Building Smarter Organizations


Book Description

Building Smarter Organizations is the antidote for your zombie organization. Building Smarter Organizations is an actionable survival guide for our complex, uncertain, and digital world. Slow-moving and uncoordinated zombie organizations can change. Utilizing the latest in industry research, Vala-Webb has assembled the complete anti-zombie kit to help you rebuild your organization so it can learn quickly, predict accurately, and execute on decisions effectively using: An "open" mindset that fosters innovation and employee engagement Fast-flow communications with visual work management Accelerated, collaborative decision making Don't keep stumbling and lurching around. Lead the change and equip your organization to thrive.




Building an Innovative Learning Organization


Book Description

Institute a culture of learning to boost organizational performance and agility What makes organizations successful? Today, most successful companies are learning organizations. Building an Innovative Learning Organization shows you how to join their ranks and bring your organization up to the head of the class. This book is a practical, actionable guide on how to boost performance, successfully manage change, and innovate more quickly. Learning organizations are composed of engaged, motivated employees who continually seek improvement, which leads to organizational agility and the ability to innovate ahead of the curve. When you encourage learning at every level, from the intern to the C suite, you gain a more highly skilled workforce with a greater ability to act in any situation. Building an Innovative Learning Organization shows you how to create this culture in your organization, with detailed explanations, practical examples, and step-by-step instructions so you can get started right away. Written by a recognized thought leader in the training industry, this informative and insightful guide is your roadmap to a more effective organization. You will discover how to: Attract, retain, and motivate the best employees Become a more innovative and agile organization Create a culture of continuous self-improvement Encourage learning at all levels and translate it into action Learning and education doesn't end at graduation—it's a lifelong process that keeps you relevant, informed, and better able to achieve your goals. These same benefits apply at the organizational level, making the culture self-sustaining: learning organizations attract top workers, who drive the organization forward, which attracts more top workers. If you want the best people, you have to be their best option. Building an Innovative Learning Organization gives you a blueprint for building a culture of learning, for a stronger, more robust organization.




Networking Smart


Book Description

The ability to build business and personal networks can make or break a career, or a company. This business bestseller teaches entrepreneurs, change agents, and corporate executives to boost their effectiveness, influence, and happiness by building powerful networks. Named “one of the top 30 business books of 1994” by Executive Book Summaries, and a main selection of the Business Week and Newbridge Book Clubs.







Smarter New York City


Book Description

Innovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City. Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.




The Smarter Organization


Book Description

In The Smarter Organization, based on years of hands-on work with some of the world's most successful corporations, McGill and Slocum will show you how to make the idea of the learning organization become a practical reality in your company. Drawing upon real-life examples from over 175 companies, this book reveals what makes for a learning organization and how you can make your company smarter. You will learn how to create a learning culture, how to craft a learning strategy, how to design structures and systems that promote learning, how to motivate a work force through learning, and how to lead a learning organization.




Build Smarter with Alternative Materials


Book Description

This is the book for construction professionals who want a clear understanding of alternative materials and how using them can enhance their projects -- both residential and commercial. It covers the materials -- including their strengths and any limitations -- as well as installation tips and manhour estimates. For each product listed, you'll learn where you can get it, including phone numbers and Website addresses of the manufacturers. Every builder needs a niche. This book is full of new, exciting materials that you can offer your customers with confidence.




Green to Gold


Book Description

From the Publishers Weekly review: "Two experts from Yale tackle the business wake-up-call du jour-environmental responsibility-from every angle in this thorough, earnest guidebook: pragmatically, passionately, financially and historically. Though "no company the authors know of is on a truly long-term sustainable course," Esty and Winston label the forward-thinking, green-friendly (or at least green-acquainted) companies WaveMakers and set out to assess honestly their path toward environmental responsibility, and its impact on a company's bottom line, customers, suppliers and reputation. Following the evolution of business attitudes toward environmental concerns, Esty and Winston offer a series of fascinating plays by corporations such as Wal-Mart, GE and Chiquita (Banana), the bad guys who made good, and the good guys-watchdogs and industry associations, mostly-working behind the scenes. A vast number of topics huddle beneath the umbrella of threats to the earth, and many get a thorough analysis here: from global warming to electronic waste "take-back" legislation to subsidizing sustainable seafood. For the responsible business leader, this volume provides plenty of (organic) food for thought. "




Building Corporate IQ – Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius


Book Description

Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius gives a clear outline of organizational intelligence and provides a framework for practitioners of good leadership. The synthesis starts with an overview of the fundamental skills and competencies mastered by leaders and team members in organizations. Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius also includes a corporate IQ test that is designed to help leaders gain insight into how their organization can stay at the competitive frontier. Illustrated with case studies from the energy sector, Building Corporate IQ - Moving the Energy Business from Smart to Genius explains the guiding principles of organizational learning, with the goal of developing better organizational intelligence. It is intended as an indispensable guide for managers at all levels to help them meet and recognize new challenges in the corporate innovation process. “For the third millennium, with the increase in depersonalized electronic communication, business leaders, especially in the energy industry, must quickly develop organizational intelligence in their organizations to survive. This book sets out the modus operandi.” Crispian McCredie, former Managing Director and Publisher, The Petroleum Economist “MBA graduates and seasoned professionals will find this executive guide a powerful reference during their careers.” Ken Graham, former Head Global Leadership Development, Shell




Deep Dive


Book Description

Get competitive by learning to think strategically.The inability to set good strategy can sink a company¿and a leader¿s career. A recent Wall Street Journal study revealed that the most sought-after executive skill is strategic thinking, but only three out of ten managers have this skill set.Horwath explains the three keys to strategic thinking, breaks them down into simple, attainable skills, and gives you practical tools to apply them every day, providing managers with a clear path to mastery of the three disciplines: 1. Acumen¿generate critical insights through a step-by-step evaluation of your business and its environment2. Allocation¿focus your limited resources through strategic trade-offs 3. Action¿implement a system to guarantee effective execution of strategy at all levels of your organization Based on new research with senior executives from 150 companies and the author¿s experience as a thought-leading strategist, Deep Dive is the first book to focus on the most important level of strategy¿you. Armed with this knowledge and dozens of effective tools, you can become a truly strategic leader for your organization.--Rich Horwath is the president of the Strategic Thinking Institute, a former chief strategy officer, and professor of strategy at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. As a thought-leading strategist, he has worked with such giants as Adidas, Amgen, and Pfizer. He is the author of four books and more than fifty articles on strategic thinking and has been profiled in business publications around the world, including Investor¿s Business Daily.