Entrepreneur and executive development expert Mike Dulworth's THE CONNECT EFFECT provides readers with a simple framework and practical tools for developing that crucial competitive advantage: a high-quality personal, professional/organizational and virtual network.Networking is not mere socializing—it is a vital personal and professional development skill. An effective network can make you more knowledgeable, help you address critical issues, accelerate your career, and even improve your health and well-being. As a recent article in MIT’s Sloan Management Review reports, “What really distinguishes high performers from the rest of the pack is their ability to maintain and leverage their networks.” Networking is simply too important to be left to chance. In this book, Michael Dulworth shows how to take a conscious, systematic approach to networking. After a short quiz to measure your “networking quotient” (NQ), The Connect Effect identifies three distinct kinds of networks: personal, professional, and virtual. Dulworth examines their specific characteristics and offers strategies, tools, and resources for building up and making the best use of each one. Stories from Dulworth’s twenty years of experience running networks, as well as interviews with top executives, researchers, and thought leaders, provide insights and advice about how networks function in the real world. Few of us are born networkers, but anyone—introvert, extrovert, or in-between—can learn to master this important skill. And as you build your networks and the connections between members multiply, you’ll find that the benefits you gain grow exponentially. This extraordinary return on your networking investment is what Dulworth terms “The Connect Effect”—and in this book he shows how it can enrich every aspect of your life.

•Offers a systematic approach to developing your networking skills—including an “NQ test” to help you quantify your networking ability

•Features tools and techniques specific to each type of network, as well as advice from leading executives, researchers, and thought leaders

•Copublished with ASTD, the leading association for human resource development professionals

 

You don't have to do it alone. In this engaging guide to understanding and conquering the personal and professional fears that keep us from turning to others in times of need, coach Nora Klaver offers readers compelling insights on why we don't ask for help, why we should, and how to do it.Mayday! Asking for Help in Times of Need shows how to make the intimidating but potentially rewarding process of asking for help far less daunting. Using an inviting conversational style sprinkled with humor and personal stories, M. Nora Klaver first delves deeply into the social and psychological factors that keep us in isolation and then lays out a straightforward process for cultivating a mindset that will accept and invite help at home and at work. Using exercises and examples, she explains how to figure out what to ask for, whom to ask, how to ask, and when and where to ask. Besides making our lives easier, Klaver shows that asking others for help can be an emotionally and spiritually enriching experience, one that, surprisingly, will end up making us feel more confident and will strengthen our relationships. Drawn from her twenty years of experience as both a personal and a Fortune 100 executive coach, Mayday! is the first book to fully integrate the body, mind, and emotions in a truly effective step-by-step approach to getting the help we need.

• Offers a systematic approach to overcoming one of many people's greatest fears: asking for help

• Explores why we are so reluctant to ask for help as well as precisely how to ask for it

• Illustrated with personal stories and anecdotes from the author's coaching practice

A powerful new kind of competitive advantage is now possible thanks to technological and social disruptions that are already occurring. These disruptions revolutionize how companies can partner to create new growth. The Reciprocity Advantage shares a model for creating that growth: define your right-of-way (the underutilized resources you already own that you can share with others), partner to do what you can't do alone, experiment to learn, and scale the new business at low risk.

Reciprocity and advantage are words that are not normally seen together, but reciprocity—giving now to get later—will become a normal part of winning in the future. The Reciprocity Advantage shows you how to leverage new forces like digital natives and cloud-served supercomputing now into massively scalable, profitable, incremental growth for your business.

Provocative and pragmatic, leading ten-year forecaster Bob Johansen and experienced business developer Karl Ronn describe how to lean in to disruptions to create new growth for your business. They include actual cases showing early successes for a range of companies and nonprofits like IBM, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and TED. They then provide key exercises to define your promising new ideas and nurture them into healthy new businesses.

Their recommendations are based on practical experience in managing the problems of new business creation and many years of helping others see the future more clearly. Distilled from hands-on work, this book gets you started today on creating your own reciprocity advantage.

Calling Cards are an interactive tool built to accompany the books The Power of Purpose and Work Reimagined. Using the cards exposes a reader to many different skills, asking him or her to reflect on their own strengths and gifts. The reader then chooses several that reflect their greatest assets. The reader is finally taken through an exercise that uses the results to help identify a new life calling. Additionally, the tool can be played by a friend or family member to offer multiple perspectives to help the reader gain deeper insight into his or her own gifts.

There are 52 cards in the Call Card deck, covering gifts in six major environments: Realistic (data), Structured (tasks), Enterprising (people), Social (feelings), Artistic (ideas), and Investigative (things).  Examples of natural gifts on each card are Writing Things, Seeing Possibilities, Fixing Things, Creating Dialogue, Adding Humor, and Getting to the Heart of Matters.

Unlocking the Source for True Leadership

Too many people, men and women alike, have bought into a notion of leadership that exclusively emphasizes traditionally “masculine” qualities: hierarchical, militaristic, win-at-all-costs. The result has been corruption, environmental degradation, social breakdown, stress, depression, and a host of other serious problems. Nilima Bhat and Raj Sisodia show us a more balanced way, an archetype of leadership that is generative, cooperative, creative, inclusive, and empathetic. While these are traditionally regarded as “feminine” qualities, we all have them. In the Indian yogic tradition they're symbolized by Shakti, the source that powers all life.
Through exercises and inspirational examples, Bhat and Sisodia show how to access this infinite energy and lead with your whole self. Male or female, leaders who understand and practice Shakti Leadership act from a consciousness of life-giving caring, creativity, and sustainability to achieve self-mastery internally and be of selfless service to the world.

Build on the Right Fundamentals for Project Management Success! To achieve success in any endeavor, you need to understand the fundamental aspects of that endeavor. To achieve success in project management, you should start with Project Management Fundamentals: Key Concepts and Methodology, Second Edition. This completely revised edition offers new project managers a solid foundation in the basics of the discipline. Using a step-by-step approach and conventional project management (PM) terminology, Project Management Fundamentals is a commonsense guide that focuses on how essential PM methods, tools, and techniques can be put into practice immediately. New material in this second edition includes: A thorough discussion of agile project management and its use in real-life situations Detailed explanations of the unique factors involved in managing service projects An enhanced appendix on management maturity models A new appendix on project communications and social networking Expanded coverage of the triple constraints in PM, going beyond scope, schedule, and cost to include quality, resources, and risks As a refresher for the experienced project manager or as a comprehensive introductory guide for the new practitioner, Project Management Fundamentals: Key Concepts and Methodology, Second Edition, is the go-to resource that delivers.