Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

    This smart and pithy book focuses on a simple though vexing challenge: How can the leaders of an organization exhort their people to deliver on the most important goals?....It's rare to find a book like this that blends smart practice with intelligent articulation of how to get things done. Do yourself a favor. Buy it." --The Boston Globe"Making all of the moving parts of an organization function smoothly together is just plain hard work. By describing how he has done it, Mr. Bossidy has come up with a valuable and practical management guide that is must-reading for everyone who cares about business." --The New York Times"If you want to be a CEO--or if you are a CEO and want to keep your job--read Execution and put its principles to work." --Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, Dell Computer Corp."A how-to book for the can-do boss....If even half the corporations in America pondered their suggestions, the economy would be in much better shape. Moreover, Bossidy and Charan boast an impressive enough track record that anyone who wants to stay sharp at the helm will welcome their assistance." --BusinessWeek"Sound, practical advice on how to make things happen." --Ralph S. Larsen, chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson"Here's the real deal.... This is no-nonsense stuff.... The leaders who sweat the small stuff, hire the right people, make the tough decisions and stick around to see that they're carried out are the real winners.... Forget the swarmy memoirs, cheesy parables, advice for idiots, and leadership secrets of despots and barbarians. Getting it done is, according to Bossidy and Charan, the only way to grow." --The Miami Herald"Captures a lifetime of building winning formulas and puts them in a simple, practical context for executives at any level." --Ivan Seidenberg, president and CEO, Verizon

    In this updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition, internationally known leadership transition expert Michael D. Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move—whether you’re onboarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.In The First 90 Days, Watkins outlines proven strategies that will dramatically shorten the time it takes to reach what he calls the "breakeven point" when your organization needs you as much as you need the job. This new edition includes a substantial new preface by the author on the new definition of a career as a series of transitions; and notes the growing need for effective and repeatable skills for moving through these changes. As well, updated statistics and new tools make this book more reader-friendly and useful than ever.As hundreds of thousands of readers already know, The First 90 Days is a road map for taking charge quickly and effectively during critical career transition periods—whether you are a first-time manager, a mid-career professional on your way up, or a newly minted CEO.

    Here, you'll learn why tailoring management styles to individual employees is so important; why knowing when to delegate, support, or direct is critical; how to identify the leadership style suited to a particular person; and how consistent use of the One Minute techniques will produce better management and enhanced motivation on all levels. This remarkable, easy-to-follow book is a priceless guide to creative, personalized leadership that elicits the best performance from your staff--and the best bottom line for any business.If your management motto is "everyone should be treated equally," Leadership and the One Minute Manager. will show you why this style not only hinders workplace efficiency, but also frustrates your staff. In clear, simple terms, Ken Blanchard, co-author of the enormously popular The One Minute Manager., coupled with business gurus Patricia and Drea Zigarmi, teach managers the art of Situational Leadership.. You'll learn why tailoring management styles to individual employees is so important; when to delegate, support, or direct; how to identify the leadership style suited to a particular person; and how consistent use of the One Minute techniques will produce better management and enhanced motivation on all levels. This remarkable, easy-to-follow book is a priceless guide to creative, personalized leadership that elicits the best performance from your staffand the best bottom line for any business.

    Using information gathered from interviews with over 100 social sector leaders, Jim Collins shows that his "Level 5 Leader" and other good-to-great principles can help social sector organizations make the leap to greatness.

    Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly—and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly—sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces.Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from 10,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing issues like:- An employee speaks to you in an insulting tone that crosses the line between sarcasm and insubordination. Now what?- Your boss just committed you to a deadline you know you can't meet—and not-so-subtly hinted he doesn't want to hear complaints about it.- Your son walks through the door sporting colorful new body art that raises your blood pressure by forty points. Speak now, pay later.- An accountant wonders how to step up to a client who is violating the law. Can you spell unemployment?- Family members fret over how to tell granddad that he should no longer drive his car. This is going to get ugly.- A nurse worries about what to say to an abusive physician. She quickly remembers "how things work around here" and decides not to say anything.Everyone knows how to run for cover, or if adequately provoked, step up to these confrontations in a way that causes a real ruckus. That we have down pat. Crucial Confrontations teaches you how to deal with violated expectations in a way that solves the problem at hand, and doesn't harm the relationship—and in fact, even strengthens it.Crucial Confrontations borrows from twenty years of research involving two groups. More than 25,000 people helped the authors identify those who were most influential during crucial confrontations. They spent 10,000 hours watching these people, documented what they saw, and then trained and tested with more than 300,000 people. Second, they measured the impact of crucial confrontations improvements on organizational and team performance—the results were immediate and sustainable: twenty to fifty percent improvements in measurable performance.

    But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.

    And here, they show companies how to create a pipeline of talent that will continuously fill their leadership needs-needs they may not even yet realize. The Leadership Pipeline delivers a proven framework for priming future leaders by planning for their development, coaching them, and measuring the results of those efforts. Moreover, the book presents a combination leadership-development/succession-planning program that ensures a steady line-up of leaders for every critical position within the company. It's an approach that bolsters the retention of intellectual capital as it eliminates the need to go outside for expensive "stars," who will probably jump ship before they reach their full potential anyway.

    You’ll learn how to:• Stay in control under pressure• Defuse anger and hostility• Find out what the other side really wants• Counter dirty tricks• Use power to bring the other side back to the table• Reach agreements that satisfies both sides' needsGetting Past No is the state-of-the-art book on negotiation for the twenty-first century. It will help you deal with tough times, tough people, and tough negotiations. You don’t have to get mad or get even. Instead, you can get what you want!

    The leading thinker on the topic of power, Pfeffer here distills his wisdom into an indispensable guide.” —Jim Collins, author of New York Times bestselling author Good to Great and How the Mighty FallSome people have it, and others don’t. Jeffrey Pfeffer explores why, in Power.One of the greatest minds in management theory and author or co-author of thirteen books, including the seminal business-school text Managing With Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer shows readers how to succeed and wield power in the real world.

    In so many workplaces, people feel they’re playing a high-stakes game of “blame or be blamed,” which can be disastrous for the individuals who get caught up in it and can sink teams and afflict whole companies. Dattner presents compelling evidence that whether we fall into the trap of playing the blame game or learn to avoid the pitfalls is a major determinant of how successful we will be. The problem is that so many workplaces foster a blaming culture. Maybe you have a constantly blaming boss, or a colleague who is always taking credit for others’ work. All too often, individuals are scapegoated, teams fall apart, projects get derailed, and people become disengaged because fear and resentment have taken root. And what’s worse, the more emotionally charged a workplace is—maybe our jobs are threatened or we’re facing a particularly difficult challenge—the more emphatically people play the game, just when trust and collaboration are most needed. What can we do? We can learn to understand the hidden dynamics of human psychology that lead to this bad behavior so that we can inoculate ourselves against it and defuse the tensions in our own workplace.In lively prose that is as engaging as it is illuminating, Dattner tells a host of true stories of those he has worked with—from the woman who was so scapegoated by her colleagues that she decided to quit, to the clueless boss who was too quick to blame his staff. He shares a wealth of insight from the study of human evolution and psychology to reveal the underlying reasons why people are so prone to blaming and credit-grabbing; it’s not only human nature, it’s found throughout the animal kingdom. Even bats do it. He shows how our family experiences, gender, and culture also all shape the way we cope with credit and blame issues, and introduces eleven personality types that are especially prone to causing difficulties and illustrates how we can best cope with them. He also profiles how a number of outstanding leaders, from General Dwight Eisenhower and President Harry Truman to highly respected business figures such as former Intel CEO Andy Grove and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, employed the power of taking blame and sharing credit to achieve great success.The only winning move in the blame game, Dattner shows, is not to play, and the insights and practical suggestions in this book will help readers, at any level of any organization and at any stage of their careers, learn to manage the crucial psychology of credit and blame for themselves and others.

    Using illustrative examples, case studies, and exercises, the author, one of the most important and well known in his field, offers his legendary warmth and insight throughout this much-awaited second edition. Anyone who must communicate in a professional context--and who doesn't?--will use the lessons taught in this book for years to come! "Who would have thought the 'consultant's bible' could be improved upon? Count on Peter Block--the consulting profession's very own revolutionary--to push us to confront and struggle with the paradoxes inherent in our work." --Candace Thompson, organization development consultant, First Chicago NBD--A Bank One Company "Block has distilled years of experience into a wise, down-to-earth, and eminently practical guide to excellence in consulting. If you are new to the practice, Flawless Consulting will chop years off your learning cycle. And even if you're an old pro, Block's insights will elevate you to new levels of effectiveness. Flawless Consulting is not simply about becoming a better consultant; it is about using consulting as a path toward becoming a better person." --Barry Oshry, president, Power & Systems, Inc.; author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems

    This internationally recognized standard provides the essential tools to practice project management and deliver organizational results.

    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. "The Way We're Working Isn't Working "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."The Way We're Working Isn't Working "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.

    Arm yourself with these 50 secret rules, and get to the top without breaking a sweat. * Hot book -- 55,000 copies sold in the UK, and 20,000 copies in Canada. * The complete success primer for today's manager: fun, irreverent, and real. * Why some people glide effortlessly past office politics, backstabbing, and unpleasant bosses...and how you can, too.