Workplace Rights

We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. After decades of award-winning research, Amy Edmondson is here to upend our understanding of failure and make it work for us. In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson provides the framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely.

This is a book about work choices and life choices, and the critical points, or defining moments, at which the two become one. A refreshing antidote to traditional feel-good, inspirational business ethics, it examines the right-versus-right conflicts that every business manager faces and presents an unorthodox yet practical way for you to think about and resolve them.

Even amid the seeming chaos of the matrix organization - where you are constantly being asked to do things by people who aren't your boss - there is always that special person who seems indispensable, who seems to thrive on complexity, and who is able to stay focused and positive and get the right things done: This is the go-to person. In this game-changing book, Bruce Tulgan reveals the secrets of the go-to person in our new world of work. Tulgan shows how go-to people not only behave differently, but also think differently.

In workplaces nationwide, women of color need frank talk and honest advice on how to deal with microaggressions, heal from racialized trauma, and find relief from invisible workplace burdens. Filled with Minda Harts’ signature wit and warmth, Right Within offers strategies for women of color to speak up during racialized moments with managers and clients, work through past triggers they may not even know still cause pain, and reframe past career disappointments as opportunities to grow into a new path.

Like all relationships, the ones we have at work are subject to stresses—maybe even fractures that can really take a toll on the workplace. Productivity is lost. Time is wasted. Tension mounts. Cooperation is reduced. And the workplace becomes toxic. What’s the solution? In Making Things Right at Work, Dr. Gary Chapman is joined by business consultants Dr. Jennifer Thomas and Dr. Paul White to offer the strategies you need to restore harmony at work. Don’t let broken relationships taint your work environment. Take the needed steps to make things right today.

In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like critical race theory, gender equity in the workplace, and LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms, many of us are understandably fearful of saying the wrong thing. Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, are here to show potential allies that these conversations don’t have to be so overwhelming.

Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age.

Today's headlines are full of employee unrest over racial injustice, communities infuriated by corporate environmental impacts, staff anxiety over surveillance, and discoveries of child labor in supply chains. Simply maximizing shareholder value while not breaking the law is no longer an option, but we've never been so confused about what it means to do the right thing. NYU ethics professor Alison Taylor argues that amid stakeholder demands and transparency pressures, we can no longer treat ethics as a legal and reputational defense mechanism.

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed.

We entertain ourselves with modest risk - the scary movie, the party full of strangers, the weekend in Vegas. But when it comes to our careers, when self-identity and security hang in the balance, most of us don't like to play the odds very aggressively. While some of us are natural born thrill seekers, the majority of us are hardwired to avoid risk. But, Anne Kreamer argues, in the current workplace, that very avoidance could be putting us in a far more precarious position than we know.

Nearly a quarter century ago Carter Cast seemed to have it all together: he had a first-class education, an all-American athletic career, and was a very bright and energetic rising star on the fast track at a Fortune 100 company, PepsiCo. But blissfully unaware of how negative perceptions were shaped, he was stunned when called into his boss's office, and told he was "unpromotable" because he was "obstinate", "resistant", and "insubordinate".

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.

Few organizations solve as many impossible problems as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and nobody knows more about leading rocket scientists to unlikely breakthroughs than Adam Steltzner. As the phase lead and development manager for EDL (entry, descent, and landing) of the Curiosity rover to Mars, Steltzner spearheaded the creation of one of engineering's wackiest kluges - the sky crane, which allowed the heaviest rover in the history of space exploration to land on Mars unscathed.

It was the 1960s - a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the “Help Wanted” ads were segregated by gender and the “Mad Men” office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination. Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at Newsweek, renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the “Swinging Sixties.” Nora Ephron, Jane Bryant Quinn, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Brownmiller all started there as well. It was a top-notch job - for a girl - at an exciting place. But it was a dead end.

No organization is totally free from destructive friction; the forces that make it harder, more complicated and sometimes downright impossible to get things done. Drawing on years of research and featuring case studies on the likes of Uber, Netflix and Boeing, The Friction Project teaches listeners how to become 'friction fixers'. Stanford professors Sutton and Rao unpack how we should think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help listeners identify where to avert and repair bad friction, and where to maintain and inject good friction.

In Fix It, the authors present the startling results of their Workplace Accountability Study - conducted over three years, involving more than forty thousand participants from organizations across the globe: the most comprehensive study on workplace accountability ever conducted. When accountability is not working on the job, in the team or the organization as a whole, everyone is left asking how to fix it.

Imagine jumping out of bed every morning excited about going to work. Imagine leading others the way you know you were meant to lead. Imagine working where you know you are making a massive impact in the lives of others. Leadership by Choice will immediately turn this dream into your reality.

When you finish this audiobook, you will know how to win somebody over to your team and bring them on your journey. Do I trust our way? We trust it enough to be different by design: We are the only company of our type in the world to guarantee 100 percent performance of the people we recommend you hire. And we guarantee that, not for a week or a month, but for 365 days. We know it works. Very few people are going to join your company and stay for 20 years, but they will choose to make you part of their journey, just as you choose them to be a part of your organization’s journey.

Babson College business educator and consultant Mary Gentile challenges the assumptions about business ethics at companies and business schools. She gives business leaders, managers, and students the tools not just to recognize what is right, but also to ensure that the right things happen. She explains why past attempts at preparing business leaders to act ethically too often failed, arguing that the issue isn't distinguishing what is right or wrong, but knowing how to act on your values despite opposing pressure.

"Strike Back: A Guide to Organizing Workplace Actions" is a comprehensive guide that provides practical advice to help workers organize successful strikes and other collective actions. From assessing workplace conditions and readiness to building momentum and advocating for workers' rights, this book offers guidance to help readers achieve their goals. Whether you are a seasoned labor organizer or a first-time strike participant, this book is an essential resource for anyone looking to make a positive change in their workplace.