Bridging the Soft Skills Gap

Bridging the Soft Skills Gap
Author: Bruce Tulgan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118725646

Solve the number one problem with today's young workforce—the soft skills gap The number one challenge with today's young talent is a problem hiding in plain sight: the ever-widening soft skills gap. Today's new, young workforce has so much to offer—new technical skills, new ideas, new perspective, new energy. Yet too many of them are held back because of their weak soft skills. Soft skills may be harder to define and measure than hard skills, but they are just as critical. People get hired because of their hard skills but get fired because of their soft skills. Setting a good example or simply telling young workers they need to improve isn't enough, nor is scolding them or pointing out their failings in an annual review. However you can teach the missing basics to today's young talent. Based on more than twenty years of research, Bruce Tulgan, renowned expert on the millennial workforce, offers concrete solutions to help managers teach the missing basics of professionalism, critical thinking, and followership—complete with ninety-two step-by-step lesson plans designed to be highly flexible and easy to use. Tulgan's research and proven approach has show that the key to teaching young people the missing soft skills lies in breaking down critical soft skills into their component parts, concentrating on one small component at a time, with the help of a teaching-style manager. Almost all of the exercises can be done in less than an hour within a team meeting or an extended one-on-one. The exercises are easily modified and customized and can be used as take-home exercises for any individual or group, to guide one-on-one discussions with direct-reports and in the classroom as written exercises or group discussions. Managers—and their young employees—will find themselves returning to their favorite exercises over and over again. One exercise at a time, managers will build up the most important soft skills of their new, young talent. These critical soft skills can make the difference between mediocre and good, between good and great, between great and one of a kind.

Master Your Time, Master Your Life

Master Your Time, Master Your Life
Author: Brian Tracy
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2016
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0399183817

Discover 10 Essential Ways to Make the Most of Your Time "Time is money," as the saying goes, but most of us never feel we have enough of either. In Master Your Time, Master Your Life, internationally acclaimed productivity expert and bestselling author Brian Tracy presents a brilliant new approach to time management that will help you gain control of your time and accomplish far more, faster and more easily than you ever thought possible. Drawing on the latest research in productivity science and Tracy's decades of expertise, this breakthrough program allocates time into ten categories of priority--including strategic planning/goal setting, people and family, income improvement, rest/relaxation, and even creative time--and reveals the best techniques for focusing on each effectively. By thoughtfully applying the principles in Master Your Time, Master Your Life, you'll not only achieve greater results and reach your goals more quickly and successfully, you'll also have more time to devote to what you truly love.

Sleeping with Your Smartphone

Sleeping with Your Smartphone
Author: Leslie A. Perlow
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1422144062

Does it have to be this way? Can’t resist checking your smartphone or mobile device? Sure, all this connectivity keeps you in touch with your team and the office—but at what cost? In Sleeping with Your Smartphone, Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow reveals how you can disconnect and become more productive in the process. In fact, she shows that you can devote more time to your personal life and accomplish more at work. The good news is that this doesn’t require a grand organizational makeover or buy-in from the CEO. All it takes is collaboration between you and your team—working together and making small, doable changes. What started as an experiment with a six-person team at The Boston Consulting Group—one of the world’s elite management consulting firms—triggered a global initiative that eventually spanned more than nine hundred BCG teams in thirty countries across five continents. These teams confronted their nonstop workweeks and changed the way they worked, becoming more efficient and effective. The result? Employees were more satisfied with their work-life balance and with their work in general. And the firm was better able to recruit and retain employees. Clients also benefited—often in unexpected ways. In this engaging book, Perlow takes you inside BCG to witness the challenges and benefits of disconnecting. She provides a step-by-step guide to introducing change on your team—by establishing a collective goal, encouraging open dialogue, ensuring leadership support—and then spreading change to the rest of your firm. If you and your colleagues are grappling with the “always on” problem, it’s time to disconnect—and start reading.

Attention Management

Attention Management
Author: Maura Thomas
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2019-09-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1728217482

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and scattered? Do you wish you could maximize your productivity and achieve success effortlessly? In Attention Management, productivity expert Maura Thomas unveils the ultimate guide to increasing your focus and harnessing your attention for peak performance. In this game-changing book, Thomas shares her practical mindfulness techniques to help you regain control over your attention and optimize your productivity. With a clear and systematic approach, she empowers you to effectively prioritize tasks, eliminate distractions, and enhance your ability to concentrate on what truly matters. Whether you're a student, professional, or entrepreneur, this book will equip you with the tools and knowledge to: Conquer information overload and regain mental clarity Cultivate laser-like focus amidst digital distractions Overcome procrastination and stay motivated Reduce stress and increase overall well-being Cultivate a healthy work-life balance Boost creativity and unlock your full potential A must-read business book for anyone seeking to transform their productivity and achieve lasting success!

How to Manage Problem Employees

How to Manage Problem Employees
Author: Glenn Shepard
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2010-12-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118040481

There was a time when people were committed to working hard and being productive in the work force. Today, however, some workers have an entitlement mentality and the labor pool includes some people who donâ??t want a job - just a paycheck. In response to this trend, Glenn Shepard has written How to Manage Problem Employees. This comprehensive book will tell you how to set new hires up for success, structure compensation packages to maximize their involvement and work ethic, deal with problem areas before they become bad behavior, and motivate slow and often unmotivated employees. You'll learn the different personality types and how to handle specific manifestations of each, including gossiping, back stabbing, direct confrontation, hypochondriacs, breaking the chain of command, and sarcasm, as well as how to terminate employees while staying on solid legal ground.

First Things First

First Things First
Author: Stephen R. Covey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0684802031

A guide to managing your time by learning how to balance your life.

Ask a Manager

Ask a Manager
Author: Alison Green
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0399181822

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Deep Work

Deep Work
Author: Cal Newport
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2016-01-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1455586668

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2O16 PICK IN BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP WALL STREET JOURNAL BUSINESS BESTSELLER A BUSINESS BOOK OF THE WEEK AT 800-CEO-READ Master one of our economy’s most rare skills and achieve groundbreaking results with this “exciting” book (Daniel H. Pink) from an “exceptional” author (New York Times Book Review). Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill. 1. Work Deeply 2. Embrace Boredom 3. Quit Social Media 4. Drain the Shallows A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

12: The Elements of Great Managing

12: The Elements of Great Managing
Author: Gallup
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1595620478

Based on the largest worldwide study of employee engagement and more than a decade of research, Gallup explains the 12 elements essential to motivating employees and features the inspiring stories of 12 managers who succeeded in these dimensions. More than a decade ago, Gallup combed through its database of more than 1 million employee and manager interviews to identify the elements most important in sustaining workplace excellence. These elements were revealed in the international bestseller First, Break All the Rules. 12: The Elements of Great Managing is that book’s long-awaited sequel. It follows great managers as they harness employee engagement to turn around a failing call center, save a struggling hotel, improve patient care in a hospital, maintain production through power outages, and successfully face a host of other challenges in settings around the world. Gallup’s study now includes 10 million employee and manager interviews spanning 114 countries and conducted in 41 languages. In 12, Gallup weaves its latest insights with recent discoveries in the fields of neuroscience, game theory, psychology, sociology and economics. Written for managers and employees of companies large and small, 12 explains what every company needs to know about creating and sustaining employee engagement.