Management & Strategy

Knowing your users stimulates your imagination and helps you create more exciting and effective design solutions. But there is a problem: the normal conception of "the user" is incomplete and based on outdated notions. These notions of simple, direct relationships between people and products are no longer valid in today''s complex, technologically interconnected world. This fun and practical book with a set of cards will change the way readers think about users. Rethinking Users introduces a radical new approach that questions some of our most fundamental ideas about the nature of user experience. It points to new opportunities to create products and services that help users in new ways. The book includes a deck of user archetype cards and step-by-step team activities for unlocking new user-centered thinking and design inspiration. For designers, design researchers, strategists, innovators, product managers, and entrepreneurs in almost any field.

I'm not going to lie to you: running an in-house marketing department is hard. I have been there before. The chaos at the start of a project, the disarray of dealing with agencies, the anxiety of a looming deadline. It's stressful, hectic, and complex.But what if I told you that things don't have to be this way? What if there was a way to bring order to the chaos? That's exactly what in-housing can help you with. By taking control of your company's content creating, social media activation and bringing essential tasks in-house, you can effectively transform the way you run your marketing activities.For the last 15 years, I've been helping organisations setting up their in-house SoMe, content, branding, and marketing teams. Building an in-house creative agency can seem like a Herculean task. It is certainly not a short or one-time process. You have to approach it like an entrepreneurial venture - find great employees, create a culture where they can thrive, and watch the results pour in.This book will give you an understanding of what goes into building an internal marketing department; what you need in terms of roles and skills and how to structure your work. By understanding the in-house model, hiring the right people, and adopting best practices, you can speed up your workflow and gain a more agile approach to your marketing. It's fair to say that though you most likely will save you money by in-housing your marketing activities, this should not be the goal. The main reason to in-house should be to get better control of your campaigns, assets and workflows. And to get the speed and agility, you need in today's world of marketing.That is what this book is all about.You will find the ideas to create and manage your own in-house setup, tested process, step-by-step guides outlined in the book. They are easy to follow, despite being the result of more that a decade of experience and research. The process is designed to minimise your risk of failure are coupled with the inspiring stories. So if you've ever thought about what it would be like to bring in more of your marketing activities from your creative agencies-this book is for you.

A step-by-step approach to delivering winning negotiations with tools and tactics for purchasing and supply chain professionals.

In The 4 Day Week, entrepreneur and business innovator Andrew Barnes makes the case for the four-day week as the answer to many of the ills of the 21st-century global economy. Barnes conducted an experiment in his own business, the New Zealand trust company Perpetual Guardian, and asked his staff to design a four-day week that would permit them to meet their existing productivity requirements on the same salary but with a 20% cut in work hours. The outcomes of this trial, which no business leader had previously attempted on these terms, were stunning. People were happier and healthier, more engaged in their personal lives, and more focused and productive in the office. The world of work has seen a dramatic shift in recent times: the former security and benefits associated with permanent employment are being displaced by the less stable gig economy. Barnes explains the dangers of a focus on flexibility at the expense of hard-won worker protections, and argues that with the four-day week, we can have the best of all worlds: optimal productivity, work-life balance, worker benefits and, at long last, a solution to pervasive economic inequities such as the gender pay gap and lack of diversity in business and governance. The 4 Day Week is a practical, how-to guide for business leaders and employees alike that is applicable to nearly every industry. Using qualitative and quantitative data from research gathered through the Perpetual Guardian trial and other sources by the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology, the book presents a step-by-step approach to preparing businesses for productivity-focused flexibility, from the necessary cultural conditions to the often complex legislative considerations. The story of Perpetual Guardian's unprecedented work experiment has made headlines around the world and stormed social media, reaching a global audience in more than seventy countries. A mix of trenchant analysis, personal observation and actionable advice, The 4 Day Week is an essential guide for leaders and workers seeking to make a change for the better in their work world.

A much-needed road map that looks at all the decisions leaders need to make: choosing the right strategies, capabilities, structure, culture, management tools, and leadership to deliver radically greater value in fast-moving markets.

How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? This book confronts these questions by showing leaders how they can stave off decline and if they find themselves falling, reverse their course.

Does business just exist to maximise shareholder profit? The belief it does has had disastrous consequences for our economies, environment, politics, and societies, argues Colin Mayer. In an urgent call for reform, he sets out an agenda to remake the corporation into a powerful force for promoting economic and social wellbeing in its fullest sense.

The classic playbook that will transform your approach to workFrom the founders of the trailblazing software company Basecamp, here is a different kind of business book - one that explores a new reality.

The definitive playbook for driving impact as a middle managerLeading from the Middle: A Playbook for Managers to Influence Up, Down, and Across the Organization delivers an insightful and practical guide for the backbone of an organization: those who have a boss and are a boss and must lead from the messy middle. Accomplished author and former P&G executive Scott Mautz walks readers through the unique challenges facing these managers, and the mindset and skillset necessary for managing up and down and influencing what happens across the organization.You'll learn the winning mindset of the best middle managers, how to develop the most important skills necessary for managing from the middle, how to create your personal Middle Action Plan (MAP), and effectively influence:* Up the chain of command, to your boss and those above them* Down, to your direct reports and teams who report to you* Laterally, to peers and teams you have no formal authority overAnyone in an organization who reports to someone and has someone reporting to them must lead from the middle. They are the most important group in an organization and have a unique opportunity to drive impact. Leading from the Middle explains how.

An accessible, practical, step-by-step guide that supplements Getting Things Done by providing the details, the how-to's and the practices to apply GTD more fully and easily in daily life

Implement an effective and compliant information security management system using IT governance best practice.

A completely revised and updated edition of the bestselling productivity guide

Innovation and Scaling for Impact forces us to reassess how social sector organizations create value. Drawing on a decade of research, Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair transcend widely held misconceptions, getting to the core of what a sound impact strategy entails in the nonprofit world. They reveal an overlooked nexus between investments that might not pan out (innovation) and expansion based on existing strengths (scaling). In the process, it becomes clear that managing this tension is a difficult balancing act that fundamentally defines an organization and its impact.The authors examine innovation pathologies that can derail organizations by thwarting their efforts to juggle these imperatives. Then, through four rich case studies, they detail innovation archetypes that effectively sidestep these pathologies and blend innovation with scaling. Readers will come away with conceptual models to drive progress in the social sector and tools for defining the future of their organizations.

Whether from customers, supply-chain partners, policymakers, or regulators, organizations in virtually every industry are facing calls to do more with less. They are feeling compelled to provide higher-quality outcomes, more rapidly, at a lower cost.This book offers a road-tested approach for delivering these outcomes through positive organizational change. Its message comes just in time, for too many companies have gone the way of low-road strategies, such as cutting pay and perks, and working harder not smarter. Drawing on her path-breaking research, Jody Hoffer Gittell reveals that high performance is fundamentally relational-rooted in both human and social capital.Based on this insight, she provides a unique model that will help companies to build meaningful relationships among colleagues, develop smarter work processes, and design organizational structures fit for today's pressure test. By following four organizations on their change journeys, she illustrates how "e;relational coordination"e; unfolds in real-world settings. Tools for change guide readers as they learn how to implement this new model in their own workplaces.

"What does AI mean for your business? Read this book to find out." -- Hal Varian, Chief Economist,

New York Times bestselling author and America's mentor offers a research-driven, field-tested system for setting and achieving your professional, relational, financial, spiritual, and intellectual goals in order to have your best year ever.