Managing the Matrix. The Secret to Surviving and Thriving in Your Organization

A new book to help senior executives and boards get smart about risk management The ability of businesses to survive and thrive often requires unconventional thinking and calculated risk taking. The key is to make the right decisions—even under the most risky, uncertain, and turbulent conditions. In the new book, Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating the Risk Intelligent Enterprise, authors Rick Funston and Steve Wagner suggest that effective risk taking is needed in order to innovate, stay competitive, and drive value creation. Based on their combined decades of experience as practitioners, consultants, and advisors to numerous business professionals throughout the world, Funston and Wagner discuss the adoption of 10 essential and practical skills, which will improve agility, resilience, and realize benefits: Challenging basic business assumptions can help identify «Black Swans» and provide first-mover advantage Defining the corporate risk appetite and risk tolerances can help reduce the risk of ruin. Anticipating potential causes of failure can improve chances of survival and success through improved preparedness. Factoring in velocity and momentum can improve speed of response and recovery. Verifying sources and the reliability of information can improve insights for decision making and thus decision quality. Taking a longer-term perspective can aid in identifying the potential unintended consequences of short-term decisions.

The keys to having an outstanding career as a school leader. The American educational system is in crisis; trends of recent years have been extraordinarily hard on educators. An entire generation of school leaders is retiring, many of them early, and the number of candidates applying to replace them is plummeting. In many districts, applications have shrunk by nearly two-thirds. Seven Secrets of The Savvy School Leader hopes to counteract these glum statistics by giving both aspiring and experienced school leaders important survival tools, and encouraging long-term leaders to renew their faith in their own abilities. Describes the innate tensions inherent in leadership Explores the difference between dilemmas and problems Encourages leaders to make change by making meaning Offers guidance for being your best and bold self Written an expert on school leadership who has worked closely with thousands of schools over the years, the book will help anyone serving as or considering becoming a school administrator.

A Nonprofit Survival Kit for Hard Times «This is a must-read for all of us in fundraising. Mal Warwick includes practical approaches for difficult economic times, from zero-based thinking about our programs to strategies for relating to our donors and making certain our fundraising programs are prepared to succeed not only now but when the economy recovers.» —Eugene R. Tempel, president, Indiana University Foundation «Brilliant! No nonprofit organization can afford to ignore the insightful advice Mal Warwick offers in this concise and eminently readable book. It's practical, down-to-earth, and addresses the complex, real-world challenges of raising money in tough times.» —Ben Jealous, president, NAACP «Fundraising When Money Is Tight is an important book in a difficult time for all. This is the right book for anyone who is committed to advancing the public good.» —Jane Wales, founder, Global Philanthropy Forum, and vice president, Aspen Institute «This is a must-read book by any fundraising manager. It's timely, it's a good read, and the moment I put it down I made sure my managers got focused, got real, and got with the project today.» —Mark Astarita, director of fundraising, British Red Cross «Mal Warwick will leave you with a focusing framework and dozens of practical, immediately actionable how-tos. It is hard to imagine anyone in the citizen sector who will not breathe easier after reading this book.» —Bill Drayton, CEO, Ashoka, and chair, Youth Venture

A game-changing approach to management Too often discussions of management practice focus exclusively on managing people and organizational issues. Rarely, however, do they incorporate a discussion about technology or address all three dimensions in a balanced way. When they do, the result is game changing. In our hypercompetitive environment, those managers who are outstanding at being plugged into their people, technology, and organizational processes simultaneously excel at coming up with effective business solutions. The Plugged-In Manager makes the case that being plugged-in—the ability to see choices across each of an organization's dimensions of people, technology, and organizational processes and then to mix them together into new and powerful organizational strategies, structures, and practices—may be the most important capability a manager can develop to succeed in the 21st century. Step by step Griffith shows you how to acquire this ability. Shows what it takes for business managers to succeed as technology and organizations become more and more complex Profiles exceptional leaders and organizations who are plugged-in, such as Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com Offers a fresh look at management issues Filled with compelling case studies and drawing on first-hand interviews, The Plugged-In Manager highlights this often neglected managerial capability and the costs of only focusing on one dimension rather than all three.

The step-by-step guide to a winning sales team The Sales Boss reveals the secrets to great sales management, and provides direct examples of how you can start being that manager today. The not-so-secret «secret» is that a winning sales team is made up of high performers—but many fail to realize that high performance must be collective. A single star cannot carry the entire team, and it's the sales manager's responsibility to build a team with the right balance of skills, strengths, and weaknesses. This book shows you how to find the exact people you need, bring them together, and empower them to achieve more than they ever thought possible. You'll learn what drives high performance, and how to avoid the things that disrupt it. You'll discover the missing pieces in your existing training, and learn how to invest in your team to win. You'll come away with more than a better understanding of great sales management—you'll have a concrete plan and an actionable list of steps to take starting right now. Your people are the drivers, but you're the operator. As a sales manager, it's up to you to give your team the skills and tools they need to achieve their potential and beyond. This book shows you how, and provides expert guidance for making it happen. Delve into the psychology behind peak performance Hire the right people at the right time for the right role Train your team to consistently outperform competitors Build and maintain the momentum of success to reach even higher Without sales, business doesn't happen. No mortgages paid, no college funds built, no retirement saved for, until the sales team brings in the revenue. If the sales team wins, the organization wins. Build your winning team with The Sales Boss, the real-world guide to great sales management.

With 26 inspiring chapters, this book celebrates the wisdom of some of the most recognized thought leaders of our day: emerging and established experts who share their unique vision of what the organization of the future should look like and must do to survive in the turbulent 21st Century. Outsmart Your Rivals by Seeing What Others Don’t, Jim Champy Organization Is Not Structure but Capability, Dave Ulrich & Norm Smallwood The Leader’s Mandate: Create a Shared Sense of Destiny, James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner A Different Kind of Company, Srikumar S. Rao Free to Choose: How American Managers Can Create Globally Competitive Workplaces, James O’Toole Managing the Whole Mandate for the Twenty-First Century: Ditching the Quick-Fix Approach to Management, Paul Borawski & Maryann Brennan The Values That Build a Strong Organization, Thomas J. Moran Revisiting the Concept of the Corporation, Charles Handy Mobilizing Emotions for Performance: Making the Most of the Informal Organization, Jon R. Katzenbach & Zia Khan Beyond Retirement: Mature Workers Are Essential Talent for Organizations of the Future, Richard J. Leider The Best Hope for Organizations of the Future: A Functioning Society, Ira A. Jackson Reframing Ethics, Spirit, and Soul, Lee G. Bolman &Terrence E. Deal Environment Drives Behavior and Expectations, Bill Strickland with Regina Cronin Dynamic Organizations for an Entrepreneurial Age, Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek Multidimensional, Multinational Organizations of the Future, Jay R. Galbraith Designing Organizations That Are Built to Change, Edward E. Lawler III & Christopher G. Worley Refounding a Movement: Preparing a One-Hundred- Year-Old Organization for the Future, Kathy Cloninger Three Challenges Facing Nonprofits of the Future: People, Funding, and Strategy, Roxanne Spillett Pioneering the College of the Future: Building as We Walk, Darlyne Bailey The Organization of the Future Will Foster an Inclusive Environment, Lee Cockerell The Leader as Subculture Manager, Edgar H. Schein The New High-Performance, Horizontal Organization, Howard M. Guttman The Leadership Blueprint to Achieve Exponential Growth, David G. Thomson Leadership Judgment: The Essence of a Good Leader, Noel M. Tichy & Christopher DeRose The Leader of the Future, William A. Cohen Leadership by Perpetual Practice, Debbe Kennedy

Expert suggestions for guiding your child through the rough teenage years Does it sometimes seem like your teenager is trying to push you over the edge? Learn what your child is going through and what you can do to help your teen navigate this difficult period in this practical guide from psychologist and parenting expert Carl Pickhardt. In an easy-to-read style, Dr. Pickhardt describes a 4-stage model of adolescent growth to help parents anticipate common developmental changes in their daughter or son from late elementary school through the college age years. Provides unique advice for dealing with arguing, chores, the messy room, homework, and many other issues Offers best practices for teaching effective communication, constructive conflict, and responsible decision-making Includes ideas for protecting kids against the dangers of the Internet, bullying, dating, sexual involvement, and substance use An essential road map for parents looking to guide their children on the path to adulthood.

Real life insights on what it takes to make it in a relationship with an entrepreneur Entrepreneurs are always on the go, looking for the next «startup» challenge. And while they lead very intensely rewarding lives, time is always short and relationships are often long-distant and stressed because of extended periods apart. Coping with these, and other obstacles, are critical if an entrepreneur and their partner intend on staying together—and staying happy. In Startup Life, Brad Feld—a Boulder, Colorado-based entrepreneur turned-venture capitalist—shares his own personal experiences with his wife Amy, offering a series of rich insights into successfully leading a balanced life as a human being who wants to play as hard as he works and who wants to be as fulfilled in life and in work. With this book, Feld distills his twenty years of experience in this field to addresses how the village of startup people can put aside their workaholic ways and lead rewarding lives in all respects. Includes real-life examples of entrepreneurial couples who have had successful relationships and what works for them Provides practical advice for adapting to change and overcoming the inevitable ups and downs associated with the entrepreneurial lifestyle Written by Brad Feld, a thought-leader in this field who has been an early-stage investor and successful entrepreneur for more than twenty years While there's no «secret formula» to relationship success in the world of the entrepreneur, there are ways to making navigation of this territory easier. Startup Life is a well-rounded guide that has the insights and advice you need to succeed in both your personal and business life.

A proven system for rallying all of an organizations' employees around a new vision and ideas for making the vision stick When something at work isn't going smoothly, managers struggle with what part of the problem to tackle first. Do they start with cost reduction? Or should they go for process improvements first? The authors—who have helped hundreds of companies and individuals change and improve—say spend time and money adjusting the systems in which people operate, rather than targeting people and their performance directly. The authors show that it's in fact possible to change everything at once—with a focus on making such transformations permanent and repeatable. Brand-new Introduction written for the paperback edition Filled with illustrative examples from Northrup Grumman, BHP-Billiton, Reebok, Harvard Business School, and many others Two experts in the field show how to make major transformations happen The book outlines a process for engaging all employees to buy-in to an improved vision of an organization's new and improved future.