Management of the Absurd


Book Description

A "Business Week" bestseller, this original, contrarian philosophy challenges today's leaders to look past the quick fix and deal thoughtfully with the real complexities of managing people.




Management by Process


Book Description

Establishing and maintaining a process-focused organization is critical as organizations are pressured to keep achieving further growth and profitability. This book provides a thorough exposition of the six key dimensions necessary for the creation of a process-focused organization.




Management of the Absurd


Book Description




Ten Years to Midnight


Book Description

“Shows how humans have brought us to the brink and how humanity can find solutions. I urge people to read with humility and the daring to act.” —Harpal Singh, former Chair, Save the Children, India, and former Vice Chair, Save the Children International In conversations with people all over the world, from government officials and business leaders to taxi drivers and schoolteachers, Blair Sheppard, global leader for strategy and leadership at PwC, discovered they all had surprisingly similar concerns. In this prescient and pragmatic book, he and his team sum up these concerns in what they call the ADAPT framework: Asymmetry of wealth; Disruption wrought by the unexpected and often problematic consequences of technology; Age disparities--stresses caused by very young or very old populations in developed and emerging countries; Polarization as a symptom of the breakdown in global and national consensus; and loss of Trust in the institutions that underpin and stabilize society. These concerns are in turn precipitating four crises: a crisis of prosperity, a crisis of technology, a crisis of institutional legitimacy, and a crisis of leadership. Sheppard and his team analyze the complex roots of these crises--but they also offer solutions, albeit often seemingly counterintuitive ones. For example, in an era of globalization, we need to place a much greater emphasis on developing self-sustaining local economies. And as technology permeates our lives, we need computer scientists and engineers conversant with sociology and psychology and poets who can code. The authors argue persuasively that we have only a decade to make headway on these problems. But if we tackle them now, thoughtfully, imaginatively, creatively, and energetically, in ten years we could be looking at a dawn instead of darkness.




The Stupidity Paradox


Book Description

Functional stupidity can be catastrophic. It can cause organisational collapse, financial meltdown and technical disaster. And there are countless, more everyday examples of organisations accepting the dubious, the absurd and the downright idiotic, from unsustainable management fads to the cult of leadership or an over-reliance on brand and image. And yet a dose of stupidity can be useful and produce good, short-term results: it can nurture harmony, encourage people to get on with the job and drive success. This is the stupidity paradox. The Stupidity Paradox tackles head-on the pros and cons of functional stupidity. You'll discover what makes a workplace mindless, why being stupid might be a good thing in the short term but a disaster in the longer term, and how to make your workplace a little less stupid by challenging thoughtless conformity. It shows how harmony and action in the workplace can be balanced with a culture of questioning and challenge. The book is a wake-up call for smart organisations and smarter people. It encourages us to use our intelligence fully for the sake of personal satisfaction, organisational success and the flourishing of society as a whole.




The Theatre of the Absurd


Book Description

In 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered at a tiny avant-garde theatre in Paris; within five years, it had been translated into more than twenty languages and seen by more than a million spectators. Its startling popularity marked the emergence of a new type of theatre whose proponents—Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, and others—shattered dramatic conventions and paid scant attention to psychological realism, while highlighting their characters’ inability to understand one another. In 1961, Martin Esslin gave a name to the phenomenon in his groundbreaking study of these playwrights who dramatized the absurdity at the core of the human condition. Over four decades after its initial publication, Esslin’s landmark book has lost none of its freshness. The questions these dramatists raise about the struggle for meaning in a purposeless world are still as incisive and necessary today as they were when Beckett’s tramps first waited beneath a dying tree on a lonely country road for a mysterious benefactor who would never show. Authoritative, engaging, and eminently readable, The Theatre of the Absurd is nothing short of a classic: vital reading for anyone with an interest in the theatre.




Management of the Absurd


Book Description




Manager Redefined


Book Description

In this book the author explains that managers must build human capital and engender employee engagement by managing them almost not at all, by attending instead to the factors and circumstances that make them successful. In other words, managers must play their role from offstage and out of the limelight. Based on a survey of over 16,000 employees, the author presents Towers-Watson' management performance model: Executing tasks, Building relationships and performance capability, and Energizing change. Additionally, managers must create an atmosphere of authenticity and trust.




Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins


Book Description

Success in today's business economy demands nonstop innovation. But fancy buzzwords, facile lip service, and simplistic formulas are not the answer. Only an entirely new mindset -- a new attitude toward success and failure -- can transform managers' thinking, according to Richard Farson, author of the bestseller Management of the Absurd, and Ralph Keyes, author of the pathbreaking Chancing It: Why We Take Risks, in this provocative new work. According to Farson and Keyes, the key to this new attitude lies in taking risks. In a rapidly changing economy, managers will confront at least as much failure as success. Does that mean they'll have failed? Only by their grandfathers' definition of failure. Both success and failure are steps toward achievement, say the authors. After all, Coca-Cola's renaissance grew directly out of its New Coke debacle, and severe financial distress forced IBM to completely reinvent itself. Wise leaders accept their setbacks as necessary footsteps on the path toward success. They also know that the best way to fall behind in a shifting economy is to rely on what's worked in the past -- as when once-innovative companies like Xerox and Polaroid relied too heavily on formulas that had grown obsolete. By contrast, companies such as GE and 3M have remained vibrant by encouraging innovators, even when they suffered setbacks. In their stunning new book, Farson and Keyes call this enlightened approach "productive mistake-making." Rather than reward success and penalize failure, they propose that managers focus on what can be learned from both. Paradoxically, the authors argue, the less we chase success and flee from failure, the more likely we are to genuinely succeed. Best of all, they have written a little jewel of a book, packed with fresh insights, blessedly brief, and to the point.




Product Lifecycle Management


Book Description

Product Lifecycle Management (2nd edition) explains what Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is, and why it's needed. It describes the environment in which products are developed, realised and supported, before looking at the basic components of PLM, such as the product, processes, applications, and people. The final part addresses the implementation of PLM, showing the steps of a project or initiative, and typical activities. This new and expanded edition of Product Lifecycle Management is fully updated to reflect the many advances made in PLM since the release of the first edition. It includes descriptions of PLM technologies and examples of implementation projects in industry. Product Lifecycle Management will broaden the reader’s understanding of PLM, nurturing the skills needed to implement PLM successfully and to achieve world-class product performance across the lifecycle. “A 20-year veteran of PLM, I highly recommend this book. A clear and complete overview of PLM from definition to implementation. Everything is there - reasons, resources, strategy, implementation and PLM project management.” Achim Heilmann, Manager, Global Technical Publications, Varian Medical Systems “Product Lifecycle Management is an important technology for European industry. This state-of-the art book is a reference for those implementing and researching PLM.” Dr. Erastos Filos, Head of Sector "Intelligent Manufacturing Systems", European Commission “This book, written by one of the best experts in this field, is an ideal complement for PLM courses at Bachelor and Master level, as well as a well-founded reference book for practitioners.” Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Sandor Vajna, University of Magdeburg, Germany “This comprehensive book can help drive an understanding of PLM at all levels – from CEOs to CIOs, and from professors to students – that will help this important industry continue to expand and thrive.” James Heppelmann, President and Chief Executive Officer, PTC “PLM is a mission-critical decision-making system leveraged by the world’s most innovative companies to transform their process of innovation on a continuous basis. That is a powerful value proposition in a world where the challenge is to get better products to the market faster than ever before. That is the power of PLM.” Tony Affuso, Chairman and CEO, Siemens PLM Software