In his latest book, management expert Ken Miller discusses how the processes of state and local government became so complicated and inefficient – and how to start cleaning up the mess. With his typical irreverent and funny tone, Ken lays out the simple ways that public-sector leaders can tear down all the twisted, broken parts of government and rebuild it stronger, leaner and better equipped to help citizens. Full of clear, concise tips on increasing government’s capacity, Extreme Government Makeover is essential reading for everyone in government, from top-level executives to managers and employees on the front lines.What you’ll learn in Extreme Government Makeover• The one and only thing government needs to focus on to get out of this crisis• How government can perform its vital functions 80 percent faster, at less cost and with better quality• The DNA of government complexity and how we can genetically modify it • How to spot the “moldy” thinking that is making us all sick• How to get rid of 40 percent of your agency’s workload• How to find the hidden costs of government• What the next generation of customers and employees are going to do to your operations• Why technology isn’t the answer• Most importantly, you’ll learn a new way of seeing the work of government – and a better way to make that work great.

    In High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove, former chairman and CEO (and employee number three) of Intel, shares his perspective on how to build and run a company. Born of Grove’s experiences at one of America’s leading technology companies, this legendary management book is a Silicon Valley staple, equally appropriate for sales managers, accountants, consultants, and teachers, as well as CEOs and startup founders. Grove covers techniques for creating highly productive teams, demonstrating methods of motivation that lead to peak performance—throughout, High Output Management is a practical handbook for navigating real-life business scenarios and a powerful management manifesto with the ability to revolutionize the way we work.

    You must graduate from an elite college or business school. In fact, only 7 percent of the CEOs of today's companies went to a top school--and 8 percent didn't graduate from college at all. Never put a foot wrong. In fact, people who have become CEOs have on average had five to seven career setbacks on their way to the top.Drawing on the biggest dataset of CEOs in the world -- in-depth analysis of 2,600 leaders, drawn from a database of 17,000 CEOs, as well as 13,000 hours of interviews -- The CEO Next Door is crammed full of myth-busting and counter-intuitive insights in what it really takes to get ahead. Discover the way actual CEOs of top companies think and behave, and the kind of traits to develop if you want to make your ambitions a reality and take your career right to the top.

    Fortunately, Jon McGee is an ideal guide through this dynamic marketplace. In Breakpoint, he argues that higher education is in the midst of an extraordinary moment of demographic, economic, and cultural transition that has significant implications for how colleges understand their mission, their market, and their management. Drawing from an extensive assessment of demographic and economic trends, McGee presents a broad and integrative picture of these changes while stressing the importance of decisive campus leadership. He describes the key forces that influence higher education and provides a framework from which trustees, presidents, administrators, faculty, and policy makers can address pressing issues in the aftermath of the Great Recession.Although McGee avoids endorsing one-size-fits-all solutions, he suggests a number of concrete strategies for handling prospective students and developing pedagogical practices, curricular content and delivery, and management structures. Practical and compelling, Breakpoint will help higher education leaders make choices that advance their institutional values and serve their students and the common good for generations to come.

    After remarkable one-on-one interviews with Bill Gates, Maya Angelou, Steve Wozniak, Jane Goodall, Larry King, Jessica Alba, Pitbull, Tim Ferriss, Quincy Jones, and many more, Alex discovered the one key they have in common: they all took the Third Door.Life, business, success... it's just like a nightclub. There are always three ways in. There's the First Door: the main entrance, where ninety-nine percent of people wait in line, hoping to get in. The Second Door: the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities slip through. But what no one tells you is that there is always, always... the Third Door. It's the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, climb over the dumpster, crack open the window, sneak through the kitchen--there's always a way in. Whether it's how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software or how Steven Spielberg became the youngest studio director in Hollywood history, they all took the Third Door.

    In WORK HAPPY, she provides a practical, step-by-step guide, based on real-world experience, respected research, and lessons that will transform managers and their teams. It's a workshop-in-a-book, designed to produce positive, immediate and lasting results.Whether the reader is an experienced manager, a rookie boss or an aspiring leader, WORK HAPPY will supercharge their skills and celebrate the values that make anyone look forward to going to work. Jill Geisler offers concrete steps for improving each element of management including collaboration, communication, conflict resolution, motivation, coaching, and feedback, so that everyone on the team-whether in the office or working offsite-can do their best.WORK HAPPY takes management skills to the next level and proves that learning, leadership and life at work can (and should) be fun.

    As the CEO of the struggling Bare Escentuals, Blodgett shifted the company’s focus and launched bareMinerals. In a move that would revolutionize the beauty industry, she went on QVC and sold $45,000 worth of makeup in the first six minutes. Before long, she was selling $1.4 million an hour. In 2006 Blodgett took the company public in one of the largest cosmetic IPOs of the decade, and in 2010 the company was acquired by Shiseido for $1.8 billion. Pretty Good Advice provides beauty secrets, business tips, life lessons, and lots of personal stories. Some ideas are common sense. Some are pretty unconventional. Most importantly, everything in this book is honest, all tried (and sometimes failed) by Blodgett. Fun, frank, and filled with actionable advice, Pretty Good Advice is a glimpse into the unlikely story of a successful beauty executive who approached her work and life a little bit differently.

    Sears distils over 20 years’ experience as a management consultant and coach into six simple conversational structures that cover every management situation. A natural storyteller with a great narrative gift, Sears delivers his message in an entirely unique manner – as a work of business fiction. In this compelling and highly instructive tale you can follow the journey of newly promoted Operations Manager Sam Mitchell as he faces the everyday pressures and challenges of managing a team, and then relate his experiences to real life scenarios in your workplace. Conversation #1 – What can you do about that? Conversation #2 – Who should really own this? Conversation #3 – How should we be behaving? Conversation #4 – Who’s really doing this? Conversation #5 – Where are we heading? Conversation #6 – How are we doing?   This highly practical guide concludes with a simple how-to chapter, explaining why and how each conversation works, and when to use them, as well as providing accompanying tips and techniques. The Six Conversations of a Brilliant Manager is an instantly-applicable and hugely powerful toolkit for every manager and HR department looking to get the very best out of their people.

    The One Thing explains the success habit to overcome the six lies that block our success, beat the seven thieves that steal time, and leverage the laws of purpose, priority, and productivity.

    The secret for creating magic in our careers, our organizations, and our lives is simple: outstanding leadership--the kind that inspires employees, delights customers, and achieves extraordinary business results. No one knows more about this kind of leadership than Lee Cockerell, the man who ran Walt Disney World(R) Resort operations for over a decade. And in Creating Magic, he shares the leadership principles that not only guided his own journey from a poor farm boy in Oklahoma to the head of operations for a multibillion dollar enterprise, but that also soon came to form the cultural bedrock of the world's number one vacation destination. But as Lee demonstrates, great leadership isn't about mastering impossibly complex management theories. We can all become outstanding leaders by following the ten practical, common sense strategies outlined in this remarkable book. As straightforward as they are profound, these leadership lessons include: Everyone is important.Make your people your brand. Burn the free fuel: appreciation, recognition, and encouragement. Give people a purpose, not just a job. Combining surprising business wisdom with insightful and entertaining stories from Lee's four decades on the front lines of some of the world's best-run companies, Creating Magic shows all of us - from small business owners to managers at every level - how to become better leaders by infusing quality, character, courage, enthusiasm, and integrity into our workplace and into our lives.

    The first female CEO of one of Australia's big four banks, listed by Forbes in 2010 as the 8th most powerful woman in the world, and mother of four (including triplets), Gail is celebrated as one of our finest, most innovative thinkers on leadership and workplace culture.In these personal, practical chapters, Gail Kelly shares what she's learned over her remarkable career, drawing from her personal and professional life. As a leader, she argues passionately for the importance of putting people and customers at the heart of a business; of leading with courage and generosity of spirit; and of resilience. Some of those lessons were learnt at times of high pressure, and Gail takes us into her thinking as she led Westpac through the global financial crisis and the merger with St. George.But Gail's voice speaks to each of us, whatever our role in life. She explores the absolute importance of loving what you do; learning to learn; backing yourself; and most importantly, placing your family above all things.At the heart of Gail's refreshing, authentic, integrated approach is how both individuals and companies thrive when they openly address the meaning of what they do, and understand the need to live a whole life. Live, Lead, Learn is the inspiring story of one of the world's most prominent business people, who started as a Latin teacher and became mother of four and CEO of Westpac - and everything she has learned along the way.

    Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. And so one day, desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultant referred to by his many devotees simply as the Chairman. Over the next week, Pindar introduces Joe to a series of “go-givers:” a restaurateur, a CEO, a financial adviser, a real estate broker, and the “Connector,” who brought them all together. Pindar’s friends share with Joe the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success and teach him how to open himself up to the power of giving. Joe learns that changing his focus from getting to giving—putting others’ interests first and continually adding value to their lives—ultimately leads to unexpected returns. Imparted with wit and grace, The Go-Giver is a heartwarming and inspiring tale that brings new relevance to the old proverb “Give and you shall receive.”

    But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return. Using his own pioneering research as Wharton's youngest tenured professor, Grant shows that these styles have a surprising impact on success. Although some givers get exploited and burn out, the rest achieve extraordinary results across a wide range of industries. Combining cutting-edge evidence with captivating stories, this landmark book shows how one of America's best networkers developed his connections, why the creative genius behind one of the most popular shows in television history toiled for years in anonymity, how a basketball executive responsible for multiple draft busts transformed his franchise into a winner, and how we could have anticipated Enron's demise four years before the company collapsed - without ever looking at a single number. Praised by bestselling authors such as Dan Pink, Tony Hsieh, Dan Ariely, Susan Cain, Dan Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, Bob Sutton, David Allen, Robert Cialdini, and Seth Godin-as well as senior leaders from Google, McKinsey, Merck, Estee Lauder, Nike, and NASA - Give and Take highlights what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common. This landmark book opens up an approach to success that has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organizations and communities.

    "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. This insight is the heart of WORK RULES!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including:Take away managers' power over employeesLearn from your best employees-and your worstHire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find themPay unfairly (it's more fair!)Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the futureDefault to open-be transparent and welcome feedbackIf you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, WORK RULES! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. WORK RULES! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from above; read it to reawaken your joy in what you do.

    Through a series of simple questions, readers will create a living document that communicates their values, passions, goals and standards to others, maximizing their leadership potential.Outlines a clear approach for identifying a concise and meaningful set of personal leadership maxims by which leaders can live their lives Explains and applies four basic aspects of leadership: leading yourself, leading the thinking, leading your people, and leading a balanced life Generates a foundational document that serves as a touchstone for leaders and their teams Simple, applicable, and without pretense, One Piece of Paper provides a model for real leadership in the real world.