800-CEO-READ New Releases

Unstuck

by Keith Yamashita, Sandra Spataro

(Penguin USA, 208 Pages)

Everyone gets stuck sooner or later. The big question is how do you get unstuck?

People and organizations get stuck because the most ambitious and rewarding work brings with it the most challenges.

Unstuck is a smart, fearless, totally practical guide to turn to for inspiration and immediate solutions. It’s meant to be acted on, not just read. And it’s based on the proven practices the authors have discovered while working with IBM, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Gap Inc., and many other major companies.

Whether you need to step back to move forward, motivate a struggling team, change your goals, or create a clearer vision, Unstuck helps you diagnose your situation, identify the most important challenges, and implement the right tools and techniques to get things moving again. Now with updated case studies, this is the perfect book to get you and your team unstuck.

A Perfect Mess

by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman

(Little, Brown, 304 Pages)

A groundbreaking book that sheds new light on ideas of order--and shows how chaos, disorder, and mess make our world a better place! Like Freakonomics, here is a book that combines counterintuitive thinking with stories from everyday life to provide a striking new view of how our world works. Ever since Einstein's study of Brownian Motion, scientists have understood that a little disorder actually makes systems more effective. But most people still shun disorder--or suffer guilt over the mess they can't avoid. No longer! With a spectacular array of anecdotes and case studies of the useful role mess can play, here is an antidote to the accepted wisdom that tight schedules, neatness, and consistency are the keys to success. Drawing on examples from business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, retail, and even the meteoric career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, coauthors Abrahamson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, yield better solutions, and are harder to break than neat ones. A PERFECT MESS will help readers assess what the right amount of disorder is for a given system, and how to apply these ideas onto a large scale--government, society-- and on a small scale--in your attic, kitchen, or office. A PERFECT MESS will forever change the way we think about those unruly heaps of paper on our desks.

Show Me the Money

by Jack J. Phillips Ph.D., Patricia Pulliam Phillips

(Berrett-Kohler, 300 Pages)

From IT to HR, from boardroom to shop floor, increased accountability for achieving high-value results for new initiatives is the norm in every organization and department. Jack and Patricia Phillips, the world’s leading experts on Return On Investment (ROI) strategy, distill their years of experience and research into proven, step-by-step tools for determining the value of any project before, during, and after implementation. They present a comprehensive method for measuring the hard-to-measure, and placing monetary value on the hard-to-value. They even show how to measure and place value on "intangible" qualities like leadership, creativity, customer loyalty, employee engagement, and more. Developed in an easy-to-read format and fortified with case studies, checklists, tips, and tools, Show Me the Money clarifies and resolves the mystery surrounding the allocation of monetary value. It gives change agents everything they need to provide concrete, detailed evaluations of the potential and actual financial benefits of any project or program.