Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates: Peter Skarzynski, Rowan Gibson

• Filed under: Business

Editorial Reviews

Review
"…the ‘innovation movement’ is gathering momentum"… three "critical" preconditions [are] needed to foster innovation, including "creating time and space in people’s lives for reflection, ideation and experimentation." –IndustryWeek, May 1, 2008

"…the ‘innovation movement’ is gathering momentum"… three "critical" preconditions [are] needed to foster innovation, including "creating time and space in people’s lives for reflection, ideation and experimentation." –IndustryWeek, May 1, 2008<br /><br />Instead of simply encouraging workers to be creative, give them tools to "stretch their thinking and develop new perspectives,"…Make innovation an "all-the-time, everywhere" process. –CNNMoney.com, April 16, 2008<br /><br />The good news is that innovation isn’t purely a function of brain wattage and fat research budgets…Innovation lurks within myriad nooks and crannies of any company–from the receptionist to the head of information technology. –Forbes.com, April 2, 2008

Instead of simply encouraging workers to be creative, give them tools to "stretch their thinking and develop new perspectives,"…Make innovation an "all-the-time, everywhere" process. –CNNMoney.com, April 16, 2008

If you’re like most business leaders, innovation now tops your corporate agenda. But despite all the talk and excitement about the importance of innovation, managers have so far found scant help for innovating in a systematic way that fuels consistent growth and sustained success.

In Innovation to the Core, Strategos CEO Peter Skarzynski and business strategist Rowan Gibson change all that. They share the accumulated wisdom from Strategos–the consulting firm Skarzynski co-founded with Gary Hamel that helps clients instill innovation into their very core. Drawing on a wealth of stories and examples, the book shows how companies of every stripe have overcome the barriers to successful, profitable innovation. You’ll find parts devoted to crucial topics–such as how to organize the discovery process, generate strategic insights, enlarge your innovation pipeline, and maximize your return on innovation. Frequent hands-on tools–frameworks, checklists, probing questions–help you put the book’s ideas into action.

Crafted in close coordination with Gary Hamel–the man who Fortune magazine has called "the world’s leading expert on business strategy"–Innovation to the Core is the definitive fieldbook for making innovation a core competence in your organization.

Click here to watch a trailer for Innovation to the Core: innovationtothecore.com/thebook/index.cfm?target=watchtheintro

"At last, a book that tells us what innovation really is and how we can embed it into the DNA of our companies. A splendid guidebook with terrific examples."

-John Naisbitt, author, Megatrends and Mindset!

"Until now, innovation has been a religion without a bible. Innovation to the Core aptly fills the void."

- Al Ries, coauthor, The Origin of Brands

"Innovation to the Core is what so many books about innovation have failed to be–a prescriptive ‘how-to’ that enables managers and executives to really understand what it takes to make innovation a core competency of their companies. The detailed examples ensure that readers relate the theory to the business realities."

-Kelly Duffin-Maxwell, Senior Vice President, Breakthrough Innovation, Kraft Foods, Inc.

Order Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates: Peter Skarzynski, Rowan Gibson form Amazon.

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit (Agile Software Development Series): Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck

• Filed under: Business

Editorial Reviews

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Mary Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck Forewords by Jim Highsmithand Ken Schwaber *Adapting agile practices to your development organization *Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle *Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leaderLean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental “lean” principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 “thinking tools” that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment. Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three–if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development. *Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery *Managing uncertainty: “decide as late as possible” by building change into the system.*Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement *Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination *Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability *How to “see the whole”–even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people–so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

From the Back Cover
Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

Mary Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck

Forewords by Jim Highsmithand Ken Schwaber

• Adapting agile practices to your development organization
• Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle
• Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leader

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization

In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental “lean” principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 “thinking tools” that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment.

Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three—if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development.

• Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery
• Managing uncertainty: “decide as late as possible” by building change into the system.
• Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement
• Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination
• Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability
• How to “see the whole”—even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors

Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people—so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

Order Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit (Agile Software Development Series): Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck form Amazon.

The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations: Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, George Roth, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith

• Filed under: Business

Editorial Reviews

Since its release in 1990, Peter M. Senge’s bestselling The Fifth Discipline has converted readers to its innovative business principles of the “learning organization,” personal mastery, and systems thinking. Published nearly a decade later, Dance of Change provides a formidable response to businesspeople wondering how to make his programs stick. He outlines potential obstacles (such as initiating transformation, personal fear and anxiety, and measuring the unmeasurable) and proposes ways to turn these obstacles into sources of improvement. Senge–with considerable help from the team who worked on the follow-up development manual, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook–presents an insider’s account of long-term maintenance efforts at General Electric, Harley-Davidson, the U.S. Army, and others who are learning organization, along with experience-based suggestions and exercises for individuals and teams. “We are seeking to understand how people nurture the reinforcing growth processes that naturally enable an organization to evolve and change,” Senge explains, “and how they tend to the limiting processes that can impede or stop that growth.” –Howard Rothman

Review
“DO NOT READ THIS BOOK FROM COVER TO COVER. Just dip in anywhere and you’ll be surprised and challenged. This is an original and refreshing take on organization change, at times quirky, at other times perplexing, but always on every page an idea that stops you in your tracks and makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about the subject. ” — Warren Bennis, University Professor, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California; co-author of Co-Leaders

“More practical ideas on how to drive positive change in your organization than you will find between any other two covers anywhere. The Dance of Change is a cornucopia of advice for making your organization a truly worthy place to work.” — Gary Hamel, coauthor, Competing for the Future

“The Dance of Change is an extraordinary book. Dancing with Peter Senge and company inspires us to learn new steps and gain new insights. The format and presentation of this provocative and accessible guide to change are as dazzling as its content.” — Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management

“The Dance of Change is certainly going to take more than a minute to read. Peter has done it again. This is an excellent book for anyone who is seriously interested in sustaining change in large organizations. Read it and use it!” — Ken Blanchard, coauthor, The One Minute Manager

“The further I go with The Dance of Change, the more impressed I am. It is clear, highly readable and thoroughly useful. It meets its own objective of providing a solid framework for anyone to work through the change process. It also manages to challenge everyone with out unnecessarily alienating anyone. I am sure it will be formidably successful.” — Bill Godfrey, Editor, Bookwatch.com.au

Advance Acclaim for The Dance of Change:

“Do not read this book from cover to cover. Just dip in anywhere; you’ll be surprised and challenged. This is an original and refreshing take on organizational change–on every page an idea stops you in your tracks and makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about the subject.”
–Warren Bennis, professor, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and coauthor of Co-Leaders

“The Dance of Change is an extraordinary book. Dancing with Peter Senge and company inspires us to learn new steps and gain new insights. The format and presentation of this provocative and accessible guide to change are as dazzling as its content.”
–Frances Hesselbein, Chairman, Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management

Critical Acclaim for The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook:

“If you believe, as I do, that people are the only long-term competitive advantage and lifelong learning is the way to fully develop that advantage, you must read this book. It’s about the real work, the work of implementation!”
–Richard F. Teerlink, President and CEO, Harley Davidson, Inc.

“Senge’s message of growth and prosperity holds strong appeal for today’s business leaders.”
–Fortune

“Peter Senge’s advocacy of the learning organization helped begin a revolution in the workplace. And, the relevance of Senge’s work is growing rather than diminishing over time. As more businesses go global, the need to overcome psychological barriers to necessary organizational change increases.”
–Management Today — Review

Order The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations: Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, George Roth, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith form Amazon.

Why Pride Matters More Than Money: The Power of the World’s Greatest Motivational Force: Jon R. Katzenbach

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
When people learn they’re capable of much more than they thought possible, anticipatory pride becomes their driving motivational force, according to Katzenbach, the director of an eponymous consulting firm. The author of Peak Performance and The Wisdom of Teams gears his latest book towards companies and institutions wanting to inspire their employees, members or participants with primarily non-financial incentives (team spirit, camaraderie and excitement, for example). “Money by itself is likely to produce self-serving behavior and skin-deep organizational commitment rather than…institution-building behavior,” Katzenbach asserts. Citing specific case studies, Katzenbach considers companies and institutions such as General Motors and its diverse management programs and the U.S. Marine Corps’ emphasis on honor and courage. Employee recognition, he says, is a crucial element of any campaign to bolster group morale. A Microsoft employee, for example, likes to tell people that “we work on products that everyone is likely to use, and I mean everyone. More than one hundred million people use Office, my product. People will stop me in the middle of a conversation and say, ‘You worked on that feature?’ It’s instant respect.” The lure of monetary reward may always be a primary motivation for employees, but in clear and persuasive prose, Katzenbach cautions that because most of the rank and file cannot hope to compete with those at the top, other, less tangible motivations must propel group successes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The book that turns our understanding of motivation on its head . . . and shows why most companies get it wrong.

There are few people with more experience and accumulated wisdom about the inner workings of business and how people can work together more effectively than Jon Katzenbach. His groundbreaking research has resulted in several important books, including The Wisdom of Teams and Real Change Leaders. Over the past several years he has turned his attention to one of the perennial questions of leaders everywhere: How do I motivate my employees?

Most everyone frets about how to devise schemes that will keep the troops revved up. Conventional wisdom—or at least the practice at most companies—often centers on money as the primary motivating force. Many also rely on intimidation, which like money generally has a short-term impact. But what Katzenbach has found in his research at many organizations is that both of these practices do little to build the long-term sustainability of an organization. For that you need a powerful force that has been—until this point—understood by few managers and implemented by fewer still: pride.

From the front lines to the executive suite, most people are motivated by feelings of accomplishment, approval, and camaraderie. It’s why the best employees strive well beyond performance levels that will yield them higher pay and why most true professionals relentlessly avoid retirement.

Why does Southwest Airlines consistently turn in the highest levels of performance and profitability of any company in the airline business? What can the U.S. Marines teach us about individual commitment that can be used in the for-profit world? How is General Motors overcoming its history of labor-management enmity through the efforts of “pride-builders” from both the union and the management side? By drawing on what he has learned from these and many other organizations, Jon Katzenbach provides a practical program for understanding the role of pride:

• Money is not the motivator most people think it is: Katzenbach shows why pay-for-performance programs by themselves result in employees who focus on self-serving behavior and skin-deep organizational commitment.
• Money tends to be a short-term motivational device and works best during times of growth, but pride works in bad times as well as good.
• Cultivating pride is an investment that yields high returns on workforce performance over time and is not nearly as costly as relying solely on monetary compensation and the turnover risks that accompany a “show me the money” culture.

Katzenbach shares unique insights and specifics about how the best mid-level pride-builders take advantage of the world’s greatest motivational force even in environments as challenging as General Motors and Aetna. He shows how managers at every level are missing a powerful lever if they are not instilling pride as a primary force for building their organization.

Also available as an eBook.

Order Why Pride Matters More Than Money: The Power of the World’s Greatest Motivational Force: Jon R. Katzenbach form Amazon.

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

A step-by-step guide to establishing learning organizations within existing companies functions as a participative workbook, with exercises for both individuals and teams, suggested approaches and ideas, and success stories. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo.

From the Publisher
Senge’s best-selling The Fifth Discipline led Business Week to dub him the “new guru” of the corporate world; here he offers executives a step-by-step guide to building “learning organizations” of their own.

Order The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith form Amazon.

Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems (Industrial Innovation): John Boardman, Brian Sauser

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

Review
  Comments from readers…
– At first I purchased the book as a way to prepare for my defense, then I found myself turning the pages faster and faster … I loved the book… .
– Good information. Good foundational material.
– Wonderful, just like sliced bread.
– As expected, the book is excellent. … really like the time to think exercises.
– Very refreshing take on thinking about systems… .
– As a sociologist, my substantive interest is in building societal capacity for and expression of compassion. I am thrilled by your approach!
– Great book, great tool!
– Brilliant!! Much better than a Harry Potter movie.

By examining the links and interactions between elements of a system, systems thinking is becoming increasingly relevant when dealing with global challenges, from terrorism to energy to healthcare. Addressing these seemingly intractable systems problems in our society, Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems focuses on the inherent opportunities and difficulties of a systems approach. Taking an engineering systems view toward systems thinking, the authors place a high value on the thinking process and the things applied to this process.

In the hopes of initiating critical thinking and encouraging a systems response to problems, the book provides pragmatic mechanisms to understand and address co-evolving systems problems and solutions. It uses several contemporary and complex societal issues, such as the Iraq war, the Google phenomenon, and the C2 Constellation, to illustrate the concepts, methods, and tools of a system as well as the meaning of togetherness in a system. The text also interweaves the meanings of complexity, paradox, and system to promote the improvement of difficult situations.

Featuring a holistic, nonlinear way of looking at systems, this book helps readers better organize and structure their thinking of systems in order to solve complex, real-world problems.

Order Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems (Industrial Innovation): John Boardman, Brian Sauser form Amazon.

The New SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves: Charles C Manz, Henry P Sims

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

o

Thoroughly revised and updated editon of bestselling SuperLeadership (more than 100,000 copies sold)
o Features numerous real-life stories of how leaders have achieved greater success through bringing out self-leadership in others
o Even more essential now than when first published, given today’s independent-minded workforce and organizations’ need to react quickly to rapidly changing conditions “SuperLeadership” describes a style of leadership that focuses on “leading others to lead themselves.” While the prevailing leadership approaches focus on hierarchical leadership (the traditional autocratic model of leadership), transactional leadership (motivating people through rewards, such as incentive pay), and visionary leadership (motivating people through the leader’s vision and inspirational rhetoric), SuperLeadership focuses on the development of follower self-leadership. The New SuperLeadership is based on the same concepts as the first book, but is thoroughly revised throughout and emphasizes a pragmatic, how-to approach. It provides practical guidance for implementing SuperLeadership. This new book also features contemporary examples and profiles, many from the high-tech and knowledge-based business sectors.

From the Publisher
THE TRULY EFFECTIVE LEADER today must be one who leads others to lead themselves. The rapid pace of change demands fast and flexible responses throughout the organization—there’s no time to wait for directives from the top. And the highly-skilled workers so vital to organizational success also demand a high degree of independence. Old-fashioned command-and-control leadership is just too slow and stifling.

Charles Manz and Henry Sims, Jr. pioneered the concept self-leadership in their bestselling book SuperLeadership. In The New SuperLeadership, the authors present new content and examples designed to help leaders develop the kind of autonomous, quick-reacting workforce necessary to thrive in these turbulent times. This enriched and expanded edition takes the concepts in the first edition to another level by emphasizing a pragmatic, how-to approach for developing leaders at every level of the organization.

Drawing on contemporary examples and profiles, many from the high-tech and information sectors, Manz and Sims shatter the myth of the traditional, aggrandized versions of “heroic” leadership. They show that a leader truly becomes successful by turning followers into extraordinary self-leaders—pillars of strength that will support the organization at every level. They detail a series of action-oriented steps through which the SuperLeader provides an opportunity for followers to express and develop their own leadership skills—and in the process become highly motivated, dynamic contributors.

The New SuperLeadership critically reviews traditional leadership styles, vividly illustrating the drawbacks of each: the “Strong Man” whose reliance on fear-based compliance smothers initiative; the “Transactor” who promotes a narrow “what’s in it for me?” mentality; and the “Visionary Hero” whose powerful personality inspires commitment but inadvertently discourages independent thinking. By bringing out the leader in every employee, SuperLeadership enables leaders to avoid these pitfalls and develop an enthusiastic, innovative and energized workforce.

The New SuperLeadership is a radically new way of looking at leadership, offering a leadership paradigm ideally suited to the realities of the modern workplace. It reveals that the only way to succeed today is to tap into the innate leadership potential that lies within every employee.

Order The New SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves: Charles C Manz, Henry P Sims form Amazon.

The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management: Stephen Haines

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

Easy-to-follow and understand, The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management presents the first practical application of “systems thinking”, a concept first introduced by Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline as a new, better and elegantly simple A-B-C approach to strategic management, planning, and change. It provides a unique Systems Thinking Approach’ that places equal emphasis on planning, strategies, and change management processes in support of customer satisfaction.

Order The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management: Stephen Haines form Amazon.

Competitive Strategy Dynamics: Kim Warren

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

Review
“…many valuable ideas…” (Long Range Planning, Vol 37 2004)

The complexity and dynamism of modern industries and businesses has exposed shortcomings in the strategy tools currently in widespread use. Senior management is in urgent need of a practical, fact-based, but rigorous approach for understanding how their organizations function, interact with competitors and their market place, and deliver performance over time. The Strategy Dynamics approach offers a means for accomplishing this task, and building a more confident and prosperous path into the future.

Kim Warren provides a very clear and accessible introduction to the Strategy Dynamics approach in Competitive Strategy Dynamics. He offers powerful but usable frameworks to explain and deliver the key concern of senior managers and investors - business performance through time. In addition to tangible factors such as customers and staff, he shows how to deal with the unavoidable influence of ’soft’ factors such as morale, quality, reputation and capabilities. He also explains how the Strategy Dynamics approach is relevant and applicable to all contexts - new venture development, rapid growth, maturity, decline, rivalry, market entry and so on.

Competitive Strategy Dynamics has been written for MBA and Executive Education courses in strategic management, business policy and international management, but the concepts are relevant, too, in other subjects, such as marketing, organizational behavior and new venture development. It is also an important tool for strategy consultants and practising managers, whether in large or small firms, manufacturing or service sectors, public service or not-for-profit organizations.

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Competing Against Time : How Time-based Competition is Reshaping Global Markets: George Stalk

• Filed under: Recommended

Editorial Reviews

The ways leading companies manage time represent the most powerful new sources of competitive advantage. With hundreds of detailed examples from companies that have put these strategies in place, the authors show exactly how reducing elapsed time can make the critical difference in success or failure. 40 line drawings.

About the Author
George Stalk, Jr., is vice-president and director of The Boston Consulting Group in Chicago, Illinois, coauthor of Kaisha, The Japanese Corporation, and author of “Time—The Next Source of Competitive Advantage,” which won the 1989 McKinsey Award for the best Harvard Business Review article of the year.
–This text refers to the

Paperback
edition.

Order Competing Against Time : How Time-based Competition is Reshaping Global Markets: George Stalk form Amazon.