It’s a ticking clock of a different kind.Don’t miss any of these exciting Thriller Shorts: James Penney’s New Identity by Lee Child Operation Northwoods by James Grippando Epitaph by J. A. Konrath The Face in the Window by Heather Graham Kowalski’s in Love by James Rollins The Hunt for Dmitri by Gayle Lynds Disfigured by Michael Palmer and Daniel Palmer The Abelard Sanction by David Morrell Falling by Chris Mooney Success of a Mission by Dennis Lynds The Portal by John Lescroart and M. J. Rose The Double Dealer by David Liss Dirty Weather by Gregg Hurwitz Spirit Walker by David Dun At the Drop of a Hat by Denise Hamilton The Other Side of the Mirror by Eric Van Lustbader Man Catch by Christopher Rice Goodnight, Sweet Mother by Alex Kava Sacrificial Lion by Grant Blackwood Interlude at Duane’s by F. Paul Wilson The Powder Monkey by Ted Bell Surviving Toronto by M. Diane Vogt Assassins by Christopher Reich The Athens Solution by Brad Thor Diplomatic Constraints by Raelynn Hillhouse Kill Zone by Robert Liparulo The Devils’ Due by Steve Berry The Tuesday Club by Katherine Neville Gone Fishing by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

    Monty fell hard for her and, despite strong family opposition on both sides, they would marry.Valerie was keen to have a large brood and, though her pregnancies were difficult, she gave birth to four children. But they were not enough and in 1947 she adopted the first of three more children who were designated to be playmates for her own. It was a social experiment that would end in tears, as would the fortunes of the iconic company, destroyed by the glue that once bound it together - family.Rocky Road is the story of this chocaholic clan and the creative and eccentric woman who dominated it. Behind the irresistible sweetness of Darrell Lea lay a family who made bitter sacrifices to succeed in the candy business.

    It's not about gimmicks or 'perks' that disrupt productivity; it's about finding the passion that drives your business, and making it contagious.This book provides tools, games, and practices that put joy into work, with practical, real-world guidance for empowering workers and delighting customers. These aren't break time exploits or downtime amusements--they're real solutions for common management problems. Define roles and responsibilities, create meaningful team metrics, and replace performance appraisals with something more useful. An organization's culture rests on the back of management, and this book shows you how to create change for the better.Somewhere along the line, people collectively started thinking that work is work and fun is something you do on the weekends. This book shows you how to transform your organization into a place with enthusiastic Monday mornings. Redefine job titles and career paths Motivate workers and measure team performance Change your organization's culture Make management--and work--fun againModern organizations expect everyone to be servant leaders and systems thinkers, but nobody explains "how." To survive in the 21st century, companies need to dig past the obvious and find what works. What keeps top talent? What inspires customer loyalty? The answer is great management, which inspires great employees, who then provide a great customer experience. "Managing for Happiness" is a practical handbook for achieving organizational greatness.

    As the head of Boston's Logan International Airport, the launching pad for the hijacked planes that destroyed the Twin Towers, she was scapegoated by the media and political leaders for supposed airport security lapses and forced to resign. She was also sued for wrongful death by the family of a 9/11 victim, holding her personally responsible for the terrorist attack.A rising star at thirty-five--she had served as chief of staff to two consecutive Massachusetts governors before becoming the first woman to head the state's Port Authority--Buckingham's life and career was suddenly derailed. Grappling with issues of trauma, faith, leadership, and resilience, this unique memoir shares her struggle to rebuild her life and come to terms with being blamed for the unimaginable tragedy that occurred on her watch.

    But creating an environment for creative thinking and innovation can be a daunting challenge. How can you make it happen at your company? The answer may surprise you: gamestorming.This book includes more than 80 games to help you break down barriers, communicate better, and generate new ideas, insights, and strategies. The authors have identified tools and techniques from some of the world's most innovative professionals, whose teams collaborate and make great things happen. This book is the result: a unique collection of games that encourage engagement and creativity while bringing more structure and clarity to the workplace. Find out why -- and how -- with Gamestorming.Overcome conflict and increase engagement with team-oriented gamesImprove collaboration and communication in cross-disciplinary teams with visual-thinking techniquesImprove understanding by role-playing customer and user experiencesGenerate better ideas and more of them, faster than ever beforeShorten meetings and make them more productiveSimulate and explore complex systems, interactions, and dynamicsIdentify a problem's root cause, and find the paths that point toward a solution

    Not in an editor, IDE, or design tool. You're well educated on how to work with software and hardware, but what about wetware--our own brains? Learning new skills and new technology is critical to your career, and it's all in your head. In this book by Andy Hunt, you'll learn how our brains are wired, and how to take advantage of your brain's architecture. You'll learn new tricks and tips to learn more, faster, and retain more of what you learn. You need a pragmatic approach to thinking and learning. You need to Refactor Your Wetware. Programmers have to learn constantly; not just the stereotypical new technologies, but also the problem domain of the application, the whims of the user community, the quirks of your teammates, the shifting sands of the industry, and the evolving characteristics of the project itself as it is built. We'll journey together through bits of cognitive and neuroscience, learning and behavioral theory. You'll see some surprising aspects of how our brains work, and how you can take advantage of the system to improve your own learning and thinking skills.In this book you'll learn how to:Use the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition to become more expertLeverage the architecture of the brain to strengthen different thinking modesAvoid common "known bugs" in your mindLearn more deliberately and more effectivelyManage knowledge more efficientlyPrinted in full color.

    You’ll also be able to “fix” a broken workshop that you’ve been saddled with. While the first attempt at a new workshop is never perfect (testing and refinement matter), it should still be good enough that both clients and attendees leave happy, and that you get invited back. Throughout this book, you’ll also gain the skills and knowledge such that if something goes wrong, you’ll understand what’s happening and how to fix it. Whether workshops are your whole world or just a small part of it, we can help you succeed. Over the last 15 years, we’ve now designed and run a huge number of successful workshops (and a few major flops) covering every type of audience: executives, undergrads, MBAs, disadvantaged youths, busy professionals, and more. We’ve designed everything from 20-minute teasers to 3-month intensives, in locations ranging from Costa Rica and Qatar to London and Berlin. We’ve taught for companies like HP and Deloitte and for universities like Oxford and NYU. We’ve built workshops for every price point, from free upskilling (paid for by the state or employer) through to $4000-per-seat premium events. We’ve taught casual sessions, with beer in hand and flip-flop on foot, through to formal, posh affairs with glitzy venues and high-end catering. In every case, no matter where it was located or who it was for, the process outlined in these pages worked. Perhaps most importantly, we can teach you how to do this. And you don’t need to turn into some kind of charismatic superstar for it to work. In fact, you don’t even need to be particularly confident. You only need to know how to design a good workshop. We’ve trained up teachers from scratch who are now billing upwards of $2500 per day and getting invited back to teach again and again. This stuff isn’t complicated. You can learn it and you can do it.

    Tragically, these teams often devolve into wheel-spinning, contentious assemblies that get nothing done.  Or members may disengage from a team if they find its work frustrating, trivial, or a waste of their time.  Even teams with a spirit of camaraderie may take actions that are flat-out wrong. But there is also good news. This book draws on recent research findings as well as Harvard Professor Richard Hackman’s own experience as an intelligence community researcher and advisor to show how leaders can create an environment where teamwork flourishes.  Hackman identifies six enabling conditions – such as establishing clear norms of conduct and providing well-timed team coaching – that increase the likelihood that teams will be effective in any setting or type of organization.. Although written explicitly for intelligence, defense, crisis management, and law enforcement professionals it will also be valuable for improving team success in all kinds of leadership, management, service, and production teams in business, government, and nonprofit enterprises.

    Through short stories of leadership and organizational changes in the areas of business, politics, health care, and education, this book illustrates how this process can increase personal integrity, improve relationships, and lead to company profitability and long-term success.

    But how do you manage outrageous talent? What do you do to inspire loyalty from your players? How do you turn around a team in crisis? What’s the best way to build long-term success? How can you lead calmly under pressure? The issues are the same whether you’re managing a Premier League football team or a FTSE 100 company. Here, for the first time, some 30 of the biggest names in football management reveal just what it takes. With their every decision, remark, skill, and success or failure under constant scrutiny from the media and the fans, these managers need to be the most adroit of leaders. In The Manager they explain their methods, give examples of lessons they’ve learned along the way, and describe the decisions they make and the leadership they provide. Each chapter tackles a key leadership issue for managers in any walk of life and, in their own words, shows how the experts deal with the challenges they face in an abnormally high-pressure environment. Offering valuable lessons for business leaders and fascinating behind-the-scenes insights for football fans, The Manager is an honest, accessible and unprecedented look at the day-to-day work of these high-profile characters and the world of top-level football management.Contents: A Piece of the Action (Roy Hodgson); The Art of One-on-One (Carlo Ancelotti); Behind the Scenes (Arsène Wenger); Building High-performing Teams (Sam Allardyce); The Field of Play (Roberto Mancini); Handling Outrageous Talent (José Mourinho); Pursuing a Career Under Pressure (Brendan Rodgers); Seeing the Bigger Picture (Harry Redknapp); Creating Sustained Success (Sir Alex Ferguson); Crisis Response and Turnaround (Walter Smith); Triumph and Despair (Mick McCarthy).Also featuring: Gerard Houllier, Tony Pulis, Martin O’Neill, Neil Warnock, Howard Wilkinson, Kevin Keegan, Dario Gradi, Andre Villas-Boas, David Moyes, Alex McLeish, Hope Powell, Martin Jol, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Hughton, David Platt, Paul Ince, and George Graham.

    - Out of the blue your best customer demands a huge discount--or else he takes his business elsewhere. - You think you finally have a buyer for your home, but then at the last minute she demands that you pay for new landscaping of the yard--or no deal. There are plenty of other properties for sale, and she says she'll walk. - Your son is having trouble in school, and you have to think about how to deal with his "my way or the highway" teacher. When confronted with these--and innumerable other--day-to-day negotiating challenges at work and in your personal life, most people start to guess about how much they should give up in compromise to make the other side happy ("I'll just meet them halfway, and we can put this problem to bed"). Jim Camp has a better way for you to negotiate: "NO." Saying "no" is not about being hard-nosed or intransigent. Rather, it stops everyone in their tracks, clears the air, and allows you to get at what the real issues are. It is a proven and an amazingly effective system that avoids unwarranted assumptions, needless compromises, and wild guesses, showing: - How to stop being needy, banishing emotional responses such as "I must keep this customer's business" or "I have to sell this house now," and start focusing on what you can control--yourself- Why in a negotiation the two worst things to hear are "yes" and "maybe"- How to get to the heart of the issue through the art and science of asking great questions- How to find out who the real "decider" is and stop negotiating with the unqualified We live in a compromise- and assumption-based world, but Jim Camp flips conventional wisdom on its head and in the process makes you a more effective negotiator with clients, customers, spouses, kids, neighbors, and coworkers. Through Camp's system you'll find that "no" is just the start of the negotiation, not the end of it. With it, you'll get everything you want and you'll build solid relationships with those you negotiate with.

    Agile Coaching de-mystifies agile practices--it's a practical guide to creating strong agile teams. Packed with useful tips from practicing agile coaches Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, this book gives you coaching tools that you can apply whether you are a project manager, a technical lead, or working in a software team. To lead change, you need to expand your toolkit, and this book gives you the tools you need to make the transition from agile practitioner to agile coach. Agile Coaching is all about working with people to create great agile teams. You'll learn how to build a team that produces great software and has fun doing it. In the process, you'll grow a team that's self-sufficient and skillful. This book provides you with deeper knowledge of how agile practices work and how to inspire your team to improve. Discover how to coach your team through the agile lifecycle, from planning to writing software. Learn the secrets of running effective agile meetings and how to get your team following a consistent approach to creating software. You'll find chapters dedicated to introducing Test-Driven Development, designing Retrospectives, and making progress visible. Find out what works and what to avoid when introducing agile practices to your team. Throughout the book the authors share their personal coaching stories from experience with real teams, giving you insights into what works and what to avoid. Each chapter also covers hurdles that you and your team may face and what to do to clear them.

    Those engaged in business analysis are charged with identifying the activities that enable the company to define the business problem or opportunity, define what the solutions looks like, and define how it should behave in the end. As a BA, you lay out the plans for the process ahead."Business Analysis For Dummies" is the go to reference on how to make the complex topic of business analysis easy to understand. Whether you are new or have experience with business analysis, this book gives you the tools, techniques, tips and tricks to set your project's expectations and on the path to success.Offers guidance on how to make an impact in your organization by performing business analysisShows you the tools and techniques to be an effective business analysis professionalProvides a number of examples on how to perform business analysis regardless of your roleIf you're interested in learning about the tools and techniques used by successful business analysis professionals, "Business Analysis For Dummies" has you covered.

    Reveals how problems between managers and employees, and between companies or divisions within a larger corporation, stem from an inability to conduct a successful dialogue.

    With a six-year hole in his memory, he remembers nothing of the Incident or the Lurchers who have claimed the land as their own. He joins the crew in their daily struggle to survive in a harsh new world where every meal is live or die.But when a shipwreck forces them from the safety of the sea, the crew soon discover their pursuers aren’t the only monsters out to get them. As Jordan confronts the horror of his past he unlocks a secret that threatens to destroy not only him but the future of the entire human race.