Bringing out the best in others is good business. When we bring both respect and interpersonal savvy to our work relationships, we do more than make people feel good. We enhance personal and organizational performance. And as the workplace grows more complex and competitive, managing our work relationships becomes even more essential and difficult. Now more than ever we need to work people smart. Working PeopleSmart describes the six core strategies used by people-smart individuals and shows how to apply them in the toughest workplace situations. Individuals who are people smart know how to open others up rather than make them defensive or resistant. They have a knack for diffusing tension rather than creating it. They set a good example through their own behavior on the job and can inspire and influence others with less developed skills. Working PeopleSmart can serve as your virtual coach to guide you through difficult work relationships skillfully. How do you deal with a critical colleague? Make your boss listen to you? React to an offensive joke? Get the resources you need? The authors look at over 50 real-life situations and offer people-smart prescriptions for handling them effectively. They provide coaching tips for each scenario and describe exactly what a people-smart response sounds like. As two psychologists with both organizational and clinical expertise, coauthors Mel Silberman and Freda Hansburg are highly qualified to deliver the message that we can emerge from even the toughest interpersonal moments on the job with dignity and grace. Where other books rely on typologies that categorize people according to their interpersonal styles and then offer advice on how to deal with each type, the strategies described in Working PeopleSmart are straightforward and universal. They can be used immediately to deal with any type of person or any situation, no matter how difficult or sensitive.

• Offers six easy-to-apply strategies for becoming people-savvy at work, with over 50 examples of the strategies in action
• No complex personality typologies or classification systems to learn-these are universal techniques that work on everyone, and in any situation
• From the authors of PeopleSmart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence

Helps professional women experiencing feelings of disempowerment and dissatisfaction regain the confidence, courage, and energy to take control of their lives Identifies 12 crises professional women face today and offers specific advice and tools for overcoming them Draws on interviews with over one hundred women, offering inspiring stories and practical advice for addressing and resolving disempowerment Thousands of professional women, though outwardly successful, find themselves in the midst of a crisis, believing that they’ve sacrificed meaning, fulfillment, and balance in their lives to achieve work-related success. Their lives feel unmanageable—and they are confused, blocked, overwhelmed and unable to move forward effectively. Kathy Caprino sheds light on this growing epidemic of disempowerment and shows women how to reinvigorate and reclaim their lives. Breakdown, Breakthrough uses a comprehensive coaching, behavioral, and spiritual framework to explore how women can restore their power and reconnect with their life visions as they awake from the paralysis of professional dissatisfaction and personal diminishment. Caprino outlines a new model for understanding disempowerment, one that focuses on women’s relationships with themselves, with others, with the world, and with what she calls their higher selves. She identifies twelve specific challenges professional women face and offers concrete, practical advice for overcoming each one—helping readers “step back, let go of what is holding them back, and say yes” to creating a compelling and rewarding next chapter of life and work. This is also a deeply personal book. Caprino candidly discusses her own struggles with crippling feelings of disempowerment, and shares moving stories and heartfelt advice gleaned from her interviews with over one hundred women who experienced and overcame the crises she describes. Breakdown, Breakthrough offers working women who are stressed, stuck, and dissatisfied access to new inspiration, hope, and a definite plan of action.

Featuring contributions by more than 50 of Berrett-Koehler's most renowned authors, Positively M.A.D. is a collection of stories about real people making real changes, large and small, in their organizations and communities. The founder of an adoption agency specialzing in placing "unadoptable" children. A former big-city mayor, the son of a convict, who now works with the children of convicts. A psychiatrist who was able to take his severely ill patients to their first Chicago Bears game by unexpectedly tapping into the kindness of the fans. An office worker who transforms a malcontent colleague with the gift of a chocolate cake. A woman who salvages used computers and donates them to Africa. These engaging, optimistic, "can do" vignettes-organized around twelve different "lessons" that provide the chapter headings-are designed to inspire people to resolve their disillusionment by getting off the couch and doing something. As editor Bill Treasurer writes, "Regardless of our station in life, each of us is entitled, and perhaps obliged, to etch our initials onto the tree of humanity. Despite the complexity of the world's problems and inadequacies, and despite our own frustration with the current state of affairs, we can indeed Make A Difference."

• Brings together 50 of Berrett-Koehler's top authors to share real world stories about making positive and lasting change, despite the challenges of our times
• Emphasizes people, actions, and ideas that are "mad"-out-of-the-ordinary, unexpected, counter-intuitive, defiant, offbeat, and edgy

Entrepreneurs are hungry. But it's not just because they're living on ramen and adrenaline while they pour their all into their business. Peter Cohan has found it's something deeper: a hunger to create the kind of world they want to work in.

Entrepreneurs are hungry. But it’s not just because they’re living on ramen and adrenaline while they pour their all into their business. Peter Cohan has found it’s something deeper: a hunger to create the kind of world they want to work in. To leave a legacy, they build carefully with limited resources and maintain control of the venture’s direction. For years, students have told Cohan that the seminal business strategy guide, Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy, was too big-company focused. So Cohan—who once worked with Porter—has written the first business strategy book to address start-ups’ very different challenges. Cohan focuses on six key start-up choices—setting goals, picking markets, raising capital, building teams, gaining market share, and adapting to change—explaining the unique rules start-ups must follow. For example, when setting goals, large corporations try to maximize their long-term return on equity, but resource-poor start-ups have to plan by setting a series of short-term goals—and how they do this will mean the difference between blazing a trail or flaming out. When entering a new market, well-fed companies can invest substantial time and capital before ever launching a product, but hungry start-ups must get an adequate prototype in front of customers fast, get feedback, and quickly develop a viable business model or they’ll starve to death. For each of these six areas, Cohan provides a decision-making approach and lively case studies of what actual entrepreneurs have done. He extracts hard-hitting lessons not only for start-ups but also for investors and even established companies. Hungry Start-up Strategy offers a full menu of vital information for anyone seeking to cook up a thriving business from scratch.

• The first research-based book on business strategy for start-ups
• Based on Cohan's venture investment experience and on his interviews with over 150 start-up CEOs
• Offers specific approaches for six critical start-up decisions
• Click here for the press release

 

Entrepreneurs are hungry. But it's not just because they're living on ramen and adrenaline while they pour their all into their business. Peter Cohan has found it's something deeper: a hunger to create the kind of world they want to work in. To leave a legacy, they build carefully with limited resources and maintain control of the venture's direction.

For years, students have told Cohan that the seminal business strategy guide, Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy, was too big-company focused. So Cohan -- who once worked with Porterhas written the first business strategy book to address start-ups' very different challenges.

Cohan focuses on six key start-up choicessetting goals, picking markets, raising capital, building teams, gaining market share, and adapting to changeexplaining the unique rules start-ups must follow. For example, when setting goals, large corporations try to maximize their long-term return on equity, but resource-poor start-ups have to plan by setting a series of short-term goalsand how they do this will mean the difference between blazing a trail or flaming out. When entering a new market, well-fed companies can invest substantial time and capital before ever launching a product, but hungry start-ups must get an adequate prototype in front of customers fast, get feedback, and quickly develop a viable business model or they'll starve to death.

For each of these six areas, Cohan provides a decision-making approach and lively case studies of what actual entrepreneurs have done. He extracts hard-hitting lessons not only for start-ups but also for investors and even established companies. Hungry Start-up Strategy offers a full menu of vital information for anyone seeking to cook up a thriving business from scratch.

We are entering the 21st century in a period of great uncertainty and change. People are wary of government and have lost confidence in social institutions-from social welfare and schools to healthcare programs. That loss of confidence has undermined the community and family life that is the very foundation of our society. Self-Governance in Communities and Families shows how individuals can reconnect to and revitalize their social institutions so that they are effective in serving the needs of all.

Gary Nelson identifies the existing social models we are moving away from and explores the new, emerging pattern of relationships we are shifting to in our social institutions. He reveals why open dialogue and partnerships between people and their social institutions are essential to the well-being of families and thriving communities. He describes why social regeneration is best pursued through these partnerships, with people and stakeholders within communities taking positive action to develop and protect the well-being of their families and the health of their communities.

Applying both business and social science concepts to the day-to-day management of social institutions, Nelson offers a proven, practical method-community self-governance dialogues-for engaging people in the redesign and revitalization of social institutions. The author shows how-by creating opportunities for individuals and families to proactively participate in developing a strategic plan for how their institutions are managed, run, and evaluated-this dialogue method ultimately empowers people to take control of their own lives. He also reveals how active participation in these open dialogues ignites creative ideas and new energy for the redirection and reshaping of those institutions.

With numerous examples and anecdotes, Nelson illustrates the values, beliefs, and principles that underlie how we learn and make decisions in a self-governing democratic culture. He provides tips for shared learning and accountability, ownership and governance, and the creation of a culture of self-governance. And he offers advice on how to maintain an ongoing engagement and partnership between the public and its social institutions.

Communities and families can be strengthened when each of us takes responsibility for ourselves and works in partnership with others to restore our social institutions. Self-Governance in Communities and Families sets forth clear, doable strategies for fostering both responsibility and ownership through dialogue and collaboration between public and private sectors.

• Provides community leaders and others with a framework for bringing all parts of a community and the "system" together around the common purpose of strengthening communities and families
• Outlines a philosophy of self-governance and empowerment for at-risk families, individuals, and neighborhood communities
• Offers managers a dynamic, adaptive model for opening up, supporting, and steering the process of social change

Surely you’ve experienced something like this: you buy a red car, and suddenly red cars appear everywhere. Why? Because you’re focusing on red cars—and you get more of whatever you focus on. But much of the time, consciously and unconsciously, we dwell on what we don’t want, and that’s what we get. Drawing on the latest scientific research, Laura Goodrich shows you how to stop fixating on negatives and rewire your brain to focus on positive outcomes. Unique and practical exercises—including a free online toolkit—and dozens of enlightening real-life stories help you identify what you truly want so that it drives everything you do. And Goodrich shows how Seeing Red Cars can build organizational cultures in which employees are playing to their passions and strengths, focusing on what they want, and achieving breakthrough results.