But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.

    With The Great CEO Within, he shares his highly effective leadership and business-operating tools with any CEO or manager in the world. Learn how to efficiently scale your business from startup to corporation by implementing a system of accountability, effective problem-solving, and transparent feedback.Becoming a great CEO requires training. For a founding CEO, there is precious little time to complete that training, especially at the helm of a rapidly growing company. Now you have the guidance you need in one book.

    He explains how managers can inspire their people and manage the daily workflow for maximum productivity and includes exercises and activities at the end of each chapter to help managers start implementing new ideas immediately.

    McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

    It gives you the tools to address a wider range of important VSM issues than any other such book, including the psychology of change, leadership, creating teams, building consensus, and charter development.Karen Martin is principal consultant for Karen Martin & Associates, LLC, instructor for the University of California, San Diego's Lean Enterprise program, and industry advisor to the University of San Diego's Industrial and Systems Engineering program. Mike Osterling provides support and leadership to manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations on their Lean Transformation Journey. In a continuous improvement leadership role for six years, Mike played a key role in Square D Company's lean transformation in the 1990s.

    But below the surface, they share a common approach to finding, nurturing, leading, and even letting go of great people. The way they deal with talent makes them not merely success stories, not merely organization builders, but what Sydney Finkelstein calls superbosses. They’ve all transformed entire industries.

    The long-awaited update for work and organizations in the knowledge age!A book about complexity and work - and about how to deal productively with both.A condensed introduction to the theory and practice of organizational high performance.A manifesto for contemporary leadership and profound transformation in organizations of all kinds.

    With unprecedented access to the inner working of Toyota, the authors spent six years researching the company, interviewing hundreds of executives and employees, and discovering the company's secret of success. What they uncovered will surprise you and change the way you think about business. Simultaneously rigidly traditional and seriously innovative, it is precisely those internal contradictions that make the company so successful and admired.

    Holacracy creates organizations that are fast, agile, and that succeed by pursuing their purpose, not following a dated and artificial plan.This isn't anarchy – it's quite the opposite. When you start to follow Holacracy, you learn to create new structures and ways of making decisions that empower the people who know the most about the work you do: your frontline colleagues.Some of the many champions of Holacracy include Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com (author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness), Evan Williams (co-founder of Blogger, Twitter, and Medium), and David Allen.

    Great ideas often come from a simple spark: A soccer player on the New Zealand national team notices all the unused wool his country produces and figures out a way to turn them into shoes (Allbirds). A former Buddhist monk decides the very best way to spread his mindfulness teachings is by launching an app (Headspace). A sandwich cart vendor finds a way to reuse leftover pita bread and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business (Stacy’s Pita Chips).   Award-winning journalist and NPR host Guy Raz has interviewed more than 200 highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In How I Built This, he shares tips for every entrepreneur’s journey: from the early days of formulating your idea, to raising money and recruiting employees, to fending off competitors, to finally paying yourself a real salary. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of starting their own business or wondered how trailblazing entrepreneurs made their own dreams a reality.

    Although you may not be aware of it, girlish behaviors such as these are sabotaging your career!Dr. Lois Frankel reveals why some women roar ahead in their careers while others stagnate. She's spotted a unique set of behaviors--101 in all--that women learn in girlhood that sabotage them as adults. Now, in this groudbreaking guide, she helps you eliminate these unconscious mistakes that could be holding you back--and offers invaluable coaching tips you can easily incorporate into your social and business skills. If you recognize and change the behaviors that say "girl" not "woman", the results will pay off in carrer opportunites you never thought possible--and in an image that identifies you as someone with the power and know-how to occupy the corner office.

    With a foreword by design guru Don Norman.Humans make things every day, whether it’s composing an e-mail, cooking a meal, or constructing the Mars Rover. While complexity is often necessary in the development process, unnecessary complexity adds complications. The Simplicity Cycle provides the secret to striking the proper balance. Dan Ward shines a light on how complexity affects the things we make for good or ill, taking us on a journey through the process of making things, with a particular focus on identifying and avoiding complexity-related pitfalls.The standard development process involves increasing complexity to improve the outcome, Ward explains. The problem comes when the complexity starts getting in the way—but often we don’t know where that point is until we pass it. He suggests a number of techniques for identifying the problem and fixing it, including how to overcome several types of wrongheaded thinking—such as the idea that complexity and quality are the same. In clear, compelling language, and using his trademark mix of examples from research, personal experience, and pop culture, Ward offers a universal concept, visually described with a single, evolving diagram.Ideal for business leaders and technologists, The Simplicity Cycle is helpful for anyone looking to simplify and improve everything we do, whether we work in an office, at home, or at the Pentagon.

    Six Sigma was originally developed at Motorola in the 1980's and has become one of the most widely discussed and reported trends in business over the past two years, thanks largely to the phenomenal successes of the Six Sigma program at one of the world's most successful companies, GE.

    You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country. It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution.The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined--including:· Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten.· Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies.· Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea.· Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility.Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks--so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.

      Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck.  Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.    There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful.  Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do.  You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.   In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies.  In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.   Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment.  It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don’t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for.  You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees.  All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.   Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick.  Among Chris’s key principles: if you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.   In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold.  Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives.  And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs.  This remarkable book will start you on your way.