Work Culture Leadership

Unfortunately, far too many people don’t like where they work. Some organizations are unhealthy and full of disrespectful behavior. Other workplaces are simply uninspiring. For various reasons, countless people feel trapped, indifferent, or bored at work. The authors of this book believe that people should be able to like where they work. When employees like the places they work, it’s not only good for their mental health and well-being, it’s also good for their organizations - both financially and otherwise.

We've all been taught that we must suppress or avoid emotions at work, but this inevitably leads to a loss in productivity, diminished creativity, and crushing job dissatisfaction. Research shows 85 percent of us avoid communicating crucial workplace problems upward, and many of us who are employed are actively looking for a different job. What's going on?

Your organization's culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. People's competencies should be measured and their weaknesses shored up. People crave feedback. These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they're lies. As Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies - distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking - running through our organizational lives.

As management ages and prepares to work longer than previous generations, and Millennials join companies at steady rate, companies are suffering through tension and dissonance between Millennials and Boomers, and realizing that they can't just wait for management to age out to fix it. Finding productive ways to work across the generation gap is essential, and the organizations that do this well will have significant strategic advantages over those that don't.

Increasingly, new employees and junior members of any profession are encouraged - sometimes stridently - to "find a mentor!" Four decades of research reveals that the effects of mentorship can be profound and enduring; strong mentoring relationships have the capacity to transform individuals and entire organizations.

When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out new business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often get it wrong. They discover that intuition, experience, and big data alone don't work. What does? Running disciplined business experiments. And what if companies roll out new products or introduce new customer experiences without running these experiments? They fly blind. That's what Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke shows in this rigorously researched and eye-opening book.

Shola Richards had reached the end of the road: after nearly two years at a soul-sucking job, he felt numb and suicidal. So he quit and devoted himself to nothing less than transforming the workplace, turning it into a space of respect, courtesy, and endless energy. Making Work Work focuses on inspiring current and future leaders to start a movement that will banish on-the-job bullying, put meaning back into work, and enhance coworkers' happiness and engagement.

Church Unique is written by church consultant Will Mancini - an expert on a new kind of visioning process to help churches develop a stunningly unique model of ministry that leads to redemptive movement. He guides churches away from an internal focus to emphasize participation in their community and surrounding culture. In this important audiobook, Mancini offers an approach for rethinking what it means to lead with clarity as a visionary. Mancini explains that each church has a culture that reflects its particular values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

Few would disagree that inclusion is both the right thing to do and good for business. Then why are we so terrible at it? If we believe in the morality and the profitability of including people of diverse and underestimated backgrounds in the workplace, why don't we do it? Because, explains Ruchika Tulshyan in this eye-opening book, we don't realize that inclusion takes awareness, intention, and regular practice. Inclusion doesn't just happen; we have to work at it. Tulshyan presents inclusion best practices, showing how leaders and organizations can meaningfully promote inclusion.

Companies spend billions of dollars annually on diversity efforts, with remarkably few results. Too often diversity efforts rest on the assumption that all that's needed is an earnest conversation about "privilege." That's not enough. To truly make progress with diversity, equity and inclusion, we must focus less on documenting the problem and more on just stopping the transmission of it.

Whether it shows up as stress, top-down leadership styles, drama, or uncertainty, fear kills good decision-making, dampens morale, lowers employee engagement, and hurts bottom-line growth. The good news is that there's an antidote: Freedom at Work. In this groundbreaking book, Traci Fenton brings together decades of original research, based on her team's work with hundreds of top companies around the world, such as The WD-40 Company, Mindvalley, DaVita, Menlo Innovations, Zappos, HCL Technologies, and more, revealing the proven pathway to leadership success.

From the pioneers of the management strategy that's transforming businesses worldwide, Making Work Human shows how to implement a culture of performance and gratitude in the workplace—and seize a competitive edge, increase profitability, and drive business momentum.

Companies with the best cultures generate stock market returns of twice the general market and enjoy half the employee turnover of their peers. Their staff innovate more, deliver better customer service, and, hands-down, beat the competition. These companies outperform and disrupt their markets. Build It has found these rebels and the rule breakers. From small startups to global powerhouses, this book shows that courage, commitment and a people-centric mindset, rather than money and resources, are what you need to turn an average business into a category leader.

What if leaders stripped away all preconceptions about how business operates, allowing the organization to go back to its core and build itself back up to become something new - something so responsive, so innovative and resilient, it becomes virtually non-displaceable in the market? The Regenerative Business sets the stage for what is now only dreamt of by most of today's forward-thinking leaders and paves the path to make it possible.

The Loudest Duck is a book for managers and executives faced with the productivity and leadership challenges of a heterogeneous, multicultural workplace. It's a book for anyone working his or her way up the ladder in this new corporate world order. It's a book for anyone who belongs to a non-dominant group, be it women, people of color, short people, or employees who don't play golf but whose bosses do.

Research shows that 1 in 4 adults will have a mental health issue in their lifetime, and yet we're still ill-equipped at work to address this common experience. The HBR Guide to Better Mental Health at Work collects advice from a variety of experts on addressing an array of mental health issues in the workplace, from supporting someone in a panic attack to navigating sensitive conversations to creating systemic and structural supports for all employees. Whether you suffer from a chronic condition or you manage someone who does, you'll find practical advice.

For years, companies have been implementing programs that promote social responsibility and improve employee health, both of which benefit the financial bottom line. Now it's time to focus on positive social interactions and relationships in the workplace. Why? Research shows that authentic, trust-based relationships increase job satisfaction, engagement, productivity, and retention - and even decreased healthcare costs.

In this bold, enlightening book, social psychologist and professor Daniel M. Cable takes leaders into the minds of workers and reveals the surprising secret to restoring their zest for work. Disengagement isn't a motivational problem, it's a biological one. Humans aren't built for routine and repetition. We're designed to crave exploration, experimentation, and learning - in fact, there's a part of our brains, which scientists have coined "the seeking system", that rewards us for taking part in these activities. But the way organizations are run prevents many of us from following our innate impulses. As a result, we shut down.

Lead a winning team created on trust and success. Taking a page from Facebook, Eric Coryell has created a teamwork model that creates trust, success, and true accountability. How? By redefining your team's model to be customer-facing as opposed to reporting up! The strongest and most successful teams function through accountability and shared trust - two pillars that on paper, most teams claim to do but rarely accomplish when structured with traditional methods. With Eric's proven technique, you will see results and manage a team built on trust, shared success, and accountability.

The iconic Sydney to Hobart Race, a 723-mile deepwater challenge - often called the “Everest” of offshore ocean racing - is considered one of the toughest in the world. Unpredictable weather and seas make each race demanding, but in 1998, an unexpected “weather bomb” hit the fleet, creating 80-foot waves and 100-mile-per-hour winds. Many bigger, better-equipped boats tried to maneuver around the storm, but the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler chose to head directly into its path.