Learned Behavior

Sending his daughter off to college is the proudest day of single dad JaQuan Reynolds’s life. Everything took a back seat to raising her - including his career. He has no idea what comes next, but his newfound freedom is quickly curtailed by a crash deadline at work and the uptight, hovering presence of consultant Matthew Donaldson. He’s surly and insufferably sexy, and Jaq’s ready to check him out and write him off - right up until a work assignment forces them together.

Patagonia, named by Fortune in 2007 as the coolest company on the planet, has earned a reputation as much for its ground-breaking environmental and social practices as for the quality of its clothes. In this exceptionally frank account, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence, by step and misstep, to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately share its discoveries with companies as large as Wal-Mart or as small as the corner bakery.

A compelling argument - masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated - that despite increasing prosperity for most of Earth’s inhabitants and an explosion of goods overall, consumption of natural resources such as metals, water, and timber has begun to decline. Best-selling author and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Andrew McAfee says there’s a new reason for optimism: We’re past the point of "peak stuff" - from here on out, it'll take fewer resources to make things and fewer dollars to lead a comfortable life.

Last year, US companies spent over $165 billon on training; while many training programs themselves provide valuable skills and concepts, even the best-designed programs are ineffective because the learned behaviors are not reinforced. Without reinforcement, learned information gets shuffled to the back of the mind in the "nice to know" file, never again to see the light of day. This book bridges the canyon between learning and doing by providing solid reinforcement strategies.

Stewardship is the journey of financial insider John Taft toward understanding and affirming the importance of stewardship - which he has come to define as "serving others" - as a core principle for the financial services industry, the global financial system, and society at large. By defining the attributes of authentic stewardship, this book presents a path forward by analyzing the success of Canadian banks in weathering the financial crisis; evaluates the effectiveness of global financial reform efforts in making the financial system safer, sounder, and more secure

While an uninterrupted life, free of misfortune may sound wonderful, it is in the challenge, in the change, that we learn the greatest lessons. This book has been written with 51 years of personal life experiences, and an overlay of close to 30 years of professional subject matter expertise in managing the continuance of business operations across the globe, come rain...or shine. Both aspects have resulted in significant lessons learned...stories of continuity and resilience.

It's been said that a good leader brings out the best in people, while a great leader helps people become something greater than they'd ever imagined they could be. Bad leaders, on the other hand, are said to be nothing but trouble: mean, cruel, twisted, creatures that make the workplace a living hell for everyone. That may all be true (we think that it us) but that doesn’t mean that we can't learn something useful from our bad bosses. In Bob We Trust is the third collection of annotated leadership columns from Keil Hubert.

Everything You Know About Organizational Behavior You Learned in High School brings you on a nostalgic journey to a pleasant, albeit sometimes volatile, period in your life. It is during this time in high school the foundation for your personality and adult behavior patterns are established. These adolescent behavior patterns remain in adulthood and find their way into the workplace. Becker teaches you to recognize the dysfunction that is caused and captures simple tips to improve your team’s and company’s results.

A leader’s job - in a radically changing world - is standing on the cliff edge, getting a grip on unfamiliar landscapes, and acquiring the skills for leading the enterprise into new territory. Michael Useem provides rare insight into how 10 leaders confronted hard realities. He looked close-in at the life and work of people such as Bill McNabb of Vanguard, Jeffrey Lurie of the Philadelphia Eagles, Alex Gorsky of Johnson & Johnson, and Tricia Griffith of Progressive Insurance.

Communicating Through Change is a life-changing book, which will show you how to communicate through major changes in your life, and to best express yourself when you need to be heard. It is packed with real-life stories, practical exercises, insightful tips, and uplifting affirmations. Addressing relevant challenges, which everyone meets at one time in their life, this book will give you hope, resilience, and clarity about how to move forward. By sharing her vulnerability with authentic openness, the author helps you to find your inner strength and to speak up for yourself.

Within this book two military veterans share their own transitions from military service members to veterans. They provide insights they term lessons learned, which helped them as they made this sometimes emotional and traumatic, very personal journey. This book was written to assist transitioning military and nonveterans alike, to provide support and guidance that enabled each writer to succeed in his after-military service goals.

This book is about the stuff you learn when you've worked for a boss you'd swear jumped out of a Dilbert cartoon; worked in a business whose performance careened up and down like a runaway clown car; when you've faced legal or ethical problems that needed the wisdom of Solomon to sort out while they roiled your guts at night; or when you've sat on the stand across from some third-rate Perry Mason, or tried to be one yourself.