Showing results by publisher "Berrett-Koehler Publishers" in Decision-Making & Problem Solving

In Joel's Schwartzberg's 10-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across - one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail - is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.

People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, or environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They cannot solve their problems in their current context; the larger system within which they are operating is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They cannot transform this system on their own or by working only with their friends or colleagues; the system is too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector.

Harvard professor (and negotiation advisor to organizations around the world) Deepak Malhotra shows how to defuse even the most potentially explosive situations and to find success when things seem impossible. Malhotra illustrates key lessons using behind-the-scenes stories of fascinating real-life negotiations, including drafting the US Constitution, resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, ending bitter disputes in the NFL and NHL, and beating the odds in complex business situations.

This practical guide shows how to facilitate collaboration among diverse individuals and organizations to navigate complexity and create change in our interconnected world. David Ehrlichman draws on his experience as a network builder; interviews with dozens of network leaders; and insights from the fields of network science, community building, and systems thinking to provide a clear process for creating and developing impact networks.

Thoroughly revised and updated new edition of the best-selling guide to implementing the popular change methodology, Appreciative Inquiry, in organizations of all sizes and sectors. 20,000 of the 1st edition sold.

Too many people associate creativity solely with the arts, even though to be an incredible scientist, engineer, or entrepreneur requires immense creativity. Combining creativity tools and techniques with real-world stories of innovative people and businesses, this audiobook is a provocation, an inspiration, and an invitation to unleash the innate creativity that lies within each of us. It offers a more dynamic and integrative way to adapt and innovate, one that allows us the freedom to access our full human selves.

Torture in Abu Ghraib prison. Corporate fraud. Falsified records at Veterans Administration hospitals. Teachers pressured to feed test answers to students. These scandals could have been prevented if, early on, people had said no to their higher-ups. In this timely new book, Ira Chaleff goes deeply into when and how to disobey inappropriate orders, reduce unacceptable risk, and find better ways to achieve legitimate goals.The inspiration for the book and its title came from a concept used in guide-dog training.

A rapid and massively disruptive shift from centralized to distributed organizations has already begun. But current leadership practices were designed for large centralized organizations, making them increasingly obsolete. Bob Johansen, who has been projecting future trends from Silicon Valley since 1968, outlines five literacies leaders need to develop to cope with this brave new world.

Harvard University professor and U.S. Intelligence Science Board member J. Richard Hackman reveals how to make teams more effective in solving hard, complex problems in intelligence work and other challenging, high-pressure areas.

Nearly all of today’s major innovation workshops and programs call on organizations to drive innovation. What they miss is that innovation comes from the personal creativity of individuals. And creativity doesn’t require an advanced education or technical skills. All employees can be creative. Often, all they lack is a fitting mindset and the right skills.

Through the exploration of robust cases and stories packed with deep insight and vital science, this extraordinary collection explores how we can adapt our notions of value, markets, and models of cooperation and collective action to create a world where economies and businesses excel, all people thrive, and nature flourishes.

Installing agile tools and practices won’t be enough to respond to rapid market change unless you lay the groundwork with six key enabling factors, identified by the United Kingdom’s leading agile consulting firm, Agile Centre. From years of experience certifying people in agile leadership, product ownership, and scrum mastery, Karim Harbott has created a model that will help your organization achieve all six factors required for success. This audiobook will help leaders get realistic about the scope of the changes needed in their organization and show them how to get started.

Most problems are fairly easy: they have a few likely potential root causes. The most important problems often have hundreds or thousands of potential root causes within very complex systems. Such problems are hard problems, and are highly resistant to guessing, brainstorming, or problem-solving methodologies that require conjuring a list of possible causes. Great problem-solvers are armed with a set of behaviors that allows them to avoid guessing.

The Law of Small Things also exposes how our culture encourages breaches of integrity through an array of “permitted promise-breaking”, a language of clichés that equates self-interest with duty, and the “illusion of inconsequence” that excuses small breaches with the breezy confidence that we can fulfill integrity when it counts. Brody challenges the prevailing notion that integrity is a possession you hold permanently. No one “has integrity”, and no one is perfect in practicing it. What we have is the opportunity to uphold promises and fulfill duties.

Leaders today - whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits, or nations - face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them; they require the broadest possible cooperation. But, says Harvard scholar Dean Williams, our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group.

Over and over, we see big legacy businesses getting beaten to the punch by energetic little start-ups. It seems like innovation can come from only the bottom up or from the outside in. But tech experts Vivek Wadwha and Ismail Amla are here to tell you that “big equals slow and stodgy” is a myth. Based on decades of experience working with both the world’s leading brands and disruptive start-ups, this audiobook explores the opportunity legacy companies have to create new markets, supercharge growth, and remake their businesses.

Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide is just what the name implies: a hands-on, detailed description of facilitating Open Space Technology (OST). OST is an effective, economical, fast, and easily repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of between 5 and 2,000 participants that has been used in thousands of organizations in 134 countries and just keeps growing in popularity. Written by the originator of the method, this is the most authoritative book on the rationale, procedures, and requirements of OST.

For the members of the US Air Force Thunderbirds, teamwork is literally a matter of life and death. On maneuvers like the one pictured on the cover, the gap between jets is as little as 18 inches. The surge of momentum that comes with that level of closure has an incredibly positive impact on the team's mission. As you might imagine, sustaining that distance relies on the highest levels of trust.

All leaders face defining moments, crises that reveal their true character. Here, Sasha and his father, David, expand on Sasha's defining moment, recounted on The Moth podcast as "An Impossible Choice." Working in the violence-torn Congo, he was charged with evacuating a specific group of refugees. Then he and his colleague discovered a group of widows and orphans not on the rescue list. Leaving them behind would mean their deaths. Attempting to take them would jeopardize the entire mission.

UPS is a household name and one of the most highly regarded American corporations by customers and investors alike. Who hasn't been delighted by a right-on-time delivery, one of the 18 million UPS makes every day? Founded over 100 years ago, UPS has moved steadily up the Fortune 500 as so many other corporations have dropped off. So what's the company's secret? Just ask a driver!