Bosses, colleagues, customers—but also family, friends, and in-laws—they all have “suggestions” for our performance, parenting, or appearance. We know that feedback is essential for healthy relationships and professional development—but we dread it and often dismiss it.That’s because receiving feedback sits at the junction of two conflicting human desires. We do want to learn and grow. And we also want to be accepted just as we are right now. Thanks for the Feedback is the first book to address this tension head on. It explains why getting feedback is so crucial yet so challenging, and offers a powerful framework to help us take on life’s blizzard of off-hand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited advice with curiosity and grace.The business world spends billions of dollars and millions of hours each year teaching people how to give feedback more effectively. Stone and Heen argue that we’ve got it backwards and show us why the smart money is on educating receivers— in the workplace and in personal relationships as well.Coauthors of the international bestseller Difficult Conversations, Stone and Heen have spent the last ten years working with businesses, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. With humor and clarity, they blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, hard-headed advice. The book is destined to become a classic in the world of leadership, organizational behavior, and education.

    Unfortunately most of these are PREDICTABLE and AVOIDABLE. Tact and diplomacy can only get you so far in the wild and wacky world of project work. A combination of outrageous creativity, sheer bravado and nerves of steel will serve you far better than any fancy-schmancy Microsoft Project Gantt chart!'Scrappy Project Management' is about what REALLY happens in the project environment, how to survive it, and how to make sure that your team avoids the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces.

    We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.

    Each of those moments requires you, in some way, to play a role, to heighten the impact of your words, and to manage your emotions and nerves. Every interaction is a performance, whether you’re speaking up in a meeting, pitching a client, or walking into a job interview.   In Steal the Show, New York Times best-selling author Michael Port draws on his experience as an actor and as a highly successful corporate speaker and trainer to teach readers how to make the most of every presentation and interaction. He demonstrates how the methods of successful actors can help you connect with, inspire, and persuade any audience. His key strategies for commanding an audience’s attention include developing a clear focus for every performance, making sure you engage with your listeners, and finding the best role for yourself in order to convey your message with maximum impact.  Michael Port is one of the most in-demand corporate speakers working today. His presentations are always powerful, engaging, and inspirational. And yes, audiences always give him a standing ovation.

    We hear just enough of what others say to get our work done, maintain friendships, and be polite with our neighbors. But we miss crucial opportunities to go deeper--to give and receive honest feedback, to make connections that will endure for the long haul, and to discover who people truly are at their core.Fortunately, listening can be improved--and Ximena Vengoechea can show you how. In Listen Like You Mean It, she offers a listening guide with tried-and-true strategies honed in her own research sessions and drawn from interviews with marriage counselors, podcast hosts, life coaches, journalists, filmmakers, and other listening experts. Through Vengoechea's set of scripts, key questions, exercises, and illustrations, you'll learn to:Quickly build rapport with strangersAsk the right questions to deepen a conversationPause at the right time to encourage vulnerabilityNavigate a conversation that's gone off the rails.

    It all begins with understanding how the world sees you—at your best. How the World Sees You gives you the step-by-step method to describe yourself in just two or three words. This short phrase is your Anthem, the tagline for your personality. Your Anthem guides you like a mission statement, helping you to build your team, write a LinkedIn profile, or captivate an audience.This book includes a private code to unlock one free Fascination Advantage® online assessment. Your customized online report, based on Sally Hogshead's extensive research on what fascinates listeners, will reveal how you fascinate others, includingYour top two Fascination Advantages in communication The personality Archetypes you need on your team to optimize your success The five words to describe your personality's highest valueTo become more successful, you do not have to change who you are—you have to become more of who you are. How the World Sees You reveals who you are at your best so you can create better relationships, grow your business, and become intensely valuable to those who matter most.

    What is their "Midas touch?"What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people.The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques-- she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you'll find:9 ways to make a dynamite first impression 14 ways to master small talk, "big talk," and body language 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone 9 ways to feed someone's ego (and know when NOT to!) 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten aliveIn her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you'll remember them when you really need them, including: "Rubberneck the Room," "Be a Copyclass," "Come Hither Hands," "Bare Their Hot Button," "The Great Scorecard in the Sky," and "Play the Tombstone Game," for big success in your social life, romance, and business.How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner's Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work!By the way, don't confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil's previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!

    It's not that you're not hardworking, intelligent or deserving, but that you haven't yet installed the one key belief that will change everything: Everything is figureoutable.Whether you want to leave a dead-end job, heal a relationship, grow a business, master your money, or just find two free hours in your day, Everything is Figureoutable will train your brain to think more positively and help you break down any dream into manageable steps.Inside you'll learn:- How to deal with criticism and imposter syndrome- Why it's crucial that you strive for progress not perfection- How to bounce back from failure- How to overcome a lack of time and moneyYou'll also hear triumphant stories of everyday people using the everything is figureoutable philosophy to transform their life. Everything is figureoutable is more than just a fun phrase to say. It's a practical, actionable discipline. And it's about to make you unstoppable!

    In this age of economic recession and financial uncertainty, the patented Peters approach to business and management—no-nonsense, witty, down-to-earth, insightful—is more pertinent now than ever. As essential for small-business owners as it is for the heads of major corporations, The Little Big Things is a rousing call-to-arms to American business to get “back to the basics” of running a successful enterprise.

    Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career that can also improve your closest relationships and your everyday life, but often people shy away from it, feeling defeated before they’ve even started. In this groundbreaking new book on negotiation, Ask for More, Alexandra Carter—Columbia law professor and mediation expert who has helped students, business professionals, the United Nations, and more—offers a straightforward, accessible approach anyone can use to ask for and get more. We’ve been taught incorrectly that the loudest and most assertive voice prevails in any negotiation, or otherwise both sides compromise, ending up with less. Instead Carter shows that you get far more value by asking the right questions of the person you’re negotiating with than you do from arguing with them. She offers a simple yet powerful ten-question framework for successful negotiation where both sides emerge victorious. Carter’s proven method extends far beyond one “yes” or handshake and instead creates value that lasts a lifetime. Ask for More gives you the tools to bring clarity and perspective to any important discussion, no matter the topic.

    It tells the story of a hardworking family man who finds himself in crisis when his company closes. Through his struggle, and guidance from unlikely sources, he learns subtle lessons in the form of "personal zen" principles, coming to understand that it is often the involuntary challenge, the setbacks, that harbor the power to transform. When approached as an opportunity -- no easy task when simple survival is the first order of business--unforeseen trials can sometimes result in an altogether new lease on life. Shows how "personal leadership" can lead to real (and not always easy) breakthroughs Includes key lessons on commitment, preparation, struggle, breakthrough, and transformation Is based on "Shibumi, " a Japanese word without literal definition that describes the height of personal excellence, elegant performance, and effortless effectiveness.For those struggling with personal breakthroughs, "The Shubimi Strategy" offers a new way to face work and life challenges for balanced solutions.

    Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Beverly Kaye, coauthor of the bestselling Love ’Em or Lose ’Em, and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career plans.Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions.

    In his line of work, successful leadership was quite literally a matter of life or death. Now he brings his hard-earned lessons to you. Be Exceptional distills a lifetime of experience into five principles that outstanding individuals live by:Self-Mastery: To lead others, you must first demonstrate that you can lead yourself.Observation: Apply the same techniques used by the FBI to quickly and accurately assess any situation.Communication: Harness the power of verbal and nonverbal interaction to persuade, motivate, and inspire.Action: Build shared purpose and lead by example.Psychological Comfort: Discover the secret ingredient of exceptional individuals.Be Exceptional is the culmination of Joe Navarro’s decades spent analyzing human behavior, conducting more than 10,000 interviews in the field, and making high-stakes behavioral assessments. Drawing upon case studies from history, compelling firsthand accounts from Navarro’s FBI career, and cutting-edge science on nonverbal communication and persuasion, this is a new type of leadership book, one that will have the power to transform for years to come.

    He gave up a six-figure income as a lawyer to make $12 an hour as a personal trainer. Then, married with a 3-month old baby, he signed a lease to launch a yoga center in the heart of New York City. . . the day before 9/11. But he survived, and along the way he developed a fresh approach to transforming uncertainty, risk of loss, and exposure to judgment into catalysts for innovation, creation, and achievement.Properly understood and harnessed, fear and uncertainty can become fuel for creative genius rather than sources of pain, anxiety, and suffering. In business, art, and life, creating on a world-class level demands bold action and leaps of faith in the face of great uncertainty. But that uncertainty can lead to fear, anxiety, paralysis, and destruction. It can gut creativity and stifle innovation. It can keep you from taking the risks necessary to do great work and craft a deeply-rewarding life. And it can bring companies that rely on innovation grinding to a halt.That is, unless you know how to use it to your advantage. Fields draws on leading-edge technology, cognitive-science and ancient awareness-focusing techniques in a fresh, practical, non-dogmatic way. His approach enables creativity and productivity on an entirely different level and can turn the once-tortuous journey into a more enjoyable quest. Fields will reveal how to:Make changes to your workflow that unlock buried creative potential. Build "creation hives" -- supportive groups that can supercharge and humanize the process. Tap social technology and user co-creation to add clarity, certainty, and sanity, even if you're an artist or solo-creator. Develop a set of personal practices and mindset shifts that let you not just tolerate, but invite and even amplify, uncertainty as a catalyst for genius.Drawing on extensive case studies and research, Fields shares a set of detailed personal practices and environmental changes that can not only humanize the creative process, but also allow individuals and teams to stay more open to opportunity and play a bigger creative game.

    But being an introvert doesn’t mean you can’t be a great leader. Citing examples of highly successful leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Jennifer Kahnweiler shows that introverts can build on their quiet strength and make it a source of great power.After highlighting the common challenges introverts face at work, such as stress, invisibility, and perception gaps, the book details a straightforward four-step process to handle work situations such as managing up, leading projects, public speaking, and many more. Kahnweiler provides numerous examples and leadership tips as well as a revealing Introverted Leader Quiz that pinpoints where focused attention will produce maximum results, The Introverted Leader will teach you to embrace your natural work style in order to advance your career, get the most out of the people around you, and add value to your organization.