Showing results by publisher "Ascent Audio" in Decision-Making & Problem Solving

Bob DeKoch and Phil Clampitt draw on their years of innovative practice and research to describe how leading with care enriches people and transforms organizations in our challenging times.

Successful decision-makers are fierce interrogators. They square critical thinking with open-mindedness by blending information, intuition, and experience. Balancing these elements is at the heart of Decisions Over Decimals.

In no other time in recent history have leaders in every industry and on every continent grappled with so many changes that have independently and simultaneously undermined their ability to lead. The Prepared Leader encapsulates more than two decades of the authors' research to convey how it has positioned them to navigate through the distinct challenges of today and tomorrow. Their insights have implications for every leader in every industry and every worker at every level.

In You're the Leader. Now What?, Dr. Richard Winters, a Mayo Clinic emergency physician, executive coach, and director of leadership development for the Mayo Clinic Care Network, uses proven frameworks, practical tactics, and real-life experience to help you become a more effective leader as you face your thorniest organizational challenges.

What do people and businesses need to know about the realities of innovating in order to develop products successfully? Lorraine Marchand—a seasoned practitioner who has guided Fortune 500 companies and start-ups on developing and launching new ideas—lays out a step-by-step framework for spurring success. She shares her eight laws of innovation, a formula for driving significant and lasting transformation in any organization. Marchand emphasizes the frame of mind needed to spark the innovation process.

The decisions we make every day—frequently automatic and incredibly fast—impact every area of our lives. The Little Black Book of Decision Making delves into the cognition behind decision making, guiding you through the different ways your mind approaches various scenarios. You'll learn to notice that decision making is a matter of balance between your rational side and your intuition—the trick is in honing your intuition to steer you down the right path. This book helps you pinpoint the right mix of logic and "gut feeling," and use it to find the best possible solution.

In The Intentional Leader, Tim Hebert explores the various actions that define and shape leadership. From those decisive moments in which a difficult decision must be made, to the unguarded moments when our emotional, authentic selves manifest themselves for better or worse.

We are told from a young age that we should strive to make the right decisions, but we aren't taught exactly how to do this. Every day, we make over 35,000 decisions in our personal and professional lives. How many of those decisions do you get right?

There is so much buzz around big data. We all need to know what it is and how it works. But what will set you apart from the rest is actually knowing how to use big data to get solid, real-world business results - and putting that in place to improve performance. Big Data shows you how to implement the same practices that leading firms have used to access new dimensions of profitability. You'll learn from clear explanations and countless examples how successful organisations large and small use the SMART model to get ahead.

In the sea of thrown-together, stereotypical leadership advice, Julia Tang Peters' Pivot Points stands out like a beacon. This audiobook is not the result of trite 10-step recipes or unstudied observations. Instead, its source is in-depth research conducted among some of the country's most effective leaders. Intimate interviews and broad survey data reveal that the leaders who stand out are the ones who fearlessly face the decisions that characterize career turning points.

Detonate explains how organizations built up bad habits, identifies which ones masquerade as "best practices", and suggests alternatives that can contribute to winning in the marketplace. With a focus on optimism and empowerment, it focuses on an approach and mindset which are critical to successfully compete in an era characterized by profound technological advances and uncertainty.

For many organizations, the word strategy conjures up endless ideas, concepts, and tools - while the intent is correct, the awful reality is most companies do not have a simple, common definition of strategy or a simple approach to make the big decisions. Too many PowerPoints, not enough one pagers that can be put into practice. The lack of a common approach to strategy frustrates executives, creates conflict where there is none, fast-tracks dubious alternatives, lengthens decision-making, and hampers the quality of the decisions that finally emerge.

Coaching Up! is about inspiring those who matter to you to achieve peak performance. Whether you are a coach, a business leader, a civic activist, a teacher, a counselor, or a parent, this book will offer you a powerful, highly effective way to connect to the people you care about and move them forward toward their best selves. In sports, coaches have developed ways of connecting with their players quickly in the "heat of the battle", inspiring them to perform to their fullest potential and "leave it all on the field".

Wasting time in pointless meetings is the one thing that never seems to change. Martin Murphy, however, has helped a who's who of corporate clients transform time-sapping meetings into breakthrough sessions that are measurably productive. His strategy is not simply to make meetings more palatable; instead he reframes the entire concept of collaboration and introduces four "Work Sessions" that replace meetings to get more done faster than ever before.

From dealing with underperformers to fighting off lawsuits, employee problems are the bane of a manager's existence. So what do most do? Ignore them! And that's a recipe for more problems. Written by a seasoned HR expert and employment attorney, Hard-Won Wisdom takes you inside the messy reality of situations gone wrong. These sometimes funny, always cautionary tales reinforce crucial lessons for managers.

What if you could brainstorm innovative solutions to your company's challenges? What if you could dream up new businesses that capture markets? What if you could tap the creative genius driving Silicon Valley's success stories? The truth is you can! Analytical thinkers, numbers people, non-artists - everyone can generate imaginative ideas. All it takes is letting go of the "I'm not creative" mindset and employing a proven process.

Information is power. It drives commerce, protects nations, and forms the backbone of systems that range from health care to high finance. Yet despite the avalanche of data available in today's information age, neither institutions nor individuals get the information they truly need to make well-informed decisions. Faulty information and sub-optimal decision-making create an imbalance of power that is exaggerated as governments and corporations amass enormous databases on each of us.

Even the Odds helps us understand the broader implications of risk - and how it guides our decision-making - so that we can improve outcomes across multiple facets of our lives, from our businesses and investments, to the personal choices we make.

Today when the competition, technology, and the economy are evolving faster than ever before, organizations and the people like us who work in them need a proven approach to help us adapt - and succeed. The key, according to Paul B. Brown, is to think like an entrepreneur, no matter what your position or industry. What works for the most successful entrepreneurs will work for us, Brown argues, whether we want to stay employed working for someone else or are thinking of going off on our own.

List the hottest buzzwords in business today and "analytics" is bound to come out near the top. But to most people, analytics implies complex tools and technical experts manipulating massive amounts and varieties of information (i.e.,"Big Data"). But complex Big Data analytics isn't the only game in town. And many people don't realize that a business doesn't need data scientists and complex tools to derive useful information and valuable benefits from any amount of raw data.