Outlines an approach to high-performance problem solving and decision making that draws on insights from survival guides, pop culture, and other sources.
New tools for managing complexity Does your organization manage complexity by making things more complicated? If so, you are not alone. According to The Boston Consulting Group’s fascinating Complexity Index, business complexity has increased sixfold during the past sixty years. And, all the while, organizational complicatedness—that is, the number of structures, processes, committees, decision-making forums, and systems—has increased by a whopping factor of thirty-five. In their attempt to respond to the increasingly complex performance requirements they face, company leaders have created an organizational labyrinth that makes it more and more difficult to improve productivity and to pursue innovation. It also disengages and demotivates the workforce. Clearly it’s time for leaders to stop trying to manage complexity with their traditional tools and instead better leverage employees' intelligence. This book shows you how and explains the implications for designing and leading organizations. The way to manage complexity, the authors argue, is neither with the hard solutions of another era nor with the soft solutions—such as team building and feel-good “people initiatives”—that often follow in their wake. Based on social sciences (notably economics, game theory, and organizational sociology) and The Boston Consulting Group’s work with more than five hundred companies in more than forty countries and in various industries, authors Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman recommend six simple rules to manage complexity without getting complicated. Showing why the rules work and how to put them into practice, Morieux and Tollman give managers a much-needed tool to reinvigorate people in the face of seemingly endless complexity. Included are detailed examples from companies that have achieved a multiplicative effect on performance by using them. It’s time to manage complexity better. Employ these six simple rules to foster autonomy and cooperation and to effectively handle business complexity. As a result, you will improve productivity, innovate more, reengage your workforce, and seize opportunities to create competitive advantage.
The country's leading libertarian scholar sets forth the essential principles for a legal system that best balances individual liberty versus the common good.
A humorous guide to help fathers survive the trials of female adolescence offers tongue-in-cheek advice on topics such as the telephone, food, parties, chores, learning to drive, the first job, and boyfriends.
Recovery is hard, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. If sobriety were easy, everybody who wanted to be sober would be. And especially for those who are just starting out in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or another Twelve Step program, the prospect of trying to change drinking, using, or other harmful behaviors can seem overwhelming. The good news is there are just three key things we need to focus on. Trust God. Clean house. Help others. Three Simple Rules offers a new take on this valuable slogan and explains how these rules can help anyone find fulfilling recovery. Author Michael Graubart also knows that those six short words are packed with meaning and may not sound so straightforward. Luckily, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Michael uses wit and wisdom gained in more than twenty years of Twelve Step recovery to explain what worked for him so you can figure out what works you. In Michael’s experience, if you follow the Steps, and focus on the three simple rules, you’ll be changed by the process.
Managing your money can be stressful. And confusing and complicated advice from the financial industry just makes it harder. But as the authors of this clear, practical, and enlightening book—part financial guide, part exposé—prove, there are just three simple rules you need to follow and only a few investment products that are necessary for an ideal portfolio. That's it. And the authors dispense with all that “expert” advice by deftly debunking what they call investing's Seven Deadly Temptations. By embracing commonsense solutions and rejecting investments that seem enticing but are needlessly complex, overpriced, and risky, you'll put not only yourself in a stronger position but the entire economy as well.
Six Simple Rules for a Better Life is not another self-help manual touting all kinds of grand changes that are meant to impress you but that instead serve to oppress you, making you feel so guilty that you avert your eyes as you walk past the shelf where it sits next to a bunch of other impulsively bought, unread books, each accusingly calling out to you, Why aren't you following my instructions? What it is: Six Simple Rules for a Better Life is a book filled with practical, achievable suggestions for all kinds of ways you can improve your life, along with a game plan for doing so. In Six Simple Rules for a Better Life, you'll learn that Life is Long and that you can achieve your goals when you slow down to make the changes and stop to celebrate the progress.