The World's Best Book Summaries
Do you know how to start a difficult conversation? Where do you begin? How do you make the conversation go smoothly? According to the authors of Crucial Accountability, establishing mutual respect and a shared purpose are the keys to learning how to start a difficult conversation. There are three steps you should take to avoid overwhelming the other person. Read more to learn how to start a difficult conversation.
Do you have trouble setting standards for happiness in your company? How can you use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for your business? Surprisingly, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs doesn’t just apply to the behavior and motivation of humans. It can also imply three layers of happiness that business owners should keep in mind when thinking about employees and customers. Keep reading to learn how former CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh transformed the hierarchy of needs into business standards.
Do you get a bad vibe from your company? Are you looking for tips on how to improve your company’s culture? Knowing how to improve company culture can greatly benefit your employees’ work experience. According to former CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh, there are four ways to make your company’s environment positive and healthy: listening to your employees, creating a list of cultural principles, hiring employees who will uphold the culture, and protecting your company from bad investors or board members. Find out how to improve company culture with these four steps.
Do you feel like you’re always doing something but barely getting anything done? In other words, are you busy but not productive? Many people feel like they are busy all the time but they don’t see the “products of their business.” This is because there is a fine line between being busy and being productive. Being busy but not productive is a sign of either inefficiency or poor time management. Here’s how being busy (but not productive) eats away at your mental energy and what you can do about it.
What hinders productivity? How can you reduce the burden of trivial, insignificant tasks and free up the space to focus on what really matters? One of the most common hindrances to productivity is being occupied with trivia. Trivial tasks contribute to stress and overwhelm as they waste your time, deplete your energy, and slow down progress on your goals. For example, deliberating over how to start an email uses up time and energy, distracts you from productive tasks, and eats into your relaxation time. But the result offers no benefits. Here’s how to improve productivity by eliminating or streamlining tasks and
What war strategies can be applied to business? When you’re ready to secure victory, what can you learn from war? Robert Greene asserts that life—including business—is a war between you and the forces or entities that seek to control you, hold you back, or destroy you. To be successful, you need to win the war, and to win the war you need winning strategies. Greene discusses three war strategies you can use to beat out the competition for good: targeting the source of your enemy’s power; targeting a vulnerable spot; and breaking down a problem, eliminating one piece at a
Why is it important to know your competitors? What can you learn about yourself? Robert Greene, the author of The 33 Strategies of War, says that clearly identifying your competitors is not just a prerequisite for developing a plan to overcome them. Seeing the contrast between you and your competitors helps to unify and motivate your forces. It also can reveal a clearer path to victory. Read more to learn why it’s important to know your competitors.
What’s the best way to measure progress? Why are results not a good indicator of progress? People generally track progress by measuring results. The problem with using results as an indicator of progress is that they don’t tell you how to improve. For example, if your goal is to save up a certain amount of money, your only measurement might be the number in your bank account: If it’s lower than your goal, you don’t learn anything about how to increase it. A better way of measuring progress is to track your efforts, rather than just the results. Here’s why efforts
What is gamification? What are some examples of gamification in the workplace? Gamification is the practice of using gaming elements such as scores, leaderboards, and achievement badges to make work more engaging. In their book The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey suggest using a scoreboard to gamify workplace dynamics and improve team engagement. Here’s how to use gamification in the workplace.
How often have you or your organization come up with an amazing plan, showed it off, admired it, been sure that it’s the solution to all your problems—only to have it die a slow death over the following months? In hindsight, what do you think prevented you from putting your plan into motion? In their book The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey say this isn’t uncommon, because strategy (making the perfect plan) is much easier than execution (actually carrying out your plan). McChesney, Huling, and Covey’s system—or 4 Disciplines—addresses this challenge with a framework