Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That Is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World


Book Description

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER The secret to business success? Get REAL and be HUMAN! As human beings, we are built to connect and form relationships. So, it should be no surprise that relationships must also translate into the workplace, where we spend most of our time! Companies that recognize this will retain the most productive, creative, and loyal employees, and invariably seize the competitive edge. The most successful leaders are those who actively form quality relationships with their employees, who honor fundamental human qualities—authenticity, openness, and basic politeness—and apply them day in and day out. Paying attention and genuinely caring about the effects people have on one another other is key to developing a winning culture where people perform at the top of their game and want to work. As a workplace strategist and business coach, Erica Keswin has spent over 20 years working with top business leaders and executives to build successful organizations that honor relationships. Featuring case studies from top brands such as, Lyft, Starbucks, Mogul, and SoulCycle, to name a few, Bring Your Human to Work distills the key practices of the most human companies into applicable advice that any business leader can use to build a “human workplace.” These building blocks include: • Understanding your company’s role in the world, beyond financial profit • Encouraging employees to be healthy in body and spirit • Running your meetings with clear purpose • Making space for face-to-face interaction • Building professional development into company culture • Inspiring your workforce to give back to the community • Simply saying “thank you” A human company is real, genuine, aligned, and true to itself. A real company flaunts its humanity, instead of hiding it. It’s what the most successful, sustainable companies are doing today, and there’s no reason yours can’t be the same. Keswin’s leadership lessons foster fairness, devotion, and joy in the workplace—all critical elements of a successful business. By bringing your human to work, you can design a workplace that is good for people, great for business, and just might change the world.




Creating an Environment for Successful Projects, 3rd Edition


Book Description

Now in its third edition, this project management classic has been updated with an array of field-tested tools to help upper management ensure the success of projects within organizations. For over twenty years, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed. This new edition includes case studies from companies that have successfully applied the approach, along with practical tools such as templates, surveys, and benchmark reports for savvy leaders who want to ensure project success throughout their organizations. The insights in this book will help management speed projects along instead of getting in their way. All too often, well-intentioned managers put roadblocks in the team's way instead of empowering them with the tools they need to succeed. This approach to project environments, grounded in decades of research and practice, will help you make your organization the most project-friendly it's ever been. Organizational changes rarely work unless upper management is heavily involved. Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers are the ones who ultimately create an environment that supports those projects. The way upper managers define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.




Strategic Classroom Design


Book Description

"This book by first-time Heinemann author Jessica Martin is about creating structure and environment to address classroom management issues. Most importantly, it highlights the necessity of co-designing with students-not just for students. Jessica spent a lot of time in real classrooms (especially west coast settings) to collect ideas and capture a multitude of design options that will offer flexible, inclusive learning"--




Creating a Learning Environment for Babies and Toddlers


Book Description

Shortlisted for the 2012 Nursery World Awards! Understanding the factors that contribute to a positive learning environment is vital for those working with children from birth to 3 years. Using extensive case study material, Ann Clare focuses on the experiences of babies and toddlers in various care settings, and the role adults play in developing creative and supportive environments. The effect on speech and language development is explored, with reference to recent research and initiatives. Information gathered from parents and childcare workers helps provide a deep consideration of parents′ childcare choices. Topics covered include: - the emotional environment - the role of adults in the environment - the physical environment - the creative environment - parents and the environment - observing and questioning This detailed study of current research and literature provides an invaluable source of information for those planning to work with babies and toddlers, as well as experienced childminders wanting to reflect on the care and learning they offer children and families. Ann Clare is an Early Years Foundation Stage Consultant in England.




Techniques of the Selling Writer


Book Description

Techniques of the Selling Writer provides solid instruction for people who want to write and sell fiction, not just to talk and study about it. It gives the background, insights, and specific procedures needed by all beginning writers. Here one can learn how to group words into copy that moves, movement into scenes, and scenes into stories; how to develop characters, how to revise and polish, and finally, how to sell the product. No one can teach talent, but the practical skills of the professional writer's craft can certainly be taught. The correct and imaginative use of these kills can shorten any beginner's apprenticeship by years. This is the book for writers who want to turn rejection slips into cashable checks.




The Environment (What on Earth?)


Book Description

What on Earth? The Environment is a simple first introduction to the environment--the air, soil, water, plants, and animals. How do we as humans slot into the natural world around us and how do our actions affect the environment? What on Earth can we do about it? The book contains three different types of pages: Explore, Investigate, and Create. This structure provides a child-led and hands-on way for children to learn about the world around them. Create pages consist of fun crafts and activities to give children a chance to play and have fun while learning.




Creating a Space to Grow


Book Description

This book is for all early years practitioners who want to make changes to an outdoor play area. With strategies and activities for enhancing outdoor play, this practical guide enables practitioners to recognise the true value of outdoor spaces to a child's educational development.




The Knowledge Gap


Book Description

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.




Classroom Management


Book Description

Deals with management of student conduct in the classroom, which is the number one area of concern for many teachers. This book includes discussions and real-life cases with reference to the influence of Chinese culture on Hong Kong classrooms. It covers topics such as managing behaviour, establishing classroom rules, and conveying authority.




Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation


Book Description

Policy-makers are increasingly trying to assign economic values to areas such as ecologies, the atmosphere, even human lives. These new values, assigned to areas previously considered outside of economic systems, often act to qualify, alter or replace former non-pecuniary values. Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation looks to explore the complex interdependencies, contradictions and trade-offs that can take place between economic values and the social, environmental, political and ethical systems that inform non-monetary valuation processes. Using rich empirical material, the book explores the processes of valuation, their components, calculative technologies, and outcomes in different social, ecological and conservation domains. The book gives reasons for why economic calculation tends to dominate in practice, but also presents new insights on how the disobedient materiality of things and the ingenuity of human and non-human agencies can combine and frustrate the dominant economic models within calculative processes. This book highlights the tension between, on the one hand, a dominant model that emphasises technical and 'universalising' criteria, and on the other hand, valuation practice in specific local contexts which is more likely to negotiate criteria that are plural, incommensurable and political. This book is perfect for researchers and students within development studies, environment, geography, politics, sociology and anthropology who are looking for new insights into how processes of valuation take place in the 21st century, and with what consequential outcomes.