Leadership

For companies to be competitive, leaders must engage people at all levels in order to focus their energy and enable them to apply lean principles to everything they do. Strategy deployment, called hoshin kanri by Toyota, has proven to be the most effective process for meeting this ongoing challenge. In his new book Getting the Right Things Done, author and LEI faculty member Pascal Dennis outlines the nuts and bolts of strategy deployment, answering two tough questions that ultimately can make or break a company's lean transformation: * What kind of planning system is required to inspire meaningful company-wide continuous improvement? * How might we change existing mental models that do not support a culture of continuous improvement? Getting the Right Things Done demonstrates how strategy deployment can help leaders harness the full power of Lean. Organization leaders at all levels and the management teams who are responsible for strategy deployment will find this book especially insightful. It tells the story of a fictional (yet very real) midsized company, Atlas Industries that needs to dramatically improve to compete with emerging rivals and meet new customer demands. Getting the Right Things Done chronicles the journey of the company and its President/COO, an experienced lean leader who was hired five years ago to steer Atlas in the right direction. While Atlas had already applied some basic lean principles, it had not really connected the people and business processes so that the company could dramatically improve. Atlas' challenge: "Something was missing: a way of focusing and aligning the efforts of good people, and a delivery system, something that would direct the tools to the right places." Enter strategy deployment. The book is designed to provide readers with a framework for understanding the key components of strategy deployment: agreeing on the company's "True North," working within the PDCA cycle, getting conse

In the updated edition of this critically acclaimed and bestselling book, Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Internet Explorer and lead program manager for Windows and MSN, Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. Making Things Happen doesn't cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask. Topics in this new edition include:
How to make things happen
Making good decisions
Specifications and requirements
Ideas and what to do with them
How not to annoy people
Leadership and trust
The truth about making dates
What to do when things go wrong
Complete with a new forward from the author and a discussion guide for forming reading groups/teams, Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm's reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoft'sbiggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsoft's internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.

This twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Stephen Covey’s cherished classic commemorates the timeless wisdom of the 7 Habits.

One of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has captivated readers for 25 years. It has transformed the lives of Presidents and CEOs, educators and parents— in short, millions of people of all ages and occupations.

This collectible edition of "The Art of War by Sun Tzu" presents these timeless instructions regarding military strategy and managing conflict in two complete versions, with over 260 pages of content.

A modern introduction, tracing the origins of "The Art of War" and its historical and cultural importance, firmly grounds the reader in the context with which the oldest book on military strategy has survived the ages, as well as contemporary examples of its continued use.

The first section of this collectible edition contains "The Art of War" in English, without notes or commentary. This allows the reader to understand the teachings of Sun Tzu, without the distraction of footnotes or excessive comments.

The second section contains the complete annotated translation by Lionel Giles, restored by Sian Kim, along with Giles' translation notes, definitive critical commentary, and supplemental information from a broad range of sources. Written during the Victorian era, Giles' 1910 "Introduction" has also been included, containing the legend of "Sun Tzu and The Army of Concubines".

Although written in the 6th century BC, the teachings of Sun Tzu are still found today in the martial arts, legal doctrine, military schools, management seminars and pervasively throughout popular culture.

Decorated Navy SEAL, successful businessman and world-renowned speaker Brent Gleeson shares his revolutionary approach to navigating and leading change in the workplace—with a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author Mark Owen.

Inspired by his time as a Navy SEAL and building award-winning organizations in the business world, Brent Gleeson has created a powerful roadmap for today’s existing and emerging business leaders and managers to improve their ability to successfully navigate organizational change. Over the past ten years since leaving the SEAL Teams, Gleeson has become a well-respected thought leader and expert in business transformation. He has spoken to and consulted with hundreds of organizations across the globe and inspired thousands of business leaders through his highly insightful philosophies on leadership, culture and building high-performance teams that achieve winning results.

In TakingPoint, Gleeson shares his ten-step program that he has implemented in his own companies and for his high-profile clients—giving leaders and managers actionable insights and a framework for successful execution. TakingPoint brilliantly captures the structures, behaviors and mindsets required to build successful twenty-first century organizations. With a strong emphasis on communication, culture, engagement, accountability, trust, and resiliency, Gleeson’s methods have helped hundreds of companies around the world transform the way they think about change, and can help yours do the same.

For the last five years, Gleeson has shared his philosophies through his weekly columns on Forbes and Inc. And now, for the first time ever, they are captured in this entertaining and highly prescriptive book.

Steps include:

-Culture: The Single Most Important Enabler
-Trust: Fueling the Change Engine
-Accountability: Ownership at All Levels
-Mindset: Belief in the Mission
-Preparation: Gathering Intelligence and Planning the Mission
-Transmission: Communicating the Vision
-Inclusion: The Power of Participation and Acceptance
-Fatigue: Managing Fear and Staying Energized
-Discipline: Focus and Follow-Through
-Resiliency: The Path of Lasting Change

Never has change been more consistent and disruptive as it is now. Business leaders and managers at all levels can’t just react to change. They have to lead change. They have to take point.

#1 Amazon Bestseller in Leadership
Wall Street Journal Bestseller

An F-14 fighter pilot's top lessons for leading fearlessly--and bringing a team to peak performance

As an aviation pioneer, Carey D. Lohrenz learned what fearless leadership means in some of the most demanding and extreme environments imaginable: the cockpit of an F-14 and the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Here, her teams had to perform at their peak--or lives were on the line. Faltering leadership was simply unacceptable. Through these experiences, Lohrenz identified a fundamental truth: high-performing teams require fearless leaders.

Since leaving the Navy, she's translated that lesson into a new field, helping top business leaders, from Fortune 500 executives to middle managers, supercharge performance in today's competitive business environments. In Fearless Leadership, Lohrenz walks you through the three fundamentals of real fearlessness--courage, tenacity, and integrity--and then reveals fearless leadership in action, offering advice on how to set a bold vision, bring the team together (as wingmen, not Top Gun mavericks), execute effectively, and stay resilient through hard times.

Whether you're stepping into your first leadership role or looking to get out of a longstanding rut, Fearless Leadership will act like your afterburner--rocketing you to ever-higher levels of performance.