42 Rules of Employee Engagement takes a practical, straightforward and fun look at what it takes to build community, commitment and a culture of engagement in the business world today. The book highlights common behaviors that lead to "disengagement" in teams and offers useful, non-nonsense ideas for doing things differently. Susan Stamm will inspire and challenge you to create a unique workspace with your team that attracts and inspires high performance, commitment and authentic work relationships. This book is loaded with practical advice and actions you can take away to begin building an engaged team.
'42Rules of Employee Engagement (2nd Edition)' was born out of need for dcorporations, leaders and managers to engage with employees. Depending on whose research you read, as much as three quarters of the global workforce were not engaged! How long could organizations continue down this path and thrive or survive? As overwhelming as these data seem, Susan Stamm began to recognize the solutions are simple and within our reach. Engagement begins and ends with leaders and their day to day actions. It's the little things that make the big difference: how much information the leaders shares, how they approach important conversations, how much control they need, and how well they listen. An organization can be a best place to work, yet have a team no one wants to work on. The reverse is also true and it is almost always related to the leader. A challenge is that leaders often have blind spots, especially leaders that are struggling with their teams. This book include stories that leaders can relate to and that might open the door for them to consider how their actions appear to others. The best way to use this book is as a conversation starter. Take it to lunch with colleagues and discuss a single rule and the implications for your teams. These rules are actionable; when there is a challenge, there is always a specific action or direction recommended for dealing with it. In addition to the actions offered at the end of each rule, Appendix C provides links to more than two full years of free employee engagement activities and tools. If you want better engagement at your company, you should pick up '42Rules of Employee Engagement (2nd Edition)' today.
Drawing from extensive interviews with corporate leaders and the author's 20 years as a strategy consultant and executive coach, these rules form an essential leadership manual.
There has been growing talk about the "crisis" in higher education. Politicians are calling for major overhauls of both public and private colleges. Tuition is still outpacing inflation even in the face of a tsunami of bad press. The public is rapidly losing confidence in the ability of higher education to provide the tools today's students require. There has been a flood of books in response to these criticisms from both the left and the right. Authors from inside and outside of the academy have offered their diagnosis. In The Idea of the Digital University, the authors argue that the forces that have brought about these changes are the very tools we need to solve them. They show how the university has to adapt to the digital age while keeping what is most essential to its mission. In 1852 John Cardinal Newman wrote The Idea of the University which has been required reading ever since. This book begins with the issues that he dealt with and updates the discussion for the digital age. Employing history, philosophy and survey data, the authors show the impact that digital technologies have had on higher education. By going back to the works of such thinkers as Aristotle, Kant and Newman, the authors show how the essence of the university can not only survive but also thrive in the new digital age. If colleges create, store and share information does it not make sense that the digital revolution (which changes the way we create, store and share information) would shake the university to its very foundation? The authors, who have together spent more than seventy years in higher education, give us a blueprint for what can be saved and what needs to change. Controversial, polemical and expansive this roadmap for the future will be sure to make a good read for those interested in the future of higher education. From Kirkus Review: A sweeping study of the university structure, emphasizing how higher education must evolve in a digital era. The mass adoption of online technology has pervaded every manner of business; universities are no different. In fact, as McCluskey and Winter suggest in this probing work, "the digital revolution is changing the very DNA of higher education." Still, "the university has come late to the digital revolution," and the authors explore the reasons why. In text that's both interesting to read and carefully researched, McCluskey and Winter discuss the role and structure of the university in general, lending a historical perspective while continuously drawing comparisons and contrasts between the traditional and digital university. The authors address in detail the most obvious evidence of online influence-the growth of online courses-but they pay equal attention to broader implications: the opening up of new avenues for library research, the shift away from paper-based student records and the fundamental change in the way professors teach students. The authors often return to the notion that "Big Data will impact how the university sees its students and their learning." McCluskey and Winter cite Target, the retail chain, as being exemplary in its use of customer data, and they directly relate those efforts to the ways in which universities will have to use "Big Data" in the future "to see where education is succeeding and where we have work to do." The authors also raise the issue of nonprofit versus for-profit universities, the latter having expanded largely because of online course offerings. Rather than take a position in favor or against for-profits, however, the authors diplomatically discuss some of the ways the nonprofit and for-profit institutions could learn from each other. Finally, the authors offer their own perceptive assessment on what the digital university might someday look like, postulating about dashboards, data warehouses and digital report cards. Comprehensive, insightful and visionary.
Whether you are a 5-person team or a 50,000 person company some of the same rules for successful collaboration apply. The more you share what you know the more it is worth; understanding a person's local context is more critical to successful collaboration than any technology you may use. Based on years of research, an encyclopedic knowledge of collaborative technologies, and a realization that collaboration is hard to do successfully, Mr. Coleman provides a holistic view on collaboration. Through a variety of contributions from his social networks, others have contributed their best rules for collaboration based on their experience. The holistic approach (People, Process and Technology) is the organizing principle for the book and each rule can be found in the appropriate section. Managers, CEOs, Venture Capitalists, or anyone that has to work with other people at a distance every day can get great benefit from this book. Readers of this book will walk away with a much better idea how to be successful in their interactions with others via the computer. It will help people who are on teams separated geographically, as well as managers and executives. The book filled with high-tech nuggets of wisdom for programmers and IT professionals. But it also has practical rules that apply to anyone who works with others.
Authors: Julie Castro Abrams, Carole Amos, Eldette Davie, Hannah Kain, Mai-Huong Le, Sue Lebeck, Terrie Mui, Pat Obuchowski, Yuko Shibata, Nathalie Udo, Betty Jo Waxman Although some people make it look easy, the reality is that the path to success is often convoluted and messy. It's tempting to believe that the professionals surrounding us somehow have their act completely together while we lurch fitfully onward, but the real story is often much more complicated and chaotic. This refreshingly honest book provides welcome reassurance for every businesswoman who's ever wondered, ""Is it me, or has the whole rest of the company gone nuts?!"" Each chapter is a fascinating description of one woman's unlikely journey, and every story is teeming with personal insights and practical tips to encourage you along the way toward your own goals and dreams. The human side of each achiever comes alive as she shares her challenges, choices and achievements in a ""just between us"" tone that educates as it entertains. If you've ever had ""one of those days"" where your co-workers seemed to grow horns or you were tempted to sink into the icy couch of despair--you are not alone! Once in a while we need to take a well-deserved break. Reading even just one chapter from 'Scrappy Business Women' will refresh your spirit and invigorate you for the next sprint. If you're a seasoned professional, you'll see your own journey reflected in those of these women. And if you're just starting out on your professional journey, the wisdom in this guide will save you a whole lot of time and aggravation! Share your own story at the ScrappyWomen.Biz website, which grew out of this 'gal pal' project. Your story, and those of enterprising, determined women like you, will help this collection grow from a trickle of wisdom into a fountain of inspiration from which millions of women will drink, and ultimately a platform from which they gain the courage to leap boldly into their own futures. Please visit and add your story to ours so that, drop by drop, we grow this tiny stream into an ocean of wisdom. Stay Scrappy!
What makes a great leader? It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact, there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any? Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions—to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants—and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code. In The Leadership Code, the authors break down great leadership into day-to-day actions, so that you know what to do Monday morning. Crack the leadership code—and take your leadership to the next level.
Small businesses power America. Defined as firms with fewer than 500 employees, they provide jobs for more than half of our private workforce and represent 99.7 percent of all businesses in the United States. So in our uncertain economic climate, "'The 24-Hour Turnaround'," with its focus on small business success in a turbulent economy, fulfills a pressing need. The authors, "Jeffrey S. Davis" and "Mark Cohen," are uniquely qualified to write this book--a compilation of case studies highlighting entrepreneurial styles, innovations and triumphs. Since 1985, their consulting company, Mage LLC, has guided over 700 small businesses and organizations on issues ranging from marketing and sales to organizational and transitional issues. This book pinpoints the most common situations Mage LLC has encountered with entrepreneurs and owners of private companies. The case studies, based on the authors' extensive experience with individual entrepreneurs and their organizations, highlight means and methods by which business leaders can achieve their visions and goals, regardless of the nature of the market or the economy. "'The 24-Hour Turnaround'" focuses on leadership, attitudes, strategies and tactics. It enables entrepreneurs to turn a keen analytical eye on their business trajectories and their own leadership styles. It demonstrates the benefits of change, and teaches entrepreneurs how to go about making real change that creates business stability, growth and success. It narrates outlines and situations that entrepreneurs can immediately relate to and offers models for making quick and concrete modifications, remaining open to new ideas while still honoring tradition and company history. Designed as a practical and easy-to-read guide, "'The 24-Hour Turnaround'" enlightens and empowers the small business leader or entrepreneur who wishes to steer a business to success, all within the challenges of a shifting, uncertain economy.
In this pathbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard Business School service firm experts James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger reveal that leading companies stay on top by managing the service profit chain. Why are a select few service firms better at what they do -- year in and year out -- than their competitors? For most senior managers, the profusion of anecdotal "service excellence" books fails to address this key question. Based on five years of painstaking research, the authors show how managers at American Express, Southwest Airlines, Banc One, Waste Management, USAA, MBNA, Intuit, British Airways, Taco Bell, Fairfield Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the Merry Maids subsidiary of ServiceMaster employ a quantifiable set of relationships that directly links profit and growth to not only customer loyalty and satisfaction, but to employee loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity. The strongest relationships the authors discovered are those between (1) profit and customer loyalty; (2) employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and (3) employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Moreover, these relationships are mutually reinforcing; that is, satisfied customers contribute to employee satisfaction and vice versa. Here, finally, is the foundation for a powerful strategic service vision, a model on which any manager can build more focused operations and marketing capabilities. For example, the authors demonstrate how, in Banc One's operating divisions, a direct relationship between customer loyalty measured by the "depth" of a relationship, the number of banking services a customer utilizes, and profitability led the bank to encourage existing customers to further extend the bank services they use. Taco Bell has found that their stores in the top quadrant of customer satisfaction ratings outperform their other stores on all measures. At American Express Travel Services, offices that ticket quickly and accurately are more profitable than those which don't. With hundreds of examples like these, the authors show how to manage the customer-employee "satisfaction mirror" and the customer value equation to achieve a "customer's eye view" of goods and services. They describe how companies in any service industry can (1) measure service profit chain relationships across operating units; (2) communicate the resulting self-appraisal; (3) develop a "balanced scorecard" of performance; (4) develop a recognitions and rewards system tied to established measures; (5) communicate results company-wide; (6) develop an internal "best practice" information exchange; and (7) improve overall service profit chain performance. What difference can service profit chain management make? A lot. Between 1986 and 1995, the common stock prices of the companies studied by the authors increased 147%, nearly twice as fast as the price of the stocks of their closest competitors. The proven success and high-yielding results from these high-achieving companies will make The Service Profit Chain required reading for senior, division, and business unit managers in all service companies, as well as for students of service management.
Annotation. Levy calls on 30 years of computer and software industry experience to offer strategies for empowering, encouraging, and leading a top-notch development team that becomes more productive and innovative.
