employees around the world feel disengaged at work every day. "Be Excellent at Anything "offers a groundbreaking approach to reenergizing our lives so we're both more satisfied and more productive--on the job and off.
By integrating multidisciplinary findings from the science of high performance, Tony Schwartz, coauthor of the #1 bestselling "The Power of Full Engagement, "makes a persuasive case that we're neglecting the four core needs that energize great performance: sustainability (physical); security (emotional); self-expression (mental); and significance (spiritual). Rather than running like computers at high speeds for long periods, we're at our best when we pulse rhythmically between expending and regularly renewing energy across each of our four needs.
Organizations undermine sustainable high performance by forever seeking to get more out of their people. Instead they should seek systematically to meet their four core needs so they're freed, fueled, and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day.
Drawing on extensive work with an extra-ordinary range of organizations, among them Google, Ford, Sony, Ernst & Young, Shell, IBM, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Cleveland Clinic, Schwartz creates a road map for a new way of working. At the individual level, he explains how we can build specific rituals into our daily schedules to balance intense effort with regular renewal; offset emotionally draining experiences with practices that fuel resilience; move between a narrow focus on urgent demands and more strategic, creative thinking; and balance a short-term focus on immediate results with a values-driven commitment to serving the greater good. At the organizational level, he outlines new policies, practices, and cultural messages that Schwartz's client companies have adopted.
" Be Excellent at Anything "offers individuals, leaders, and organizations a highly practical, proven set of strategies to better manage the relentlessly rising demands we all face in an increasingly complex world.

If you're not operating with Organizational Velocity, you're getting lapped and don't even realize it. Business as usual? Established organizations are being disrupted as nimble upstarts cross long-established competitive moats with increasing ease. The status quo needs to be blown up.In Organizational Velocity, veteran UPS executive Alan Amling distills five years of research and three decades on the front lines of Corporate America to reveal a fundamental truth... Moving at the speed of change is a choice, not a circumstance. Companies from Amazon to Shaw Industries stay ahead of the curve by operating with Organizational Velocity, a rapid learning paradigm empowering organizations to create persistent advantage. Amling shows how companies get in their own way and provides pragmatic insights from industrial, digital, and military leaders to break through organizational friction and thrive in disruption. Organizational Velocity is for current and aspiring executives seeing the disruption at their doorstep but not knowing how to break through the cloud of uncertainty. So, dog-ear the pages and create a company built to stay ahead of the curve.

This two-volume set examines the need for a consciousness-based view of leadership, which emphasizes universal human flourishing, as opposed to a resource-based view, which focuses on sustaining a competitive advantage. This approach is built around three main principles: 1) Paradigm (Consciousness is primary including complementary existence of opposites), 2) Interpersonal (focusing on empathy and compassion), and 3) Individual (experiencing Oneness and expressing creativity). Volume One is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on Consciousness-based approaches to Inclusive, Purposeful, Quantum, and Vedic leadership. The second section focuses on leadership principles from Vedic scriptures such as Ramayana and Vedanta. The third section includes leadership principles from other scriptures such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Thirukural. Aligning leadership practices with the notion of unbounded consciousness, this edited collection will extend the literature on organizational culture, leadership, and sustainability, contributing to solving the grand challenges facing humanity.

Knowledge management expert Jon-Arild Johannessen presents a comprehensive exploration of tacit knowledge based on the research problem: How can tacit knowledge be used to improve organizational performance in practice? To explore this problem, 50 short cases are presented and discussed to analyze and reflect on what tacit knowledge is, how it is developed, transferred and integrated, to improve performance. Tacit knowledge is hard to codify and specify, yet these short cases will demystify how tacit knowledge works in organizations and the benefits of it in relation to improving productivity and processes. The emphasis on short, easy to connect with cases in The Philosophy of Tacit Knowledge allows readers to develop their own models and policy strategies towards improving their own practice.

As a company grows and new business opportunities are presented, there is an expectation that employee performance will grow and improve as the organization does. One method to improve performance is through systematic, data-driven technology that analyzes all affecting aspects of an organization. A better understanding of how this quality-improving technology can be integrated within a variety of different industries is needed in order to develop strategies and interventions that address an organizational need. Cases on Learning Design and Human Performance Technology provides a collection of cases that demonstrate how principles of learning design and human performance technology have been employed within organizations in a variety of industries to address business problems, quality improvement initiatives, and business opportunities. While highlighting topics including intervention design, workflow procedures, and employee development, this book is ideally designed for managers, executives, human resources, IT specialists, academicians, business professionals, industry practitioners, researchers, and students.

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.

Why are some work partnerships exceptional while most are not? How can we establish and sustain an enhanced level of cohesion, connection, and collaboration in the most important work relationship, the one between a manager and team? What could remedy the high levels of isolation and anxiety so many feel at work these days? Silver and Franz explore the concept of 'meaningful partnership' in the workplace. They present meaningful partnership as a mindset where both leaders and their teams are fully committed to ensuring the support and success of the other. Then, they describe a model called ERTAP, which stands for Empathy, Respect, Trust, Alignment, and Partnership, which is the foundation for meaningful partnership. Finally, they detail a practical yet transformative relationship-building process referred to as the Workplace Covenant. This enables leaders and teams to create mutual commitments with obligatory weight that help them to feel accountable for the success of the relationship and each other. The book includes real client stories that illustrate the dimensions of partnership and the Workplace Covenant process. Silver and Franz also outline other work relationships that can benefit from meaningful partnership, pitfalls to avoid, relevant research, and insights derived from years of consulting experience. This book is a must-read for leaders interested in a better working relationship with their team; for teams who have critical work partnerships with other teams; for individuals who work closely with other individuals and need an exceptional 1:1 partnership; and finally for third-party experts in HR or continuous improvement who are seeking a new powerful way to help clients feel supported and be more successful.

What do Toyota and Google have in common? An all-inclusive culture of innovation, in which every employee is responsible for coming up with ideas to make the company more successful. Do you want your employees to be responsible for innovation as well? Do you believe that is possible? It absolutely is possible, and in The Bright Idea Box, technology executive and corporate consultant, Jag Randhawa, will show you how. The Bright Idea Box introduces a six-step formula for creating a bottom-up innovation program. By reading this book, you will discover how introducing the Bright Idea Box program to your employees will: encourage employees to generate ideas that add value to the company and customers tap into employees' inner desires to do meaningful work, be part of something bigger, and be appreciated for their efforts increase employee engagement, productivity, efficiencies, and customer satisfaction create a stunning and lasting impact on your business performance Begin to make it happen by reading The Bright Idea Box

This book provides an overview of legitimacy-related challenges at hybrid organizations and demonstrates legitimacy's importance for the strategic development of organizations. In a reader-friendly way, it addresses the question of how hybrid organizations can gain legitimacy from the perspectives of key stakeholders. To do so, the book examines legitimacy management in the context of two real-world hybrid organizations - the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine and the Swiss Center for Design and Health in Bern, Switzerland - from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It shows why the systematic combination of three types of legitimacy has the potential to optimize the level of legitimacy in emerging hybrids, contributing to their success. It also explains how organizational legitimacy can be operationalized using governance legitimacy, purpose-rational legitimacy, and value-rational legitimacy. This book equips managers and executives working at hybrid organizations with useful guidance and hands-on strategic tools to develop legitimacy management strategies. It also offers a source of inspiration for academic research and teaching in this field.

With Industry 4.0 accelerating AI, synthetic knowledge and creativity, Consciousness and Creativity in Artificial Intelligence posits a central question: "Under what conditions can intelligent robots develop creativity?". Opening a new field of investigation for knowledge management at the organizational level, Johannessen discusses new theories around uncovering hidden knowledge, which is assumed to be the area of knowledge responsible for the emergence of creativity and innovation. Reflecting upon how intelligent robots can develop creativity, Consciousness and Creativity in Artificial Intelligence examines three classes of algorithms - linear, evolutionary and systemic. Consciousness and Creativity in Artificial Intelligence is a thought-provoking but accessible text appealing to those researching innovation, knowledge and creativity in organizations both now and in the future.

As modern societies become more diverse and multicultural, the call for greater inclusion within organizations is getting louder. In response, many organizations have rushed to diversify, without fully understanding the implicit and explicit levels of diversity, the complexity of social identities, and the hidden and often unintended ways differences between members of in-groups and out-groups can lead to social exclusion. By providing a thorough overview of the concept of diversity, distinguishing between competing definitions and types of cultural and cognitive differences, Diversity and Organizational Development helps current and future leaders develop their diversity competency. Concepts of diversity management are explained as value-added activities that increase creativity and innovation, improve problem-solving and organizational flexibility, and aid in the recruitment and retention of top talent. Drawing upon interdisciplinary perspectives from business, economics, psychology, and sociology, this work offers a comprehensive approach to inclusive organizational development through which diversity and inclusion initiatives are supported by all facets of organizational operations and culture. Readers are shown how organizations can move toward the integrating stage of organizational development, during which members of all cultural and identity groups feel included, valued, and empowered through their contributions to organizational success. Making a case for inclusive development through organizational culture, this book further demonstrates how rituals, symbols, and language can create shared meaning among members of diverse organizations, powerfully influencing their effectiveness and strategic performance, while ultimately creating more satisfying workplaces.

As organizations continue to discover the power of storytelling to shape, transform and transfer knowledge, the need for complex resources to harness that power and meet business goals increases. At the forefront of this challenge are knowledge management practitioners, change management leaders, and organizational development professionals who need information to obtain a practical advantage to implement sustainable storytelling initiatives. Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling: The Competencies and Skills Needed for a Successful Implementation offers practical advice and guidance on the skills and competencies needed to meet those challenges. Discussing the competencies needed to use language and performance effectively to tell stories that will elicit tacit knowledge, this volume focuses on coaching strategies to help others develop storytelling skills, and provides background knowledge useful to champion and promote storytelling practices across organizational cultures and communities. Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling will prove especially useful to practitioners who are charged with the development and leadership of storytelling initiatives but may lack a robust background on the practicalities of organizational storytelling. To meet those challenges, the book offers practical applications rooted in ethnographic research to find and select stories, conduct storytelling interviews, and analyse organizational communities and cultures to the meet the needs of target audiences. Most importantly, Knowledge Management and the Practice of Storytelling offers practical advice on assessment and evaluation strategies to measure the effectiveness and organizational impact of storytelling.

Exploring contemporary challenges and opportunities for the realisation of Decent Work, this edited collection reviews the origins of the concept and helps to demonstrate its working in practice. Using a Decent Work lens to explore the realities of eroding work conditions in typical and atypical work, the analyses presented here argue that urgent action is required to address these issues for the benefit of individual workers, and society as a whole. Prepared by researchers and collaborators associated with the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, this volume provides insights from an exceptional blend of authors presenting high-quality research from multiple disciplines including economics, labour market studies, organisation studies, sociology, psychology, career development and education. These unique and wide-ranging contributions position Decent Work as valuable to important questions about the future of work, and emerging interdisciplinary research about work. Addressing changes to today's work and employment relationships - including the roles of governments, employers, and trade unions - this volume offers suggestions for how public and private sector policy and practice can support the realisation of Decent Work, while also theorising the concept's contested nature, and exploring urgent and practical possibilities to secure fair and decent working lives for all.

This volume continues the collaboration between the Research in Management Consulting book series and the French management research think tank ISEOR (Socio-Economic Institute for Firms and Organisations). Those familiar with Henri Savall's and his colleague Veronique Zardet's earlier work on the socio-economic theory of organisations will recognise their assessments of organisational dysfunctions and hidden costs - but in a different context. In their current work, the emphasis is on the tensions created by the wider environment - the idea of tetranormalisation - and how those tensions shape and influence organisational life. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the news media and popular press, Savall and Zardet paint a disturbing picture of the underlying dynamics and challenges posed by a literal avalanche of standards and norms - which are often ambiguous and conflicting - that literally encompasses all that we do. Their analytic framework is composed of four "poles" - two social dimensions and two economic dimensions - that capture social norms and quality, safety and environment standards (the social dimension), and trade-related norms and accounting and financial standards (the economic dimension). Throughout the volume, Savall and Zardet's analysis captures the myriad ways in which these dimensions interact, shaping the "rules of the game" that dictate how organisations compete and collaborate. Differentiating the "rules of the game" from "playing with" those rules, they delve into the subtleties and nuances that underlie these "poles," providing further insight into how these forces are manipulated through lobbying and the seemingly 24/7 cycle of exposing, publicising and rule-making surrounding social and economic as well as scientific and technological controversies. As Savall and Zardet argue, we are in the midst of a profound upheaval that will play havoc with our economic and social lives for some time to come. If we are going to exert influence on that reality, the challenges that we face moving forward must be conceptualised, constructed and implemented today, for, as they argue, "the road to durable prosperity will be a long haul." Yet, moving beyond these challenges per se, they underscore that we are also presented with an exceptional opportunity - the very real opportunity to create a sustainable commitment to responsible and responsive organisational performance, one that can be fuelled and financed by our ability to translate the hidden costs that exist in all our organisations into productive, value-added activities and true wealth creation. Their analysis presents an intriguing challenge to traditional notions of corporate social responsibility, delving into the idea of "durably acceptable" responsibility, ways to facilitate greater stakeholder engagement, and how we can capture ongoing and sustainable improvement in organisational performance.

For more than a century, the corporation has shaped our thinking of organizations. This deeply institutionalized form is still regarded as both the iconic business organization and the core structural unit of our economic order. Today, however, it stands at a crossroads. Economic, social, and environmental failures of the recent past as well as misconduct and scandals are widely associated with deficits of the corporate form and its governance. The Corporation engages with current issues of the corporation as an institutionalized organizational form, approaching the concept from the backgrounds of organization theory, law, and economics, combining different theoretical views and empirical approaches. This volume addresses the corporation's entanglement with capitalism, examines a spectrum of constitutive features and purposes of the corporate form, offers historical perspectives on its emergence, and provides reflections on its future development. Encouraging you to rethink the corporation, each contribution also adds to the conceptual development of the corporate form as the iconic business organization.

This 26th volume of Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations is a selection of papers from the 27th Annual Conference of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics with the theme 'Who's watching? Surveillance, big data and applied ethics in the digital age.' The papers in this volume critically engage with contemporary issues surrounding big data and surveillance, particularly in relation to large institutions, including corporations and government agencies. Special focus is put on the ethical issues concerning the collection and use of big data sets. Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations (REIO) is a double-blind, peer-reviewed series that publishes rigorous academic research into organizational ethics from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives.

The Australian workplace continues to become more ethnically diverse as multiculturalism becomes a lived reality on a substantial scale. This change makes it vital to understand exclusionary or discriminatory practices and a detailed investigation of the potential relationship between work stress, acculturation, and its impact on emotional labour for minority group members has not been well researched. The Ethnically Diverse Workplace: Experience of Immigrant Indian Professionals in Australia documents the perceptions and experiences of exclusion after inclusion by Indian immigrants, particularly professionals. Many of the reports of discriminatory practices towards Indian immigrants or their stigmatisation based on accent, skin tone or national origin are anecdotal in nature and this book will seek to explain such practices and their impacts on the Indian immigrant community. The Ethnically Diverse Workplace works to encourage and promote greater awareness and understanding so that immigrant Indian professionals maybe better understood and served in Australia.