This Harvard Business Review digital collection showcases the ideas of Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, authors of Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? and Why Should Anyone Work Here? In Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?, Goffee and Jones argue that leaders don’t become great by aspiring to a list of universal character traits. Rather, effective leaders are authentic: they deploy individual strengths to engage followers’ hearts, minds, and souls. In Why Should Anyone Work Here?, the authors argue that it used to be that businesses could ask individuals to conform to the organization’s needs but that now today’s leaders are charged with creating the best company on earth to work for: they must transform their organizations to attract the right people, keep them, and inspire them to do their best work.
In this instant New York Times Bestseller, Geoff Smart and Randy Street provide a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls “the single biggest problem in business today”: unsuccessful hiring. The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent. The silver lining is that “who” problems are easily preventable. Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street’s A Method for Hiring. Refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken, the A Method stresses fundamental elements that anyone can implement–and it has a 90 percent success rate. Whether you’re a member of a board of directors looking for a new CEO, the owner of a small business searching for the right people to make your company grow, or a parent in need of a new babysitter, it’s all about Who. Inside you’ll learn how to • avoid common “voodoo hiring” methods • define the outcomes you seek • generate a flow of A Players to your team–by implementing the #1 tactic used by successful businesspeople • ask the right interview questions to dramatically improve your ability to quickly distinguish an A Player from a B or C candidate • attract the person you want to hire, by emphasizing the points the candidate cares about most In business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps that will put the right people in place for optimal success.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Talent Code unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides tomorrow’s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG AND LIBRARY JOURNAL Where does great culture come from? How do you build and sustain it in your group, or strengthen a culture that needs fixing? In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations—including the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, IDEO, and the San Antonio Spurs—and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation, and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind. Drawing on examples that range from Internet retailer Zappos to the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade to a daring gang of jewel thieves, Coyle offers specific strategies that trigger learning, spark collaboration, build trust, and drive positive change. Coyle unearths helpful stories of failure that illustrate what not to do, troubleshoots common pitfalls, and shares advice about reforming a toxic culture. Combining leading-edge science, on-the-ground insights from world-class leaders, and practical ideas for action, The Culture Code offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded. Culture is not something you are—it’s something you do. The Culture Code puts the power in your hands. No matter the size of your group or your goal, this book can teach you the principles of cultural chemistry that transform individuals into teams that can accomplish amazing things together. Praise for The Culture Code “I’ve been waiting years for someone to write this book—I’ve built it up in my mind into something extraordinary. But it is even better than I imagined. Daniel Coyle has produced a truly brilliant, mesmerizing read that demystifies the magic of great groups. It blows all other books on culture right out of the water.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take “If you want to understand how successful groups work—the signals they transmit, the language they speak, the cues that foster creativity—you won’t find a more essential guide than The Culture Code.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
HACK YOUR WORKPLACE CULTURE FOR GREATER PROFITS AND PRODUCTIVITY "I LOVE THIS BOOK!" —CHESTER ELTON, New York Times bestselling author of All In and What Motivates Me "When companies focus on culture, the positive effects ripple outward, benefiting not just employees but customers and profits. Read this smart, engaging book if you want a practical guide to getting those results for your organization." —MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, executive coach and New York Times bestselling author "Most books on customer service and experience ask leaders to focus on the customer first. Shane turns this notion on its head and makes a compelling case why leaders need to make 'satisfied employees' the priority." —LISA BODELL, CEO of Futurethink and author of Why Simple Wins "This is a must read for anyone in a customer service-centric industry. Shane explains the path to creating both satisfied customers and satisfied employees." —CHIP CONLEY, New York Times bestselling author and hospitality entrepreneur The question is not, "does your company have a culture?" The question is, "does your company have a culture that fosters outstanding customer experiences, limits employee turnover, and ensures high performance?" Every executive and manager has a responsibility to positively influence their workplace culture. Culture Hacker gives you the tools and insights to do it with simplicity and style. Culture Hacker explains: Twelve high-impact hacks to improve employee experience and performance How to delight and retain a multi-generational workforce The factors determining whether or not your employees deliver outstanding customer service
From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together
Any business owner will tell you that having the right staff in place is vital to the success of his or her business. Yet so often hiring the right people, keeping them on the team, and letting go of those who aren't a good fit is an HR nightmare. Hire and Fire Like a Boss addresses these difficulties and shows the reader how to build and keep a team of advocates, hiring those with passion instead of those merely looking for a position.Getting the right people in place does not happen overnight; it requires both work and a change of mindset, particularly a focus on the core values of one's business. Additionally, there may be those currently on the team who don't quite catch the vision. Owning up to this and acknowledging that there is someone on the team who should not be there is about integrity and caring enough about that employee to realize that he/she would be better off in a different environment. Putting off the inevitable helps no one, and the cost, both monetary and to morale, can be high when employees who are not a good fit are allowed to linger and weigh down the entire team. Fears of rehiring and retraining, vacancy costs, lawsuits, high turnover rates, and losing clients are all addressed in Hire and Fire Like a Boss. Detailed documentation, insurance, and creating backups and redundancies are tools you can use to combat these potential problems, but the biggest factor to both firing and hiring effectively is having core values for your business. Examples of core values from companies like Zappos, TOMS Shoes, and Google are presented to better enable readers to identify their own core values. Once identified and in place, the core values of your business, along with regular employee evaluations, will provide a good foundation for your team. The included flowchart makes it simple to choose which action is best regarding any employees in question. A probationary period where expectations are precisely outlined further directs business owners as to what the appropriate action is. Understanding the way Millennials and Generation-X employees think assists an employer in hiring. Knowing the main motivators for both men and women further helps employers to meet their staff's needs and keep the staff they value. If the business owner's team is making his or her dreams come true and working to build the business, it's vital the business owner is working equally hard to make his or her employees' dreams a reality. Being proactive instead of reactive throughout the hiring process yields far better results. Turn a current team into recruiters and effectively advertise open positions with ads that are unique, bold, and specific. A multitiered interview process that focuses on gauging a candidate's sense of guilt, emotional coping, job qualifications, and continued growth will quickly weed out those not likely to bring passion to the position. Following up with a team trial period, where the new employee is allowed and encouraged to choose whether or not to stay furthers your prospects of finding those who are golden. Enrolling new hires in your core values and putting the time and effort into quality training assures a great start to building a dream team. In the pursuit of that all-star team, the up-front work will yield the reward.Professional coaching and mentoring expert Dino Watts is the number-one international best-selling author of The PracticeRX. Since 2008, he has been helping high-income producers by replicating their business success in their personal relationships. His coaching and leadership systems have been proven to create more happiness in marriages, more peace in the workplace, more freedom from the stresses of life, and more revenue in business. Following the principles outlined in Hire and Fire Like a Boss will help readers create healthy company cultures, transform their teams, and elevate their lives.
Axiom Business Book Award Silver Medalist in Leadership • Soundview Best Business Book A “Highest Rated CEO” who has transformed his organization into a billion-dollar company and a “Top Place to Work” shows leaders how truly prioritizing employees isn’t just good for employees―it’s good for business. Imagine a company where everyone loves to work, where employees feel not just “satisfied” but truly cared for, respected, and energized. Think of the impact this would have on recruitment, retention, customer satisfaction, innovation, and overall performance. Aron Ain, the award-winning CEO of Kronos, a global provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions, believes that anything is possible when people are inspired. By embracing employee development and engagement as a growth strategy, Ain transformed his company’s culture and built a billion-dollar business. This book takes leaders and managers inside Kronos’s highly admired WorkInspired culture, showing them the surprisingly simple rules they can follow to replicate that success. This inspiring guide reveals the best practices that have earned Kronos distinctions on coveted lists, such as Glassdoor’s 100 Best Places to Work, Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, Forbes’s America’s Best Employers, and the Boston Globe’s Top Places to Work. These best practices include: •overcommunicating and truth-telling•trusting your people (again and again) and keeping them safe•holding managers accountable for being great at what they do•allowing employees flexible schedules and open vacation time•challenging your people to put the company out of business with innovative products •welcoming back boomerang employees•empowering the next generation workforce Many executives talk about how “their people are their greatest asset.” Ain challenges leaders to “walk the talk” and put people first, whether they oversee a team of five or an organization of 500,000. When they do, employees won’t be the only ones who thank them. Customers and shareholders will, too. This is what it means to WorkInspired.
Every organization faces challenges and hardships. The Only Leadership Book You’ll Ever Need teaches leaders how to overcome their most difficult obstacle: employee engagement. By pinpointing specific areas leaders can focus on and change, this book shows how one leader can effectively change the entire workplace environment-- for the better. Topics addressed include: The 10 Keys to Workplace Excellence. The 11 Stupid Things Managers Do to Mess Up Workplace Excellence. 76 Strategies to Effectively Lead and Engage Employees. Timely and accessible, The Only Leadership Book You’ll Ever Need is an essential book for every executive and manager.
Achieve higher levels of workforce engagement and retain more employees A strong U.S. economy with record-low unemployment rates and the shift to Millennials—now the largest generation in the workforce—are driving specific challenges for organizations to engage and retain employees. Engaged employees don't just happen, they are nurtured by organizations with great cultures and strong leadership. Talent Keepers puts a new spin on a systematic approach to employee engagement and retention with precise tactics that have achieved proven results. This book includes research-based methods of engaging employees, beginning the moment they are hired. With six client case studies that focus on how the organization put an engagement plan into practice and achieved success, readers will come away with specific, actionable strategies they can begin implementing immediately in their organization. Put an engagement plan into action Find actionable strategies Implement ways to retain your best employees Achieve success starting today If you're a top leader looking to engage and retain your best performers, Talent Keepers has you covered.
As a school administrator you may cringe at the word "create" if you think of all the barriers, hoops, and politics that may be involved if you want to implement a new idea or, in fact, "create" almost anything. As well, the path from vision to implementation is often bumpy and sometimes it even requires detours. And yes, it can lead to a dead end. However, the creation we are discussing in this K-12 Focus Book is different. I'm Jim Burgett, the author of How to Create the Best Staff Possible: Building K-12 Excellence from Hire to Retire, and in my mind it is not negotiable, should not be considered an option, and is absolutely necessary for a school leader who wants a school of excellence that accomplishes the one universal vision for all schools: To provide the best educational opportunities possible, within the resources available. The key word here is best. And if we are honest with each other, the only way we can achieve excellence in the school setting is with an excellent staff. Promethean Boards, Swivl Bots, and an iPad for every student does not guarantee excellence. People are the source of excellence. You know it and I know it and yet at times I think we push aside this most effective aspect of education and settle for average. This book is about how you can "create" a staff that exudes excellence. In Part I, we will explore hiring practices, mentoring, the evaluation process, and setting expectations for all personnel. We will also see that "elimination" is a very important step toward developing the best staff possible. We will focus on how to replace weakness with strength and how patient, consistent, and focused leadership, on your part, is mandatory every step of the way. In Part II, we will look at ten leadership thoughts to help you create the best staff possible, and then keep them that way. "Building human capital may not get headlines, like opening a slew of new schools or completely redesigning a district's curriculum, but veterans of urban education reform say it is one of the key behind-the-scenes factors in determining if changes succeed or fail ..." says Carl Vogel. I like Carl's phrase "building human capital." Nothing is more important than the quality of people who compose our school systems. Notice that I didn't limit this to teachers or administrators. Every human being who works in a school system is fundamental to the success of that system. As you read the following I want you think of two very important facts. First, the process of producing a staff of excellent employees takes time, sometimes a very long time. Second, no one is excluded from the process. So, buckle up, this is going to be an exciting journey! ---------------------- Would you like to have a peak at the Table of Contents? TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Part I Hiring Applications The Interview Do Your Homework Before the Interview Plan the Interview Carefully Training Leadership Skills Evaluating Building Trust Building Camelot Cleaning House Remediate Toward Progress Four Improvement Steps Clarify the Purpose Communicate the Expectations Set Reasonable Goals Evaluate, Remediate, Terminate Time to Terminate! Can You Really Improve an Employee? The Law is Changing Part II 10 Leadership Tools to Build the Best Staff Possible Make a Personal Connection Keep Aware of Conditions Delegate Evaluate 24/7 Ask, Listen, Process Engage the 3-step Survey Be Innovative Be Visible Build a Team Be Honest. Caring, and Transparent If this piques your curiosity, join in. Or read my longer base book, from which How to Create the Best Staff Possible is an extended extract: The School Principal's Toolbook: Building the How-To Path to Excellence, also available as a paperback and ebook sold by Amazon Books. (Also available as a K-12 Focus Book is Rights and Responsibilities of School Principals.
