Shows how strategy and tactics are part of the same overarching process, requiring greater flexibility and more rapid implementation than ever before.

• Shows how strategy and tactics are part of the same overarching process, requiring greater flexibility and more rapid implementation than ever before
• Reveals how to create agile and resilient organizations, where execution continually modifies and adjusts the strategy to fit current realities
• Includes the "Execution Quotient" leadership assessment and access to an online group reading guide and self-development resources

Once upon a time, executives would go to an off-site brainstorming session, come back with a multiyear strategic plan, and hand it off to their employees to dutifully execute. But in today's world of rapid, disruptive change, it's hard enough to come up with a five-month plan, let alone a five-year plan. As one executive interviewed by author Laura Stack put it, "You prepare a strategic plan and then put it on the shelf while the real world passes you by."

Nowadays, strategy can't be separate from execution-it has to emerge from execution. New technologies, sudden changes in global markets, and viral customer reactions to new products require quick, nimble responses-sometimes even a complete strategic 180. But if your organization isn't set up to be fast on its feet, you could easily go the way of Blockbuster or Borders.

Stack shows you how to make sure your organization is ready for on-the-spot strategic execution. Her LEAD formula explains how to Leverage the people and resources you need to create an agile organization, establish an Environment where your employees are confident and capable enough to take the initiative and make on-the-fly changes, ensure that your team is in Alignment with the organization's goals so they'll make the right strategic choices, and remove obstacles so they can Drive the organization forward quickly.

Of course, you'll still need to have a great strategy in place, but your goals must be subject to constant readjustment and revision. You have to work with your team to build effective business strategies in real time, not be bound by a plan that may be out of date as soon as it rolls off the printer. Execution really is the strategy that will propel your organization forward, and Laura Stack can help you build an organization ready to meet the challenge of constant change.

More than ever, data drives decisions in organizations—and we have more data, and more ways to analyze it, than ever. Yet strategic initiatives continue to fail as often as they did when computers ran on punch cards. Economist and research scientist Alec Levenson says we need a new approach.

The problem, Levenson says, is that the business people who devise the strategies and the human resources people who get employees to implement them use completely different analytics. Business analytics can determine if operational priorities aren't being achieved but can't explain why. HR analytics reveal potentially helpful policy and process improvements but can't identify which would have the greatest strategic impact.

This book shows how to use an integrated approach to bring these two pieces together. Levenson presents a thorough and realistic treatment of the reasons for and challenges of taking an integrated approach. He provides details on the different parts of both enterprise and human capital analytics that have to be conducted for integration to be successful and includes specific questions to ask, along with examples of applying integrated analytics to address particular organizational challenges.

Effective analytics is a team sport. Levenson's approach allows you to get the deepest insights by bringing people together from both the business and HR perspectives to assess what's going on and determine the right solution.

In today's highly networked and competitive global economy, mounting social and environmental problems are forcing corporations to focus on more than just their stockholders' interest in meeting bottom line profitability. More and more companies are recognizing the value of identifying and building relationships with all of their organization's stakeholders-employees, customers, suppliers, and even communities. In fact, recent research has shown that companies that treat their employees well, create jobs in the local economy, develop innovative products and services, take care of the environment, and contribute to the community, are often more profitable.

In The Stakeholder Strategy, sociologist Ann Svendsen presents an effective and practical step-by-step guide that companies can use to forge a network of powerful and profitable collaborative stakeholder relationships.

While some forward-thinking corporations have tried limited collaborative approaches-focusing on one stakeholder group at a time-few have taken a comprehensive and strategic approach to building relationships with all of their stakeholders, notes Svendsen. And, while considerable commitment to the idea of stakeholder collaboration exists, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding about how to develop these relationships. The Stakeholder Strategy is the first book to show business leaders and managers how to establish and maintain positive, mutually beneficial stakeholder relationships. Based on a synthesis of ideas from community relations, corporate philanthropy, stakeholder management, organizational change, sustainability, and the corporate social responsibility literature, it offers an integrated framework, as well as the practical tools for developing new kinds of collaborative relationships.

Svendsen uses easy-to-grasp concepts from everyday life, such as the process we go through in finding a mate or developing a long-term friendship, to illustrate these relationship-building strategies. She lays out the steps a company should take to create a collaboration-friendly organization: establishing a social mission, values, and ethical guidelines; assessing corporate readiness for collaboration; and making changes in communication, information and reward systems to support internal and external collaboration. Featuring case study examples from companies in North America and Europe who are working to build collaborative relationships with their stakeholders, The Stakeholder Strategy is the first book to provide a detailed explanation of how to conduct stakeholder audits and social audits so that companines can evaluate their relationship-building success and keep on track.

• Provides an integrated framework for understanding a corporations responsibilities to a broad array of stakeholders-from customers to suppliers, employees, and communities.
• Offers a step-by-step guide as well as practical strategies that companies can use to forge a network of powerful and profitable collaborative
• stakeholder relationships.
• Features case study examples of companies across North America and Europe that are building collaborative relationships with their stakeholders.

Optimize the Role of the Project Sponsor The project sponsor is critical to project success, yet it is a role that is often assigned to a member of the organization with little knowledge or training in project management practices. This creates challenges not only for the sponsor but for the project manager. The organization suffers too if key members of the project team are not fully utilized, as valuable resources are wasted. In Strategies for Project Sponsorship, the authors address this challenge from all three vantage points that of the project manager, the project sponsor, and the organization. Based on their practical experience and solid research, they offer practical methods that project manager s can use to optimize the participation of the sponsor. They also offer clear and straightforward guidance for project sponsors on how to properly execute their duties and contribute to project success. Executives will gain valuable perspective on the organization's projects and key players. From defining the roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor to suggesting specific practices that maximize the working relationship between the sponsor and project manager, this book is the ultimate guide. Examples from real-world sponsor experiences, as well as tips, techniques, and tools, enhance its applicability and practicality. This book should be given to every newly assigned project sponsor, read and referred to by every project manager, and on the desk of every organizational executive as a reference.

Nadine Thompson, president and CEO of Warm Spirit, authors Values Sell, a ready-to-use guide for creative sales and distribution strategies. Her booming network marketing company currently employs 20,000 consultants nationwide and her business model has received national media attention from: The Wall Street Journal, O, Ebony, Essence, and others.Sales and distribution are the lifeblood of any business. But how can a values-driven, socially responsible business compete with those for whom the bottom line is the only measure of success? The answer: get creative! In this practical and inspiring guide, Nadine Thompson and Angela Soper draw on real-world examples--from Tom's of Maine, Seventh Generation, Honest Tea, and many other innovative companies--to detail concrete steps for designing sales and distribution strategies that fit the needs, interests, and habits of your target customers. They show how to turn your stakeholders into enthusiastic partners by ensuring that all of your relationships--with your salespeople as well as other employees, your customers, and your suppliers--are beneficial and fulfilling on more than just an economic level.

• Presents practical, detailed advice for developing innovative sales and distribution strategies
• Features examples from companies such as Tom's of Maine, Seventh Generation, Honest Tea, and many others

We all know the proverb about teaching someone to fish, but if there are no fish left, knowing how to catch them won't do you any good. And that's the position businesses are in today. Resources are being depleted at an alarming rate and the cost of raw materials is rising dramatically. As a result, scholar and entrepreneur Nadya Zhexembayeva says, businesses need to make resource scarcity—the overfished ocean—their primary strategic consideration, not just a concern for their “green” division.

Overfished Ocean Strategy offers five essential principles for innovating in this new reality. Zhexembayeva shows how businesses can find new opportunities in what were once considered useless by-products, discover resource-conserving efficiencies up and down their value chain, transfer their expertise from physical products to services, and develop ways to rapidly try out and refine these new business models. She fills the book with examples of companies that are already successfully navigating the overfished ocean, from established corporations such as BMW, Microsoft, and Puma to newcomers such as Lush, FLOOW2, and Sourcemap.

The linear, throwaway economy of today—in which we extract resources at one end, create products, and throw them away at the other—is rapidly coming to an end. In every industry, creative minds are learning how to make money by taking this line and turning it into a circle. Nadya Zhexembayeva shows how you can join them and avoid being left high and dry.