In today’s complex, global business landscape, continuous innovation is the key to establishing and maintaining competitive advantage, but it takes more than good ideas to create and win support for meaningful, ongoing change. Madge Meyer explains eight disciplines that are at the heart of effective innovation: Listen, Lead, Position, Promote, Connect, Commit, Execute, and Evolve. In The Innovator’s Path, Meyer provides practical strategies and proven techniques to unlock the power of these disciplines, delivering value to customers while creating a culture that welcomes experimentation and celebrates progress. Meyer’s  eight-discipline framework for facilitating and fueling innovation consists of the following actions: Listen. There is a major difference between simply hearing customers, coworkers, and other stakeholders, and actually listening to them. Individuals and companies have an advantage when they pay careful, respectful attention to what others have to say. Lead. A leader need not be a top executive or manager. Leaders at any level can inspire others to top performance with their vision, passion, personal integrity, and high expectations. Position. Innovation requires a clear vision for the future and a roadmap for achieving it. Developing this future orientation and strategic direction positions the organization to take advantage of new opportunities. Promote. Innovation leaders can never assume that others know or understand the importance of their work. They must continually communicate their ideas and accomplishments in terms of business value, like augmented savings or revenue. Connect. Establishing, nurturing, and maintaining a relationship between individuals and among teams is a key responsibility for every innovation leader. Commit. Individuals, teams, and organizations commit to innovation when they actively encourage new ideas and demonstrate a willingness to take calculated risks. Execute. Innovation teams and organizations should formalize processes, like change management reviews, that maximize value delivery while minimizing risks. Evolve. In innovative cultures, individuals and teams are encouraged to continually reexamine solutions. They are challenged to do better — and rewarded accordingly. Ultimately, this approach instills the idea of "innovation-as-usual." To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: The Architecture of Innovation, Innovation Engine, Getting Innovation Right

Today’s business professionals are busier than ever before, and this can lead to a decrease in independent learning and knowledge acquisition. How can companies do a better job at helping their employees access, understand, and apply information? How should they go about designing content to help employees perform better on the job? These questions and more will be answered on Wednesday, February 12th during a free webinar sponsored by EBSCO. In his webinar "Learn Better and Faster: Helping On-Demand Learners in an On-Demand Era," Ray Jimenez, chief learning architect at Vignettes Learning, will present on the topic of on-demand learning and how companies can better help employees with their continuous learning needs. To register, visit: http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com/welcome/ebsco_feb12  

In Becoming a Resonant Leader, Annie McKee, Richard Boyatzis, and Frances Johnston describe how the most capable leaders have resonance, the ability to employ emotions effectively to achieve success while remaining attuned to the feelings and perceptions of others. Intellectual and technical knowledge are critical to effective leadership, but leaders’ abilities to manage themselves and connect with others are even more important. This is why emotional intelligence facilities like self-awareness and empathy are so valuable in relating to and communicating with others. The most effective leaders exude optimism and hope—feelings that are easily transmitted to others. Subordinates are quite aware and receptive to these positive sentiments and respond in kind, becoming more energetic and productive in the process. According to the authors: Resonant leaders have an accurate sense of themselves. This includes clear insights about what they are good at, what is difficult for them, and what they need to learn to achieve their optimum performance. The best leaders possess strong social and emotional intelligence. This means that they are able to manage themselves and connect effectively with others. People are constantly assessing their leaders and trying to understand them. This is why it is important for leaders to be aware of changing emotional realities in their groups and relationships. Good leaders are not necessarily those that appear impervious to stress. Good leaders reevaluate themselves periodically and undergo renewal in order to address their tasks with greater skill and energy. Resonant leadership requires a solid understanding of how social systems and the people who occupy them have to work together to achieve complex objectives. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: Put Emotional Intelligence to Work, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, Social Intelligence

Peter Drucker is often considered to be the "father of modern management." For decades, the great business thinker produced dozens of books, articles, and lectures providing groundbreaking insight on leadership and organizational success. In The Practical Drucker, William H. Cohen distills the wisdom from the vast body of Drucker’s work into 40 succinct truths. Cohen provides readers with the necessary guidelines and examples to use these 40 truths to solve people, management, marketing, innovation, and organizational problems. Peter Drucker’s work has played an essential role in shaping modern management. While many leaders wish to integrate more of Drucker’s wisdom into their performances, it is difficult to know where to start. William H. Cohen extracted the following practical touch-points from Drucker’s extensive work: The responsibility of a leader is to protect and inspire others. Drucker believed that it was a leader’s ethical duty to keep others from harm and that an organization’s success comes from a leader’s ability to inspire and encourage employees. People have no limits. Drucker felt that all people have the potential for success as long as they work hard at developing themselves. Avoid doing what generated success in the past to achieve success in the future. When organizations hold on to the old products and business tactics that once made them successful, they are unable to evolve with the changing times, and will eventually fail. Good management requires leaders to take problems head on. Whether it is office politics or a pending organization-wide crisis, Drucker recommended that managers identify every problem they are faced with and take positive action immediately. Only irrational marketers believe there are irrational customers. Drucker argued that marketers who label their customers as "irrational" because of their purchasing decisions do not understand what their customers value. Some of the best innovation comes from "unexpected" circumstances. Drucker believed that strange events and trends were some of the best places for organizations to find innovation opportunities. The purpose of a business is not to make a profit. Too many organizations focus on profit when they should be focusing on the true purpose of the business, which Drucker argued was to create customers. The two most important organizational functions are marketing and innovation. Organizations must always be creating new products that customers actually want to buy. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: The Work of Leaders, The Crucibles of Leadership, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

In Rapid Realignment, George Labovitz and Victor Rosansky chart the path to optimal organizational performance by integrating key processes, staff, customers, and strategies to serve the primary purpose of an enterprise—increasing stakeholder value. Alignment is the result of this integration, and organizations that achieve it succeed by focusing their people and resources on providing optimal customer satisfaction. In aligned organizations, employees at every level understand the business’s goals and strategies and know how their efforts advance them. Their clear understanding of customer needs enables the constant improvement of products and services that win and maintain customer loyalty. This adjustment, or rapid realignment, is a necessity in a global economy in which swiftly changing conditions and demands can pose serious challenges to an organization’s survival. According to Labovitz and Rosansky: To support an organization’s primary purpose, its staff, strategy, customers, and processes must be aligned. This alignment requires clear communication, complete understanding of its objectives, and the commitment of all involved in the process. When external forces or events cause misalignment and reduces effectiveness, rapid realignment is essential to ensure continued success. The alignment framework is made up of four elements — strategy, people, processes, and customers. Strategies will change as requirements change, and when they do they must be rapidly deployed. Core processes that serve customers must continually undergo improvement. Vertical alignment is achieved when employees can articulate the organization’s strategy and explain how their work supports it. This understanding is what boosts the deployment of new strategies. Horizontal alignment is achieved when the communication barriers that separate employees from customers are removed. This means that employees understand customer needs and are committed to improving service. Every organization must have a Main Thing — a meaningful description of what it wants to accomplish. It must be a common and unifying concept to which every unit can make a contribution. Social media is an excellent means for fostering trust and bringing people together to advance both the Main Thing and management’s plans for achieving it. It facilitates employee communication with management and enables employees to ask questions that get answers. To effectively change their cultures, organizations must determine the behaviors that will best implement their strategies and meet customer needs, as well as ensure that attitudes and values are aligned with their Main Things. To effectively change behaviors, new strategies must be explained repeatedly. Employees must be able to comprehend how their participation will ensure the strategies’ success and how their contributions will be valued. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: Wiki Management, HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done, Business at the Speed of Now

In Leadership 2030, Georg Vielmetter and Yvonne Sell provide a road map of the broad trends that are reshaping markets, cultures, and companies. Based on research with the Hay Group, a global management consultancy, they offer insights into six megatrends: the shift of economic power to Asia, the escalating war for talent, environmental crisis, eroding customer and employee loyalty, the melding of private and working lives, and technological convergence. The authors show how these self-reinforcing trends demand enlightened leadership with the skills to engage an ever-widening circle of stakeholders. Gone are the days of the egocentric, alpha-male leadership. To survive the megatrend storm leaders will have to provide workers with greater autonomy while finding ways to respond to the unique needs of every customer. Six big changes are afoot that will reshape the demands of leadership going forward: Globalization in the future will be more about power shifting to Asia than it has been in the past. The growing middle class in many developing nations will create new opportunities, but also challenges as multinationals try to serve highly localized markets. Climate change will drive resource scarcity, forcing leaders to fundamentally rethink their operations. Rising affluence will drive demand for customized products. Just as consumers seek out more individualized experiences, so too will employees whose work need not be restricted by time and place. The digital era will shift power to consumers and workers, away from traditional management structures. Already, the digital world is blurring the line between personal and professional lives, while increasing organizational transparency. The aging population will shrink the workforce and require leaders to cope with intergenerational workplaces. Several cutting-edge technologies will converge to open new markets. Nanotechnology and biotechnology especially will challenge leadership to invest in R&D programs and to respond effectively to societal worries. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: Leaders Make the Future, Leading from the Emerging Future, The Work of Leaders  

The process of selling has transformed dramatically with the advent of social media, and customers are abandoning traditional purchasing influences in favor of online digital marketing stimuli. This means that businesses that want new customers will have to devote some skillful efforts to reaching them through social media channels. In The Art of Social Selling, Shannon Belew describes how to use social media to enhance marketing and sales success. She emphasizes that social selling success comes from building relationships via social networking sites, blogs, and online communities, as well as through the professional use of practical sales strategies tailored to the specifics of the different platforms.  Success in social selling will come to those who understand the following: Social sellers need to maintain positive personae online. This means being genuine and sincere, listening carefully, and responding to customer or prospect concerns. Engaging with sales prospects will require increasing levels of mobility. The number of people using mobile devices to view information and interact on social networking sites is growing constantly, providing tremendous marketing and sales opportunities. Social selling is based on relationship building. This means establishing trust and offering value to develop mutually beneficial relationships. A salesperson on a social media site needs to be viewed as a go-to resource. This means that a salesperson who is active in a forum, group, or other community must contribute and engage frequently to become a trusted influencer. Social selling efforts should be targeted carefully. Indiscriminately spreading a message over all the top social networking sites is impractical. It is better to look to those few sites where prospects spend the most time and will be most likely to see the message. Social indicators are highly useful in identifying and reaching potential customers. These indicators are the items of information found on social networking channels, blogs, forums, and groups that give clear signs that a person needs a product or is curious about it. A valuable component of effective social selling strategy is the establishment of a schedule of social media posts that will invite conversations. This is best done by creating a calendar that sets out what, when, and where the user will post content or conversation starters. Social selling requires teamwork. This means that customer service, marketing, and sales teams must fully understand their responsibilities and work together. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: Do It! Marketing, Content to Commerce, The Mobile Marketing Revolution

Great managers are those who first effectively manage themselves. Self-awareness, introspection, and thoughtful planning and action in all aspects of life are what enable a manager to effectively lead others. HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Managing Yourself invites managers to take a "critical look in the mirror" in their quests for professional success and personal fulfillment. Only then can managers take deliberate steps to manage their lives to maximize their talents, make contributions in everything they do, and become inspirational leaders and better human beings. The ultimate goal in managing oneself is to make a valuable contribution to the world while creating a life of purpose and fulfillment. Managers who manage themselves first: Deliberately choose a life path: A purposeful life is created first through introspection and next by using basic business model fundamentals. Know themselves well: Success comes from knowing one’s strengths, personal styles, and values and then applying them where they can make the greatest contribution. Know when to say "yes" and when to say "no:" Managers’ time is often unnecessarily taken up by responsibilities that belong to their subordinates. By knowing how to redirect requests for help back to subordinates, managers can greatly increase their discretionary time. Develop resilience: Resilience is increasingly a core competency in the corporate world. Resilient people accept the realities of life, are driven by meaningfulness, and are great at improvising. Manage their energy: Having consistent energy, rather than more time, is the key to effectiveness. Practice Total Leadership: People are at their best and feel most fulfilled when they are performing well in all aspects of their lives: work, home, community, and self. "Own" their jobs: Owning one’s job comes through effectively managing demands, generating resources, and recognizing and exploiting alternatives. Know how to tap the "fundamental state of leadership:" The "fundamental state of leadership" is a psychological condition in which managers are at their best-drawing on their own capabilities and values to lead in a compelling way. Continually self-assess: Even the best managers make mistakes and lose sight of their paths. Self-assessment and changes in behavior can put an off-track manager back on track. Possess emotional intelligence: Managers who understand and leverage the emotional component in the workplace model the behavior they want to see and treat people as whole beings. To download three free summaries, please visit our site. Related book summaries in the BBS library: The Charge, Reinventing You, All In

With the American economy still recovering from the recent recession, many people feel trapped in unstable employment with shrinking prospects. The search for financial security and deeper meaning has created a rising interest in side-gigging, the practice of developing second ventures in addition to regular employment. With the Internet, social media, and digital solutions creating new and varied opportunities to connect with potential clients around the globe, side-giggers are living in a golden age of low costs, high potential, and incredible impact. In The Economy of You, Kimberly Palmer explores the phenomenon of side-gigging by analyzing its popularity and demonstrating its vast appeal and potential for success. Weaving her own personal story together with the testimonies of other passionate side-giggers, Palmer offers a roadmap to building a successful side venture and taking control of "the economy of you." Palmer presents several tips and tricks to unravel the mystery of a successful side-gig, including: Giving a compelling reason for creating a side-gig. Many successful side-giggers have a single event, experience, or motivation that drives them toward alternate and additional employment. Having an overarching theme creates energy and clarity of focus. Having a plan. As with any major effort, plans are incredibly important for a potential side-gig. Palmer advocates breaking down the processes of creation, formation, and operation into small, manageable steps that follow logically after one another. Taking advantage of the wonders of technology to cut costs and raise funds. The Internet allows potential side-giggers to accomplish a lot for relatively little. Additionally, expanding the reach of an idea and tapping into different forums can create allies and uncover potential funding sources. Connecting with like-minded people. Allies are important, especially in the fluid and often confusing world of the side-gig. Palmer recommends that people establish connections and meaningful relationships with others who are engaged in the same pursuits and passions to channel inspiration and receive helpful advice. Building a brand. A powerful personal brand is a must for successful side-giggers. They must build strong reputations to better promote their side-gigs to wider audiences. Remembering that "time is money." Successful side-giggers balance the demands of multiple jobs and their family and personal lives by actively creating time for each activity. Waking up early, consolidating activities, and creating space in between scheduled events can greatly increase productivity. Keep trying. In a new and uncertain side-gig environment, failure is a rite of passage to greater experience and stability. The key to success in the side-gig economy lies in how proponents respond to failure. Giving back. Many side-giggers derive a great sense of satisfaction from hiring others like themselves or devoting their energies to social causes. Participating in meaningful activities creates a "ripple effect" of positive outcomes. To download three free summaries, please visit our site.

In A Culture of Purpose, Christoph Lueneburger relates how leadership today faces the complex task of building a culture of purpose to power organizations. Pursuing a purpose rooted in commercial success is one of the best ways to plant such a culture in a corporation. A company’s purpose should be bigger than the bottom line. Leadership needs to poses the right combination of competencies, including change leadership, influencing, and commercial drive. Hiring talent that has innate determination, insight, and curiosity will help spread the culture of purpose throughout the organization. Such a winning culture can be cultivated further by imbuing the company with energy, resilience, and openness. Lueneburger provides readers with the following advice: Leaders with a purpose sit at the core of any culture of purpose. They should be adept at change management, especially when first developing the foundation of a culture of purpose. They should also have the ability to influence others when initiatives begin. As purpose reaches all corners of the organization, leaders who have developed a strong commercial drive coupled with the practical skills to achieve measurable results become central. Hiring the right talent is the only way to perpetuate a culture of purpose over the long haul. Although employees can be helped to develop competence over time, they arrive with certain innate traits that are more or less useful in the journey toward a culture of purpose. Fortunately, candidates with the right traits are naturally drawn to companies pursuing cultures of purpose. Everyone in the organization should have innate curiosity, so all new hires should demonstrate this trait. With curiosity can come insight, or gut instincts that go beyond the data. Determined people are more difficult to manage, but determination is the trait that will help a company power through difficult stages in building a culture of purpose. A robust culture of purpose has energy, resilience, and openness. A common purpose provides initial energy while trust developed through honest and abundant communication ensures resilience. Openness to all stakeholder voices, including critics from the outside, will sustain the organization. Sustainability should not be a drag on commercial performance but a positive goal that imbues the culture of a company with energy and purpose. By moving sustainability from a distracting item on the margins to the very center of the corporate culture, leaders can build winning organizations that stand up to challenges and thrive. To download three free summaries, please visit our site.