Rebel Talent


Book Description

“In this groundbreaking book, Francesca Gino shows us how to spark creativity, excel at work, and become happier: By learning to rebel.” — Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better Do you want to follow a script — or write your own story? Award-winning Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino shows us why the most successful among us break the rules, and how rebellion brings joy and meaning into our lives. Rebels have a bad reputation. We think of them as troublemakers, outcasts, contrarians: those colleagues, friends, and family members who complicate seemingly straightforward decisions, create chaos, and disagree when everyone else is in agreement. But in truth, rebels are also those among us who change the world for the better with their unconventional outlooks. Instead of clinging to what is safe and familiar, and falling back on routines and tradition, rebels defy the status quo. They are masters of innovation and reinvention, and they have a lot to teach us. Francesca Gino, a behavioral scientist and professor at Harvard Business School, has spent more than a decade studying rebels at organizations around the world, from high-end boutiques in Italy’s fashion capital, to the World’s Best Restaurant, to a thriving fast food chain, to an award-winning computer animation studio. In her work, she has identified leaders and employees who exemplify “rebel talent,” and whose examples we can all learn to embrace. Gino argues that the future belongs to the rebel — and that there’s a rebel in each of us. We live in turbulent times, when competition is fierce, reputations are easily tarnished on social media, and the world is more divided than ever before. In this cutthroat environment, cultivating rebel talent is what allows businesses to evolve and to prosper. And rebellion has an added benefit beyond the workplace: it leads to a more vital, engaged, and fulfilling life. Whether you want to inspire others to action, build a business, or build more meaningful relationships, Rebel Talent will show you how to succeed — by breaking all the rules.




Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists


Book Description

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.




Creativity In Context


Book Description

Creativity in Context is an update of The Social Psychology of Creativity, a classic text for researchers, students, and other interested readers. Creativity in Context incorporates extensive new material, going far beyond the original to provide a comprehensive picture of how the motivation for creative behavior, and creativity itself, can be influenced by the social environment.Teresa Amabile describes new findings from both her own research and from the work of many others in the field, detailing not only the ways in which creativity can be killed by social-psychological influences, but also the ways in which it can be maintained and stimulated. The research and the theory have moved beyond a narrow focus on the immediate social environment to a consideration of broad social influences in business organizations, classrooms, and society at large; beyond a documentation of social influences to a consideration of the cognitive mechanisms by which social factors might impact creativity; and beyond subject populations consisting of children and college students to an inclusion of professional artists, research scientists, and other working adults.Amabile describes a greatly expanded set of methodologies for assessing creativity, and introduces a set of methodologies for assessing the social environment for creativity in non-experimental studies. Throughout, the book maintains a clear focus on a comprehensive view of creativity—how the social context can influence motivation and how motivation, in conjunction with personal skills and thinking styles, can lead to the expression of creative behavior within that context. The result is a clarified theory of how creativity actually happens, with strong implications for supporting and increasing essential aspects of human performance.




Creativity in Groups


Book Description

Creativity is being recognized as an important source of competitive advantage because a single creative idea that is both novel and useful may take an organization in a profitable new direction. This work aims to promote the burgeoning interest in group creativity by identifying new questions that will drive future research in this area.




Fostering Creativity


Book Description

Innovation is universally recognized as key components of first world economies that is vital for continued prosperity. This book presents a highly differentiated model which is capable of serving as a practical foundation for diagnosing, analyzing, optimizing and fostering creativity and innovation in a variety of organizational settings.




Creative Construction


Book Description

This myth-busting book shows large companies can construct a strategy, system, and culture of innovation that creates sustained growth. Every company wants to grow, and the most proven way is through innovation. The conventional wisdom is that only disruptive, nimble startups can innovate; once a business gets bigger and more complex corporate arteriosclerosis sets in. Gary Pisano's remarkable research conducted over three decades, and his extraordinary on-the ground experience with big companies and fast-growing ones that have moved beyond the start-up stage, provides new thinking about how the scale of bigger companies can be leveraged for advantage in innovation. He begins with the simply reality that bigger companies are, well, different. Demanding that they "be like Uber" is no more realistic than commanding your dog to speak French. Bigger companies are complex. They need to sustain revenue streams from existing businesses, and deal with Wall Street's demands. These organizations require a different set of management practices and approaches -- a discipline focused on the strategies, systems and culture for taking their companies to the next level. Big can be beautiful, but it requires creative construction by leaders to avoid the creative destruction that is all-too-often the fate of too many.




Sustainable Career Development in the Turbulent, Boundaryless and Internet Age


Book Description

With the impact of globalization and intensification of information technology, the ideas and practices of enterprise management are also changing rapidly nowadays. A practice that was incompletely unheard of yesterday may soon become a model for everyone to learn from tomorrow. The development of information technology has blurred the boundaries between work and non-work, and employees today have more options to work from home. At the same time, the family structure has also become more diversified, with different types of income structures, bringing many possibilities for work and family care models. In addition, the government’s social policies, such as school-to-work transitional regulations and the extended retirement age, suggest that people today may face a quite different labor market situation, compared to other generations. As individuals are facing longer and more complicated working life, it is very important to ensure their long-term employability by creating a healthy and successful career.




Working Backwards


Book Description

Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time Amazon executives—with lessons and techniques you can apply to your own company, and career, right now. In Working Backwards, two long-serving Amazon executives reveal the principles and practices that have driven the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them—much of it during the period of unmatched innovation that created products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was developed and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable. With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels of the company. With a focus on customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence, Amazon’s ground-level practices ensure these characteristics are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business. Working Backwards is both a practical guidebook and the story of how the company grew to become so successful. It is filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how their time at the company affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. Whatever your talent, career or organization might be, find out how you can put Working Backwards to work for you.




Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice


Book Description

In recent years there has been a weight of evidence suggesting that engagement has a significantly positive impact on productivity, performance and organisational advocacy, as well as individual wellbeing, and a significantly negative impact on intent to quit and absenteeism from the work place. This comprehensive new book is unique as it brings together, for the first time, psychological and critical HRM perspectives on engagement as well as their practical application. Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice will familiarise readers with the concepts and core themes that have been explored in research and their application in a business context via a set of carefully chosen and highly relevant original and case studies, some of which are co-authored by invited practitioners. Written in an accessible manner, this book will be essential reading for scholars in the field, students studying at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as practitioners interested in finding out more about the theoretical underpinnings of engagement alongside its practical application.