Smart Teams

Author: Dermot Crowley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0730350037
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Communicate, congregate and collaborate more effectively than ever Smart Teams will help your team to go beyond personal productivity to enhance team productivity. Building on the concepts presented in Smart Work, which focuses on personal productivity, this book shows you how to turn unproductive team behaviours that create friction into ‘superproductive’ behaviours that promote flow. Productivity is, at its core, a leadership issue — and this book provides practical guidelines that help you build a culture where productivity thrives. Working together can be a drag — literally. Email noise, unproductive meetings and poorly organised projects can stifle creativity and disrupt everyone’s workflow. But by creating team agreements that raise awareness of the negative impact of our behaviours, you build the desire and capability to change. This book is packed with tips, guidelines and expert insights for leaders and managers at any level. Foster a culture of ‘superproductivity’ Create a set of Smart Team principles to guide cooperation Run fewer, shorter and more effective meetings Collaborate more productively on projects Reduce urgency, interruptions and email noise People want their work to matter, they want to make an impact and they want to do it all with a healthy work-life balance — productivity is the key to making it all happen. Smart Teams shows you how to implement the culture shift that will allow your team to flourish.

The Ideal Team Player

Author: Patrick M. Lencioni
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119209617
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Book Description
In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player. In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues. Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams

Author: Roger M. Schwarz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0787988731
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
A proven approach for helping leaders and teams work together to achieve better decisions, greater commitment, and stronger results More than ever, effective leadership requires us to work as a team, but many leaders struggle to get the results they need. When stakes are high, you can't get great results by just changing what you do. You also need to change how you think. Organizational psychologist and leadership consultant Roger Schwarz applies his 30+ years of experience working with leadership teams to reveal how leaders can drastically improve results by changing their individual and team mindset. Provides practical guidance to help teams increase decision quality, decrease implementation time, foster innovation, get commitment, reduce costs and increase trust Outlines 5 core values leadership teams can adopt to exponentially improve results Author of The Skilled Facilitator and The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook Get the results you and your team need. Start by applying the practical wisdom of Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams.

Smart Work

Author: Dermot Crowley
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0730324362
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Organise your way to renewed focus and calm Smart Work is the busy professional's guide to getting organised in the digital workplace. Are you drowning in constant emails, phone calls, paperwork, interruptions and meeting actions? This book throws you a lifeline by showing you how to take advantage of your digital tools to reprioritise, refocus and get back to doing the important work. You may already have the latest technology, but if you're still swamped, you're not using it to your advantage. This useful guide shows you how to leverage the technology you have to centralise your work into one integrated tool. You'll develop a simple and sustainable productivity system to organise your actions, manage your inputs and achieve your outcomes. The highly visual nature of the book helps you quickly grasp the ideas you need most. Like most professionals, you want to do great work and achieve great things. But when half your day is spent on emails, phone calls and 'extra' duties, you rarely get a chance to shine. This book changes that. Get back in control so you can start performing like a star. Get organised, focused and proactive Conquer the daily incoming deluge Spend more time on important work Leverage your desktop and mobile technology When work is coming at you from every direction, it's difficult to focus and prioritise. Things get lost in the shuffle. But when you channel everything into a single stream, you settle into a flow and get more accomplished in less time. Smart Work is your guide to finding your flow— and the bottom of your inbox.

SmartTribes

Author: Christine Comaford
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101629762
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Are You Scaring Your People into Mediocrity? All leaders want to outperform, outsell, and outinnovate the competition. And most teams are fully capable of doing so. The problem: we consistently say and do things that spark unconscious fears and keep our people stuck in their Critter State. This primitive fight, flight, or freeze mode distills all decision making to one question: What will keep me safest? Lying low, sucking up, procrastinating, and doing a good enough job may keep employees breathing, but it doesn’t make for vital organizations. Leaders have to get their people unstuck and fully engaged, replacing their old, limiting mental patterns with new patterns that foster optimal performance. New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again. Comaford brings to this book more than thirty years of company-building experience, combined with her expertise in behavioral modification and organizational development. She has helped hundreds of leaders navigate rapid growth, maximize performance, resolve internal conflicts, and execute turnarounds with the full support of their people. Now she shares potent yet easy-to-learn neuroscience techniques that will help you do the same. You’ll learn how to move your team forward and reach your next revenue inflection point using the five key Accelerators of the Smart State—focus, clarity, accountability, influence, and sustainability. You’ll get better at anticipating and moving through your own stuck spots and those of your people. Using her proven system, Comaford’s clients have already created hundreds of millions of dollars in new value. They’ve seen their revenues and profits increase by up to 210% annually; individuals become up to 50% more productive and 100% more accountable; marketing demand generation grow by up to 237%; new products and services created up to 48% faster; and sales close up to 50% faster. They spot changes in their markets more quickly, then pounce on them to create the future they want. Ultimately, SmartTribes will help you and your team achieve optimal performance and engagement—brilliance—and leave competitors in the dust.

Better Together

Author: Jonathan Sposato
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119452082
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
It is the year 2017 and gender equality and women thriving in work place without fear of sexual harassment or discrimination is the #1 unsolved social issue of our time. Better Together: 8 Ways Working with Women Leads to Extraordinary Products and Profits offers a rare and startling look at the business world through the lens of an expert looking in and plots out how ALL types of businesses can gain a competitive advantage and excel past competitors by simply nurturing an equal blend of men and women on leadership teams and staff. It focuses on powerful and implementable solutions that any CEO, manager, or team leader can put to use to ensure that women thrive within the organization, leading to the business being more successful, customers happier, and employees more fulfilled. Author Jonathan Sposato knows the challenges facing women in startup tech and venture capital today because he specifically builds his companies with-out those obstacles. He credits the unprecedented success of his businesses on his brand of gender-balanced culture, and in this fully practical guidebook to his celebrated style of team building, he puts his eight secrets to profiting through diversity in your hands. These secrets are not just for tech companies, but for teams and companies in ANY industry. It is the culmination of extensive research on the many issues that affect gender equality (or lack thereof) in the workplace, exhaustive interviews with many powerful female CEO's and executives who have been brave in sharing stories of their own personal struggles and triumphs, as well as Jonathan's own experiences as a male entrepreneur, CEO, and angel investor in supporting the advancement of women in business. The book also shows us why that’s not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do economically. With the same entertaining and informative delivery that makes him a sought-after speaker worldwide, Jonathan walks you through adjusting your own culture to open the FULL potential of your workforce. The data will amaze you and the real-world voices will inspire you, and with Better Together you can achieve more success with more women on your team. If you care about inclusivity and beating the forces that prevent it, you will want to read this book.

Getting Smart

Author: Tom Vander Ark
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118115872
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
A comprehensive look at the promise and potential of online learning In our digital age, students have dramatically new learning needs and must be prepared for the idea economy of the future. In Getting Smart, well-known global education expert Tom Vander Ark examines the facets of educational innovation in the United States and abroad. Vander Ark makes a convincing case for a blend of online and onsite learning, shares inspiring stories of schools and programs that effectively offer "personal digital learning" opportunities, and discusses what we need to do to remake our schools into "smart schools." Examines the innovation-driven world, discusses how to combine online and onsite learning, and reviews "smart tools" for learning Investigates the lives of learning professionals, outlines the new employment bargain, examines online universities and "smart schools" Makes the case for smart capital, advocates for policies that create better learning, studies smart cultures

Work Better Together: How to Cultivate Strong Relationships to Maximize Well-Being and Boost Bottom Lines

Author: Jen Fisher
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 1264268130
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Power your business culture with strong workplace relationships—and watch productivity and profitability soar 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 Work Better Together, two experts from Deloitte explain how working remotely, over-relying on digital communication, and always being “on” is fast-increasing feelings of isolation and burnout—and how a work culture driven by quality relationships can reverse these trends. The authors show how to cultivate positive relationships by: Focusing on self-care, such as physical health, quality sleep, and taking time off Tapping into human skills, such as empathy, authenticity, and communication Using technology with intentionality to strengthen relationships, while breaking the negative habits technology fosters Managing workplace relationships, whether you’re in the office every day or telecommuting—or something in between Developing a culture of strong relationships that drive quality collaboration throughout the organization Work Better Together walks you through the process of implementing change and fueling a much-needed corporate movement towards humanity in the workplace. Based on the authors’ 40+ combined years of experience, it helps you meet today’s employees’ most urgent needs, while benefitting your organization in real and measurable ways.

Smart Collaboration

Author: Heidi K. Gardner
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 163369111X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
A Washington Post Bestseller Not all collaboration is smart. Make sure you do it right. Professional service firms face a serious challenge. Their clients increasingly need them to solve complex problems—everything from regulatory compliance to cybersecurity, the kinds of problems that only teams of multidisciplinary experts can tackle. Yet most firms have carved up their highly specialized, professional experts into narrowly defined practice areas, and collaborating across these silos is often messy, risky, and expensive. Unless you know why you’re collaborating and how to do it effectively, it may not be smart at all. That’s especially true for partners who have built their reputations and client rosters independently, not by working with peers. In Smart Collaboration, Heidi K. Gardner shows that firms earn higher margins, inspire greater client loyalty, attract and retain the best talent, and gain a competitive edge when specialists collaborate across functional boundaries. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School professor now lecturing at Harvard Law School, has spent over a decade conducting in-depth studies of numerous global professional service firms. Her research with clients and the empirical results of her studies demonstrate clearly and convincingly that collaboration pays, for both professionals and their firms. But Gardner also offers powerful prescriptions for how leaders can foster collaboration, move to higher-margin work, increase client satisfaction, improve lateral hiring, decrease enterprise risk, engage workers to contribute their utmost, break down silos, and boost their bottom line. With case studies and real-world insights, Smart Collaboration delivers an authoritative case for the value of collaboration to today’s professionals, their firms, and their clients and shows you exactly how to achieve it.

Better Together

Author: Tom Vander Ark
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119439523
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
Bring students, teachers, and administrators together to facilitate higher school achievement Better Together presents a tour through one of the modern era’s most important educational innovations, and provides smart strategy for working optimally within the school network sphere. There are more than 50 high-quality scaled charter networks in the U.S.; most share a learning model, professional supports, and—increasingly—platform tools. Although these charter schools get most of the attention, there are over a dozen other networks that connect district schools and provide design principles, curriculum materials, technology tools, and professional learning opportunities to streamline school improvement and help build great new schools from scratch. This book details some of the many success stories, and includes expert analysis of learning models, strategies, and innovations that are making quality scalable and helping schools produce more positive student outcomes. Illustrative examples from the New Tech Network, Summit Public Schools, Big Picture, and other big-name networks provide both guidance and inspiration, while expert discussion clarifies essential details and processes for implementation. Teachers and administrators will find much food for thought both inside and outside of a school network system. Examine proven learning models for scaled school networks Explore the latest innovations for more effective collaborations Read success stories from school networks across the country Learn smart strategies for optimizing the educational network experience Digital platforms have transformed the way we connect with friends, family, colleagues, and businesses. That revolution has finally come to education, opening doors to collaboration, resource expansion, and school success. Better Together explores beyond disruption to show how the U.S. K-12 system is truly evolving.