Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most


Hendrie Weisinger - 2015
    Regardless of the task, pressure ruthlessly diminishes our judgment, decision-making, attention, dexterity, and performance in every professional and personal arena. In Performing Under Pressure, Drs. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry introduce us to the concept of pressure management, offering empirically tested short term and long term solutions to help us overcome the debilitating effects of pressure. Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.   Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do.   Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.

Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Enjoy Helping Others Excel


Alan Loy McGinnis - 1985
    There are actually a small number of principles used by good motivators, and the best leaders were using them long before psychology had a name. Fascinating case studies and anecdotes about Lee Iacocca, Sandra Day O'Connor, and many others show how you can put 12 key principles to work in your family or organization. Whether you are a parent, executive, teacher, or friend, you can gain the satisfaction that comes from Bringing the Best Out in People.

Difficult Conversations (HBR 20-Minute Manager Series)


Harvard Business Review - 2016
    You fear your emotions could block you from a resolution. But you can communicate in a way that’s constructive—not combative. Difficult Conversations walks you through:• Uncovering the root cause of friction• Maintaining a positive mind-set• Untangling the problem together• Agreeing on a way forwardDon't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives—from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.

The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know


Katty Kay - 2014
    Yet men still predominate in the corporate world. In The Confidence Code, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay argue that the key reason is confidence.Combining cutting-edge research in genetics, gender, behavior, and cognition—with examples from their own lives and those of other successful women in politics, media, and business—Kay and Shipman go beyond admonishing women to "lean in."Instead, they offer the inspiration and practical advice women need to close the gap and achieve the careers they want and deserve.

You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake: How Biases Distort Decision-Making and What You Can Do to Fight Them


Olivier Sibony - 2019
    (Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)We all make decisions all the time. It's so natural that we hardly stop to think about it. Yet even the smartest and most experienced among us make frequent and predictable errors. So, what makes a good decision? Should we trust our intuitions, and if so, when? How can we avoid being tripped up by cognitive biases when we are not even aware of them?In You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake!, strategy professor and management consultant Olivier Sibony draws on dozens of fascinating and engaging case studies to show how cognitive biases routinely lead all of us -- including even the most renowned business titans -- into nine common decision-making traps. But instead of rehashing the same old "debiasing" techniques that fail managers time and again, Sibony explains that the best way to avoid the pitfalls of cognitive bias is to craft an effective decision-making architecture in your organization -- a system of techniques and processes that leverage collective intelligence to help leaders make the best decisions possible -- and provides 40 concrete methods for doing so.Distinctive in the clarity and practicality of its message, You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake! distills the latest developments in behavioral economics and cognitive psychology into actionable tools for making smart, effective decisions in business and beyond. "Succinct, accurate, and even-handed. I loved it!" (Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit) "The best, funniest, most useful guide to cognitive bias in business. If you make decisions, you need to read this book." (Safi Bahcall, bestselling author of Loonshots)

Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives


Laura Whitworth - 1998
    Published in more than ten languages now, this book has been used as the definitive resource in dozens of corporate, professional development and university-based coaching programs as well as by thousands of individuals looking to elevate their communication, relationship and coaching skills. This fully revised third edition of Co-Active Coaching has been updated to reflect the expanded vision of the newly updated Co-Active Model and coaching course curriculum at The Coaches Training Institute, the training organization founded and run by the authors for 20 years. The third edition emphasizes evoking transformational change in the client and extends the use of the Co-Active Model into leadership management and its effectiveness throughout organizations. This edition also contains an on-line Coach's Toolkit (replacing the CD of the second edition), several new coaching demonstrations and more than 35 updated exercises, questionnaires, checklists and reproducible forms.

Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters


Jerry Porras - 2006
    Authored by three legends in leadership and self-help — including Built to Last co-author Jerry Porras — it challenges conventional wisdom at every step. Success Built to Last draws on face-to-face, unscripted conversations with hundreds of remarkable human beings from around the world. Meet billionaires, CEOs, presidents of nations, Nobel laureates and celebrities — the rich, the famous and the unknown. Meet unsung heroes who've achieved lasting impact without obvious power or charisma. Famous or not, most started out ordinary. Discover how successful people "harvest" their strengths and their weaknesses, their victories and their surprising failures. Discover how you can find meaning in your life and work just as they did and summon the courage to follow your passions. Above all, see how they've sustained success for decades and you can too.

The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It's Too Late


Leigh Branham - 2005
    Incorporating data from surveys performed by the prestigious Saratoga Institute of more than 19,000 employees, this critical book examines in depth:* How the employee and the employer travel a two-way street of expectation and reality; What are the warning signs of unmet expectations, and how can you best act on them?* How incomplete talent strategies lead to employee-job mismatches; why a passion for matching must become a core competency in your organization.* The ultimate cost of insufficient or ineffectual feedback; a five-step coaching process that builds strong and durable working relationships.* How growth and advancement opportunities are not keeping pace with new career expectations; how to create opportunities and help your employees create their own.* Best pay practices, rewards programs, and other initiatives for valuing and recognizing employees; understanding the emotional impact of compensation and recognition programs.* The real toll that stress and overwork take on your employees--and on your bottom line; a look at how the best places to work in America got that way, even without high-profile or "newfangled" perks or benefits.* How leadership and employees can (and must) build an environment of mutual trust and confidence; the three universal questions every employee needs answered, and how a disengaged workforce is the direct result of detached leadershipThe key to becoming an Employer of Choice -- a workplace where top talent are knocking down the doors to get in -- is to develop the attitudes and implement the programs that address each of the above areas. The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave presents 54 Best Practices that will serve as the building blocks for a proactive approach to employee satisfaction, growth, and retention."

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy


Jon Gordon - 2007
    Jon infuses this engaging story with keen insights as he provides a powerful roadmap to overcome adversity and bring out the best in yourself and your team. When you get on The Energy Bus you'll enjoy the ride of your life!

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work


Shawn Achor - 2010
    If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn’t just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.             In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.             Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. Among the principles he outlines:      • The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunities wherever we look.    • The Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.    • Social Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness—our social support network  A must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity, The Happiness Advantage isn’t only about how to become happier at work. It’s about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mind-set to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.From the Hardcover edition.

Return on Character: The Real Reason Leaders and Their Companies Win


Fred Kiel - 2015
    Countless business authors and analysts have assured us that great leadership demands great character. Time and again, we’ve seen that truth play out, as once-thriving organizations falter and fail under the guidance of leaders behaving badly. Why, then, do so many executives remain skeptical about the true value of leadership character? A winning strategy and a sound business model are what really matter, they argue; character is just the icing on the cake.What’s been missing from this debate is hard evidence: data that shows not only that leadership character matters for organizational success, but how it matters; and concrete evidence that it leads to better business results. Now, in this groundbreaking book, respected leadership researcher, adviser, and author Fred Kiel offers that evidence—solid data that demonstrates the connection between character, leadership excellence, and organizational results.After seven years of rigorous research based on a landmark study of more than 100 CEOs and over 8,000 of their employees’ observations, Kiel’s findings show that leaders of strong character achieved up to five times the ROA for their organizations as did leaders of weak character.Return on Character goes on to reveal:• How leadership character is formed, how it creates value, and how that value spreads throughout the organization• How low-character leaders undermine the success of even the best business plans• How leaders at any level can develop the habits of strong character and “unlearn” the habits of poor characterThe book also provides a character-building methodology—step-by-step advice and techniques for assessing your own character habits and improving your performance and that of your organization.Return on Character provides the blueprint for building your own leadership character and creating a character-driven organization that achieves superior business results.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business


Charles Duhigg - 2012
    Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.They succeeded by transforming habits.In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know


Adam M. Grant - 2021
    Evidence has shown that creative geniuses are not attached to one identity, but constantly willing to rethink their stances and that leaders who admit they don't know something and seek critical feedback lead more productive and innovative teams.New evidence shows us that as a mindset and a skilllset, rethinking can be taught and Grant explains how to develop the necessary qualities to do it. Section 1 explores why we struggle to think again and how we can learn to do it as individuals, arguing that 'grit' alone can actually be counterproductive. Section 2 discusses how we can help others think again through learning about 'argument literacy'. And the final section 3 looks at how schools, businesses and governments fall short in building cultures that encourage rethinking.In the end, learning to rethink may be the secret skill to give you the edge in a world changing faster than ever.

Boards That Deliver: Advancing Corporate Governance from Compliance to Competitive Advantage


Ram Charan - 2005
    Ram Charan, expert in corporate governance and best-selling author, packs this book with useful tools and techniques to take boards and their companies to a higher level of performance. Charan puts his finger on a growing problem for boards: the disconnect between directors' efforts and their results. The added time and attention boards invest is not translating into better governancea that is, governance that adds value to the business. Boards That Deliver gets beyond the rhetoric of corporate governance reform. It captures the tried-and-true practices used by high-performance boards. In contrast to experts who base prescriptions on number-crunching exercises, Charan identifies the real problems that drain directors' time and suppress their best judgmentsa and explains clearly and succinctly how boards can solve those problems. These battle-tested solutions help boards achieve what rules and regulations alone cannota to get succession right, refine a winning strategy, and design a rational CEO compensation package.Good governance requires leadership. Boards That Deliver is the no-nonsense guide for directors and CEOs who are rising to the leadership challenge to make their boards a competitive advantage.

The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO: A Remarkable Story about Living Your Heart's Desires


Robin S. Sharma - 2002
    In this truly unforgettable guide, Robin Sharma, author of the national bestseller The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and a man whose life lessons are currently transforming the lives of many thousands of people across the planet, will show you how to access your inner gifts and reshape your whole outer life in the process. With brilliant simplicity and remarkable insight, The Saint, the Surfer and the CEO will teach you:• How to stop betraying your self and live your destiny• Simple ways to feel a rare amount of fulfillment and joy in your days • How to reconnect to your inner child like heart for a more passion-filled life• Lessons to conquer stress, balance life, and feel good about yourself• A proven process that will revolutionize your relationships and fill your life with love• How to restore adventure, simplicity, and prosperity into your life• Powerful principles to become strikingly successful at work• Practical wisdom to help see a gorgeous vision for your future and then make it a reality