J-B Warren Bennis

Many leaders perceive interruptions in their days as annoying and troublesome. However, the authors see interruptions and other incidental points of contact as opportunities to promote the organizations values, purpose, and agenda. They go further to suggest that the most powerful and long-lasting effects of skilled leadership take place in such informal moments not in the formal, scripted, and often elaborately staged presentations where leaders attempt to energize and inspire their employees, shareholders, and customers. Doug Conant is known from moving The Campbell Soup Company from "poor to great" by valuing the moment-by-moment contact he had with the people who were capable of restoring greatness to the company. The intersection of the leader, the other(s), and the issue is the TouchPoint. The authors maintain that the four essential components of TouchPoint preparation are: (1) the head, (2) the heart, (3) the hands, and (4) touch. One of the most valuable uses of a leader’s time is the constant preparation of the leader’s cognitive circuitry, emotional maturity, orientation for action, and sensitivity to the wants and needs of others. Reading, researching, reflection, and practice all combine to prepare leaders to make the most of TouchPoints, no matter how spontaneous and incidental they might be. Instead, leadership can be seen as a sequence of hundreds, even thousands of moments in time each one packed with potential to help individuals learn, apply, and align their sense of purpose, personal values, and agendas with the corporate sense of purpose, values, and strategic agenda of the organizations they serve. The authenticity of an individual leader and that leader’s purpose, values, and agenda are tested, re-tested, and confirmed or compromised during every informal or incidental interaction that takes place between leaders and those they lead. TouchPoints speaks to the theory and craft of leadership, promoting a balanced presence of rational, authentic, active, and wise leadership practices. Leadership mastery in the smallest and otherwise ordinary moments can transform aimless lethargy in individuals and entropy in organizations into focused energy one magical moment at a time.

This commemorative edition remains true to the 1970 original text with alphabetical entries defining Townsend's unique, often hilarious and always provocative take on business. Now with a new chapter on leadership, a Warren Bennis foreword, and essays from many of Townsend's influential friends, including Bob Davids, former CEO of Radica Games, former New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb, and USC professor Jim O'Toole. Includes an afterword by Townsend's son.

In this offbeat approach to leadership, college president Steven B. Sample-the man who turned the University of Southern California into one of the most respected and highly rated universities in the country-challenges many conventional teachings on the subject. Here, Sample outlines an iconoclastic style of leadership that flies in the face of current leadership thought, but a style that unquestionably works, nevertheless. Sample urges leaders and aspiring leaders to focus on some key counterintuitive truths. He offers his own down-to-earth, homespun, and often provocative advice on some complex and thoughtful issues. And he provides many practical, if controversial, tactics for successful leadership, suggesting, among other things, that leaders should sometimes compromise their principles, not read everything that comes across their desks, and always put off decisions.

In this highly provocative book, two Harvard Business School professors synthesize 200 years of thought from the biological and social sciences to formulate a new theory of human nature. Comparable to Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, Lawrence and Nohria's work examines the four drives that influence the choices people make. These innate and often conflicting drives are the drive to acquire, the drive to bond, the drive to learn and the drive to defend. The authors have studied the way people behave in the most fascinating setting of human behavior: the workplace. They have considerable training in all the human behavioral sciences and choose the best each has to offer while avoiding entrenched biases. As a result, they have started to bridge the gap between the latest findings from evolutionary biology and insights about humanity derived from the social sciences. In doing so, they have in essence laid a foundation for a unified understanding of human behavior. Not only does this book illuminate the mystery of human behavior, it also predicts that just as advances in information technology spurred the new economy at the end of the 20th Century, the current advances being made in biology will be the key to understanding humans and organizations in the 21st.

HOW DID COMPANIES, BOTH LARGE and small, in different countries and industries, all achieve breakthrough performances when the odds were stacked against them? How did an engineer turned CEO transform his New Zealand steelmaking company around in one year and become a leader in the industry? How did a 600-person team, within the largest petroleum company in Brazil, overcome skepticism and dysfunctional dynamics to achieve the biggest process integration success in history? How did a major Japanese housing manufacturer thrive despite the worst economy in a generation? How did a South African platinum mine improve its safety performance by 57 percent in one year? All of these results were possible because people applied The Three Laws of Performance and rewrote their futures. This audio book will show you how to do the same in your organization and your life. Although most of us aren't aware of it, we have a future that's already been written. Our future is written by hopes, fears, dreams, expectations, and decisions made about life. In the same way, organizations have futures written by history, circumstances, culture, aspirations, successes, and failures. These already-written futures determine and shape the level of performance that's possible for individuals and organizations. Authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan crack the code on rewriting the future for people and organizations, elevating performance to unprecedented levels.

In Women and Leadership, the eminent legal scholar Deborah L. Rhode focuses on women's underrepresentation in leadership roles and asks why it persists and what we can do about it. Although organizations generally stand to gain from increasing gender equity in leadership, women's underrepresentation is persistent and pervasive. Rhode explores the reasons, including women's family roles, unconscious gender bias, and exclusion from professional development networks. She stresses that we cannot address the problem at the individual level; instead, she argues that we need broad-based strategies that address the deep-seated structural and cultural conditions facing women. She surveys a range of professions in politics, management, law, and academia and draws from a survey of prominent women to develop solutions that can successfully chip away at the imbalance. These include developing robust women-to-women networks, enacting laws and policies that address work/life imbalances, and training programs that start at an earlier age. Rhode's clear exploration of the leadership gap and her compelling policy prescriptions will make this an essential book for anyone interested in leveling the playing field for women leaders in America.

In this brief and timely book, the authors look at what conspires against "a culture of candor" in organizations for disastrous results and suggest ways that leaders can achieve healthy honesty and openness. In three separate essays the authors explore the lightening rod concept of "transparency" which has fast become the buzzword not only in business and corporate settings but in government and the social sector. The audio book starts with a preface by Warren Bennis, followed by three essays: • The New Transparency • Speaking Truth to Power • Creating a Culture of Candor.

The hands on guide for fostering relentless innovation within your company Gerard Tellis, a noted expert on innovation, advertising, and global markets, makes the compelling case that the culture of a firm is the crucial driver of an organizations innovativeness. In this groundbreaking book he describes the three traits and three practices necessary to create a culture of relentless innovation. Organizations must be willing to cannibalize successful products, embrace risk, and focus on the future. Organizations build these traits by providing incentives for enterprise, empowering product champions, and encouraging internal markets. Spelling out the critical role of culture, the author provides illustrative examples of organizations with winning cultures and explores the theory and evidence for each of the six components of culture. The book concludes with a discussion of why culture is superior to alternate theories for fostering innovation. Offers a groundbreaking take on innovation that is driven by a companys culture Shows what it takes to create a culture of innovation within any organization Based on a study of 770 companies across 15 countries, the origin of 90 radical innovations spanning over 100 years, and the evolution of 66 markets spanning over a 100 years. Provides numerous mini cases to illustrate the workings of culture Written by Gerard Tellis director of the Center for Global Innovation This must-have resource clearly shows the role of culture in driving relentless innovation and how to foster it within any organization.

For decades we have witnessed the power of entrepreneurs to transform industries, societies, and global economies. More recently, we have seen social entrepreneurs apply that same creativity and dynamism to schools and nonprofits. Today, when corporate security is history, job mobility is at an all-time high, and technology is cutting us loose, we are on the cusp of a new phenomenon. A new generation of life entrepreneurs is emerging who apply their vision, talents, creativity, and energy not only to their work but to their entire lives changing the world for themselves and those around them. In Life Entrepreneurs: Mavericks in the Art of Living, Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek (both successful entrepreneurs) describe the convergence between organizational and life entrepreneurship. At that nexus, organizations transform themselves into engines of productivity and incubators of imaginative new products and business lines, while people transform their lives from mediocre to extraordinary ones. Entrepreneurial leaders make these connections. Drawing on numerous interviews and surveys and the wisdom of multiple thought leaders (including a foreword by Warren Bennis), the authors provide a tour de force of vivid examples, moving vignettes, concrete frameworks, and practical strategies for revving up our work and play through entrepreneurial leadership. Part inspiration and part road map, it is a clarion call for those of us so busy, overworked, or stressed that, even if successful by conventional measures, we feel half asleep and out of step with our dreams. If youre wondering about launching a new business, making a big career change, reawakening your aspirations, or recharging your leadership batteries, this is a high-energy kick in the pants to start it up.