Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers

Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers PDF Author: William F. Roth
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482247062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
During the author’s decades of experience consulting in the corporate world and teaching management theory at the university level, he has often questioned many modern-day management practices. For example, why do so many companies have evaluation and reward systems that force employees to compete against each other while these same organizations preach the gospel of cooperation and teamwork? Why do companies continue to downsize when this practice has proven antithetical to long-term success? Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers explains, in a user-friendly and sometimes humorous manner, why these practices are based on worn-out logic in some cases and complete falsehoods in others. Questioning numerous management practices that have been popular for decades, it details their weaknesses and explains why they continue to hamper attempts to improve productivity. The book reviews a range of management theories, including Six Sigma, downsizing, and management by objective. After showing where the holes lie, it offers alternative approaches that have proven effective in a growing number of private and public sector organizations, including some that enable a more positive workplace culture. Illustrating practical application with case studies, the book provides simple suggestions for change that can be highly beneficial to your organization. It addresses the major myths that managers need to examine and eventually do away with or, at least, replace with modified versions that make more sense in today’s increasingly competitive business environment.

Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers

Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers PDF Author: William F. Roth
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482247062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the author’s decades of experience consulting in the corporate world and teaching management theory at the university level, he has often questioned many modern-day management practices. For example, why do so many companies have evaluation and reward systems that force employees to compete against each other while these same organizations preach the gospel of cooperation and teamwork? Why do companies continue to downsize when this practice has proven antithetical to long-term success? Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers explains, in a user-friendly and sometimes humorous manner, why these practices are based on worn-out logic in some cases and complete falsehoods in others. Questioning numerous management practices that have been popular for decades, it details their weaknesses and explains why they continue to hamper attempts to improve productivity. The book reviews a range of management theories, including Six Sigma, downsizing, and management by objective. After showing where the holes lie, it offers alternative approaches that have proven effective in a growing number of private and public sector organizations, including some that enable a more positive workplace culture. Illustrating practical application with case studies, the book provides simple suggestions for change that can be highly beneficial to your organization. It addresses the major myths that managers need to examine and eventually do away with or, at least, replace with modified versions that make more sense in today’s increasingly competitive business environment.

Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers

Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers PDF Author: William F. Roth
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1040083773
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the author‘s decades of experience consulting in the corporate world and teaching management theory at the university level, he has often questioned many modern-day management practices. For example, why do so many companies have evaluation and reward systems that force employees to compete against each other while these same organizations p

Think Outside The Building

Think Outside The Building PDF Author: Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1529308186
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Over a decade ago, renowned innovation expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter co-founded and then directed Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative. Her breakthrough work with hundreds of successful professionals and executives, as well as aspiring young entrepreneurs, identifies the leadership paradigm of the future: the ability to "think outside the building" to overcome establishment paralysis and produce significant innovation for a better world. Kanter provides extraordinary accounts of the successes and near-stumbles of purpose-driven men and women from diverse backgrounds united in their conviction that positive change is possible. A former Trader Joe's executive, for example, navigated across business, government, and community sectors to deal with poor nutrition in inner cities while reducing food waste. A concerned European banker used the power of persuasion, not position, to find novel financing for improving the health of the oceans. A Washington couple enticed global partners to join an Uber-like platform to match skilled refugees with talent-hungry companies. A visionary journalist-turned-entrepreneur closed social divides by giving fifty million social media users access to free local education and culture. When traditional approaches are inadequate or resisted, advanced leadership skills are essential. In this book, Kanter shows how people everywhere can unleash their creativity and entrepreneurial adroitness to mobilize partners across challenging cultural, social, and political situations and innovate for a brighter future.

What Every New Manager Needs to Know

What Every New Manager Needs to Know PDF Author: Gerard H. Gaynor
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
ISBN: 9780814427439
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This guide gives inexperienced managers the skills they need to excel in their new roles, and the confidence to tackle the problems they will inevitably face. It includes topics such as budgeting and project management, and knowing when it's appropriate to take on an active leadership role.

Managing Complex Systems

Managing Complex Systems PDF Author: Howard Eisner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118006690
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Nine innovative methods to think outside the box and solve complex system problems Managing Complex Systems provides specific tools and guidance needed to be a more creative and innovative thinker. Following the author's methodology, the reader will be better able to devise and implement nontraditional solutions to seemingly intractable complex problems. By challenging the reader to think in new and creative ways, the book offers a road map to success, whether measured in terms of competitive advantage, greater market share, improved productivity, or higher profits, all based upon better solutions to difficult problems. The first four chapters set the foundation for creative thinking by exploring the nature of large-scale systems and complexity, thinking inside and outside the box, and examples of how an inventive mind solves problems in both management and scientific domains. Subsequent chapters address nine focused methods that the author has formulated to help the reader think outside the box: * Broaden and generalize * Crossover * Question conventional wisdom * Back of the envelope * Expanding the dimensions * Obversity * Remove constraints * Thinking with pictures * Systems approach Real-life examples are provided for each method that demonstrate how the approach enhances problem solving and decision making in system development and management. Following the discussion of the nine methods, the author examines group decision making as well as additional creative thinking procedures devised by other researchers, including references that assist in exploring these methods in greater detail. The author ends with a wrap-up chapter that includes a test to help readers practice their tendencies toward creative thinking skills and action with respect to solving real-world problems. The nine methods discussed in this book have broad applicability and can be used successfully by managers with a wide range of responsibilities in business and technology. For anyone who is tired of the same old approach with the same old results, this book is essential reading.

Leadership and Self-deception

Leadership and Self-deception PDF Author: The Arbinger Institute
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1576755029
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Explains why self-deception is at the heart of many leadership problems, identifying destructive patterns that undermine the successes of potentially excellent professionals while revealing how to improve teamwork, communication, and motivation. Reprint.

The Three-Box Solution

The Three-Box Solution PDF Author: Vijay Govindarajan
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1633690156
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
How to Innovate and Execute Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally different management challenges. The real problem for leaders is doing both, simultaneously. How do you meet the performance requirements of the existing business—one that is still thriving—while dramatically reinventing it? How do you envision a change in your current business model before a crisis forces you to abandon it? Innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan expands the leader’s innovation tool kit with a simple and proven method for allocating the organization’s energy, time, and resources—in balanced measure—across what he calls “the three boxes”: • Box 1: The present—Manage the core business at peak profitability • Box 2: The past—Abandon ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit innovation • Box 3: The future—Convert breakthrough ideas into new products and businesses The three-box framework makes leading innovation easier because it gives leaders a simple vocabulary and set of tools for managing and measuring these different sets of behaviors and activities across all levels of the organization. Supported with rich company examples—GE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hasbro, IBM, United Rentals, and Tata Consultancy Services—and testimonies of leaders who have successfully used this framework, this book solves once and for all the practical dilemma of how to align an organization on the critical but competing demands of innovation.

Black Box Thinking

Black Box Thinking PDF Author: Matthew Syed
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069840887X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Nobody wants to fail. But in highly complex organizations, success can happen only when we confront our mistakes, learn from our own version of a black box, and create a climate where it’s safe to fail. We all have to endure failure from time to time, whether it’s underperforming at a job interview, flunking an exam, or losing a pickup basketball game. But for people working in safety-critical industries, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. Consider the shocking fact that preventable medical error is the third-biggest killer in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths every year. More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. And most of those mistakes are never made public, because of malpractice settlements with nondisclosure clauses. For a dramatically different approach to failure, look at aviation. Every passenger aircraft in the world is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. Whenever there’s any sort of mishap, major or minor, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and experts figure out exactly what went wrong. Then the facts are published and procedures are changed, so that the same mistakes won’t happen again. By applying this method in recent decades, the industry has created an astonishingly good safety record. Few of us put lives at risk in our daily work as surgeons and pilots do, but we all have a strong interest in avoiding predictable and preventable errors. So why don’t we all embrace the aviation approach to failure rather than the health-care approach? As Matthew Syed shows in this eye-opening book, the answer is rooted in human psychology and organizational culture. Syed argues that the most important determinant of success in any field is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. Yet most of us are stuck in a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our careers and personal lives. We rarely acknowledge or learn from failure—even though we often claim the opposite. We think we have 20/20 hindsight, but our vision is usually fuzzy. Syed draws on a wide range of sources—from anthropology and psychology to history and complexity theory—to explore the subtle but predictable patterns of human error and our defensive responses to error. He also shares fascinating stories of individuals and organizations that have successfully embraced a black box approach to improvement, such as David Beckham, the Mercedes F1 team, and Dropbox.

Thinking In New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity

Thinking In New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity PDF Author: Alan Iny
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Creativity is paramount if you are to thrive in times of accelerating change or crisis. Learn how to foster the creative mindset that will help you overcome missed opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. In this audio course, Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny, bestselling authors of Thinking In New Boxes and strategic innovation experts at The Boston Consulting Group, offer a revolutionary framework for sustainable business creativity. Their short lessons teach you ingenious ways to challenge your current perspectives, explore and generate exciting new ideas and solution, and then select and implement the best ones that will drive breakthrough results. This audiobook was created by Penguin Random House. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

Creativity Unlimited

Creativity Unlimited PDF Author: Micael Dahlen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470722126
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Flying in the face of current thinking, this book suggests that we do not need to ‘think outside the box’ in our quest for creativity, rather we should rethink the way we look ‘inside the box’. This idea will resonate only too well with those who have endeavoured to be creative by thinking outside that box, only to have their attempts scuppered by the constraints of bureaucracy and organizational politics. Instead of fighting a losing battle, the author suggests that creativity should be worked at within the constraints of the organizational box, but that space needs to be grown and allowed to be shaken up. Only by experimenting, mutating and finding new directions can you uncover business paths that lead to success. The reader is encouraged not to free themselves from all their knowledge and experiences (the thinking outside the box method) but to use their knowledge and experience in new ways. The book is structured around three key steps: Expanding the box: so that the pieces of the puzzle in it can move around more freely Filling the box: with even more knowledge, and how to get these new pieces of the puzzle to connect with the existing ones Shaking the box: so that the pieces fall into new places and form new patterns. The book shows that anybody can be creative. The creative methods suggested in the book will be linked to real business examples from which techniques have been developed to help their implementation. Numerous exercises and ‘eye-openers’ form part of the practical implementation of Micael Dahlén’s ideas. The book is framed by models and concepts of how creativity works (the creative process, the creative person and the creative result) and what its effects are.