If you want to be as successful as Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, or Michael Dell, read their autobiographical advice books, right? Wrong, says Roger Martin in The Opposable Mind. Though following best practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger. By emulating what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is different. Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking, creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming entirely new and superior ones. Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as AG Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of the Institute for One World Health, and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Martin shows how integrative thinkers are relentlessly diagnosing and synthesizing by asking probing questions including: What are the causal relationships at work here? and What are the implied trade-offs? Martin also presents a model for strengthening your integrative thinking skills by drawing on different kinds of knowledge including conceptual and experiential knowledge. Integrative thinking can be learned, and The Opposable Mind helps you master this vital skill.

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

THESE HABITS WILL MAKE YOU EXTRAORDINARY. Twenty years ago, author Brendon Burchard became obsessed with answering three questions: 1. Why do some individuals and teams succeed more quickly than others and sustain that success over the long term? 2. Of those who pull it off, why are some miserable and others consistently happy on their journey? 3. What motivates people to reach for higher levels of success in the first place, and what practices help them improve the most After extensive original research and a decade as the world’s leading high performance coach, Burchard found the answers. It turns out that just six deliberate habits give you the edge. Anyone can practice these habits and, when they do, extraordinary things happen in their lives, relationships, and careers. Which habits can help you achieve long-term success and vibrant well-being no matter your age, career, strengths, or personality? To become a high performer, you must seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and demonstrate courage. The art and science of how to do all this is what this book is about. Whether you want to get more done, lead others better, develop skill faster, or dramatically increase your sense of joy and confidence, the habits in this book will help you achieve it faster. Each of the six habits is illustrated by powerful vignettes, cutting-edge science, thought-provoking exercises, and real-world daily practices you can implement right now. If you’ve ever wanted a science-backed, heart-centered plan to living a better quality of life, it’s in your hands. Best of all, you can measure your progress. A link to a free professional assessment is included in the book.

For decades, this book has served as a guide to organizations that document their continuous improvement efforts using Baldrige Award-type management systems. Readers will learn what each area of the system means for organizations and how the synergy between process-oriented parts—leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce; and operations—can lead to excellent performance results. This book provides a valuable, step-by-step approach to help identify and put in place properly focused continuous improvement systems. Seven types of information are provided in this book for each of the Items in Categories 1 through 7 of the 2021–2022 Baldrige Framework and Performance Excellence Criteria: 1. The actual language of each Item, including Notes 2. A plain-English explanation of the requirements and rationale for each Item 3. A table showing the similar requirements of the Criteria 4. A summary of the requirements of each Item in flowchart form 5. The key linkages between each Item and other Items 6. An explanation of some potential adverse consequences 7. Examples of effective practices Features of this edition include: • A stakeholder matrix table of contents that identifies relevant material within the book for key stakeholder groups: senior leaders, examiners, performance excellence initiative leaders, application writers, and program administrators • Tables for each Criteria Item showing the similar expectations of the Criteria award (and award program administrators) presented only once at the scoring level where the expectation first appears to help examiners determine at what level an expectation belongs • Online resources, including scoring calibration guides for education, healthcare, and business/nonprofit/government organizations, a guide to self-assessment of organizations and management systems, and a guide to the alignment of Baldrige, Six Sigma, Lean, and Balanced Scorecard • A new crosswalk between Baldrige and ISO standards and a set of global performance excellence best practices • Information on other award programs throughout the world such as the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), which has undergone significant changes in the 2020 model, and the China Association for Quality Mark L. Blazey has retired from more than 26 years as president of Quantum Performance Group, a management consulting and training firm specializing in organization assessment and high-performance systems development. Paul L. Grizzell is president of Core Values Partners, a perfor mance excellence consulting firm that helps organizations focus, align, and accelerate their improvement efforts through the use of the Baldrige Framework for Performance Excellence, the EFQM Model, the China Quality Award, and other integrated management systems.

"The rarest of business books that teaches decision makers how to think, not what to think." - Malcolm Gladwell When it comes to our hardest choices, it can seem as though making trade-offs is inevitable. But what about those crucial times when accepting the obvious trade-off just isn't good enough? What do we do when the choices in front of us don't get us what we need? Rather than choosing the least worst option, Creating Great Choices offers a model that guides you towards a new and superior answer... integrative thinking. First introduced by world-renowned strategic thinker Roger Martin in The Opposable Mind, integrative thinking is an approach to problem solving that uses opposing ideas as the basis for innovation. Now, in Creating Great Choices, Martin and his longtime thinking partner Jennifer Riel vividly illustrate how integrative thinking works, and how to do it. The book includes fresh stories of successful integrative thinkers that will demystify the process of creative problem solving, as well as practical tools and exercises to help readers engage with the ideas. And it lays out the authors' four-step methodology for creating great choices, which can be applied in virtually any context. The result is a replicable, thoughtful approach to finding a "third and better way" to make important choices in the face of unacceptable trade‐offs. Insightful and instructive, Creating Great Choices blends storytelling, theory, and hands-on advice to help any leader or manager facing a tough choice.

A fresh, holistic approach to strategic management in the modern business environment.

Learn how to become a great manager in this Wall Street Journal bestseller from the leadership experts at FranklinCovey. The essential guide when you make the challenging yet rewarding leap to manager. Based on nearly a decade of research on what makes managers successful, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager includes field-tested tips, techniques, and the top advice from hundreds of thousands of managers all over the world. Organized by the four main roles every manager fills, this must-read guide focuses on how to lead yourself, people, teams, and change to success. No matter what your current problem or time constraint, pick up a helpful tip in ten minutes or glean an entire skillset by developing people skills and clarity through straightforward advice. Dive into common managerial tasks like one-on-ones, giving feedback, delegating, hiring, building team culture, and leading remote teams, with useful worksheets and a list of questions for your next interview. An approachable, engaging style using real-world stories, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager provides the blueprint for becoming the great manager every team deserves.