Showing results by narrator "Fleet Cooper" in All Categories

Everyone knows confidence when they see it; but seemingly no one can actually describe what goes into it or how to get it. The Nerd's Guide to Being Confident is an unconventional way of looking at one of the most basic and obvious human traits and what one can do to gain a little more of it without feeling like a phony. Laughter included.

Reading is time-consuming. I was already over-busy before I started reading several books a week. And I am a slow reader. I tried the traditional shortcuts, but none of them worked. Reading the PR materials is insufficient for understanding a book, and executive summaries are awful. I have never read an executive summary that came close to conveying what’s interesting and useful about an author’s work.

Admen, Mad Men, and How Advertising Really Works is written to be easily digestible by interns, CEOS, or anyone who has ever watched a television commercial or clicked on a banner ad. Irreverent, packed with useful information, and unflinchingly honest, it is a serious business book by a seriously funny man and a must for anyone who lives, works, or plays in today's commercial culture.

Often, it seems that having a narcissistic disposition — grandiose, self-promoting, larger than life — is a prerequisite for reaching the higher organizational echelons. Narcissistic people can be charismatic and manipulative, which helps them get ahead. But although their drive and ambitions can be effective in moving organizations forward, excessive narcissistic behavior can create havoc and lead to organizational breakdown. Personality traits don’t change quickly, if at all. So what can managers do?

“People don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad bosses,” according to an old saw. Our research suggests there’s truth behind this saying: bosses matter far more for employee job satisfaction than any other factor we measured. But what makes someone a great boss?

You can’t figure out your boss. Sometimes he’s really chummy and personable; other times he belittles you in front of the team. How do you handle a manager who acts like Jekyll and Hyde?

"How to Deal with a Boss Who Behaves Unpredictably" is from hbr.com, published on November 3, 2016.

Even the best office relationships hit a rut, but if it’s your relationship with your boss that’s suffering, work can be especially challenging. Maybe you’ve lost their trust, or you haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately, or maybe you’ve never really gotten along. Whatever the reason, how can you build a connection that’s more than “just OK”? What steps can you take to improve your interactions? And are there times when you have to accept that the relationship may never get better?

Concrete ways to improve a dysfunctional relationship.

Sixty percent of employees don’t believe they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day at work, according to the 2017 State of the American Workplace report. Sadly, one common explanation for this is that their boss is too busy doing it for them. In our ten-year longitudinal study on executive leadership, among 2,700 leaders, 67% struggled to let go of work from previous roles.

This book stitches together a complete design journey from beginning to end in a way that you've likely never seen before, guiding listeners (you) step-by-step in a practical way from the initial spark of an idea all the way to scaling it into a better business. Design a Better Business includes a comprehensive set of tools (over 20 total!) and skills that will help you harness opportunity from uncertainty by building the right team(s) and balancing your point of view against new findings from the outside world.

Say that a colleague who you’ve had some difficulties with launches a snippy comment at you in the middle of a meeting.

When people find out I’m an executive coach, they often ask who my toughest clients are. Inexperienced leaders? Senior leaders who think they know everything? Leaders who bully and belittle others? Leaders who shirk responsibility?

Sure to become a favorite of readers who love Chicken Soup for its stories of overcoming life’s obstacles, challenges, heartbreaks, and pain, this book emphasizes triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. A timeless testament to the indomitable human spirit, this collection is sure to encourage, support, comfort, and, most of all, inspire all readers for years to come.

Scholars are deeply gratified when their ideas catch on. And they are even more gratified when their ideas make a difference - improving motivation, innovation, or productivity, for example. But popularity has a price: people sometimes distort ideas, and therefore fail to reap their benefits. This has started to happen with my research on “growth” versus “fixed” mindsets among individuals and within organizations.

Focus on habit instead. A theory of cumulative advantage.

The Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, best-selling novels, and film adaptations.

Healthcare has become extraordinarily complex — the balance of quality against cost, and of technology against humanity, are placing ever-increasing demands on clinicians. These challenges require extraordinary leaders. Doctors were once viewed as ill-prepared for leadership roles because their selection and training led them to become “heroic lone healers.” But this is changing.

Perhaps you heard recently about a new algorithm that can drive a car? Or invent a recipe? Or scan a picture and find your face in a crowd? It seems as though every week companies are finding new uses for algorithms that adapt as they encounter new data. Last year Wired quoted an ex-Google employee as saying that “Everything in the company is really driven by machine learning.”

You know that colleague: the one who acts a certain way when your boss is in the room but sings a completely different tune when you’re alone. This can be especially frustrating when your boss is blind to this chameleon-like behavior and gives your colleague praise or even promotions. You may be tempted to call out the inconsistent behavior, but before you do anything, take the time to understand why the person behaves the way they do and what can you do about it.

Profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr has become one of America's leading commentators on current events in the Middle East, admired and welcomed by both media and government for his "concise and coherent" analysis (Wall Street Journal). In this "smart, clear and timely" book (Washington Post), Nasr brilliantly dissects the political and theological antagonisms within Islam. He provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis, and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences—from the nuclear posturing of Iran's President Ahmadinejad to the recent U.S.-enabled shift toward Shia power in Iraq and Hezbollah's continued dominance in Lebanon.