People Stuff

Do people drive you nuts? Are silos and turf wars challenging the culture? Wondering if it ever gets any easier? The toughest - and best - part of leadership is the people. But let’s face it, people dynamics can be tricky. Solutions are within. People Stuff is your map to the complex territory of human behaviour and leadership strategies. People Stuff goes well beyond frustrating ‘personality clashes’ to uncover the dynamics of human interactions at work. You’ll clarify how you see yourself, your people and your organisation to avoid ineffective superficial solutions to complex problems. Perspective is power. In order to create positive and lasting change, we need to dive below the surface and see the patterns and systems that are creating the issues in the first place. People Stuff offers intuitive maps and frameworks to develop your practice of perspective. You’ll be able to see more and lead better. When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at don’t change, WE do. How we see ourselves affects how effective we are as leaders. By using a combination of the five key leadership archetypes - the Elder, Pioneer, Guardian, Warrior, and Diplomat - you’ll be able to meet the current business challenges with the right approach for maximum influence. Personalities aren’t the problem, systems are. When the Four Devils appear in the workplace, it’s tempting to give up on them as character flaws. With the Four Devils map, you’ll be able to pinpoint the symptoms and causes of the toughest people challenges, and implement effective long-term solutions. If you’re a leader who’s called to make an impact, then People Stuff will give you the perspective tools to see issues before they escalate. You’ll also be able to anticipate positive ripples so you can truly lead with compassion and wisdom.

We all want people to do stuff. Whether you want your customers to buy from you, vendors to give you a good deal, your employees to take more initiative, or your spouse to make dinner—a large amount of everyday is about getting the people around you to do stuff. Instead of using your usual tactics that sometimes work and sometimes don't, what if you could harness the power of psychology and brain science to motivate people to do the stuff you want them to do - even getting people to want to do the stuff you want them to do. In this book you’ll learn the 7 drives that motivate people: The Desire For Mastery, The Need To Belong, The Power of Stories, Carrots and Sticks, Instincts, Habits, and Tricks Of The Mind. For each of the 7 drives behavioral psychologist Dr. Susan Weinschenk describes the research behind each drive, and then offers specific strategies to use. Here’s just a few things you will learn: The more choices people have the more regret they feel about the choice they pick. If you want people to feel less regret then offer them fewer choices. If you are going to use a reward, give the reward continuously at first, and then switch to giving a reward only sometimes. If you want people to act independently, then make a reference to money, BUT if you want people to work with others or help others, then make sure you DON’T refer to money. If you want people to remember something, make sure it is at the beginning or end of your book, presentation, or meeting. Things in the middle are more easily forgotten. If you are using feedback to increase the desire for mastery keep the feedback objective, and don’t include praise.

They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees. They believe they’re unique, yet somehow they’re all exactly the same, talking about how they “get” Sarah Silverman’s “subversive” comedy and Wes Anderson’s “droll” films. They’re also down with diversity and up on all the best microbrews, breakfast spots, foreign cinema, and authentic sushi. They’re organic, ironic, and do not own TVs. You know who they are: They’re white people. And they’re here, and you’re gonna have to deal. Fortunately, here’s a book that investigates, explains, and offers advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion. So kick back on your IKEA couch and lose yourself in the ultimate guide to the unbearable whiteness of being. Praise for STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE: “The best of a hilarious Web site: an uncannily accurate catalog of dead-on predilections. The Criterion Collection of classic films? Haircuts with bangs? Expensive fruit juice? ‘Blonde on Blonde’ on the iPod? The author knows who reads The New Yorker and who wears plaid.” –Janet Maslin’s summer picks, CBS.com “The author of "Stuff White People Like" skewers the sacred cows of lefty Caucasian culture, from the Prius to David Sedaris. . . . It gently mocks the habits and pretensions of urbane, educated, left-leaning whites, skewering their passion for Barack Obama and public transportation (as long as it's not a bus), their idle threats to move to Canada, and joy in playing children's games as adults. Kickball, anyone?” –Salon.com “A handy reference guide with which you can check just how white you are. Hint: If you like only documentaries and think your child is gifted, you glow in the dark, buddy.” –NY Daily News

WHY BAD STUFF HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE: is a book loaded with intrigue, suspense, mind disturbing questions, and eventually the answer given somewhere in the book, not disclosed. Many questions both Christians and secularists ask concerning this topic is similar concerning the guilt and innocence of children, which are answered here with no apology. You may be shocked but you may also be the judge! This read is compared to twelve other writers on the subject with diverse and bizarre answers to the question WHY, which are challenged here and in my opinion offering no answer to this hunting question of WHY. “The Final Answer” is in this book found nowhere else in any literature.

So, yet another self-help/self-improvement book. Why should you even consider it? OK, here are three reasons: –First, it zeros in on some of the most common problems people have in dealing with each other. These are repetitive. The people may be different, but the problems stay the same. The 12 skills covered include: learning to be a careful listener; developing empathy for others; controlling our egos; becoming an assertive person; learning to be accountable in relating to people; respecting others; improving communication skills; stopping the “mind reading” of others; breaking away from the need to always be right in dealing with people; how to stop gossiping; not meddling in others’ lives; and becoming a more optimistic person. –Second, the topics of ego control, respect, mind reading, gossiping, meddling, and always needing to be right are rarely, if ever, found in self development books. –Finally, the book is easy to read, very practical, relatively short, and really helpful. You’ll find it to be a motivating and self-empowering read.

Preach a sermon? No problem. Choose a theologically-sound Sunday school curriculum? No trouble. Conduct annual performance reviews with your ministry staff? Not so simple. Managing People provides pastors with tips for inspiring and leading staff and volunteers, including: How to handle tough conversations, when and how to say no, and building and guiding staff and volunteers. After surveying hundreds of pastors, asking them what they wish they’d learned in seminary but didn’t, "practical stuff" was the overwhelming answer. Practical Stuff for Pastors is a series of how-to guides dedicated to topics like how to manage a team, keep a building running, defuse conflicts, and more. Full of tips, recommendations, and strategies to equip pastors for running a church on the days between Sundays, these handbooks are valuable tools pastors will reference again and again. Look for the other books in the series: Dealing with Conflict, Leading Change, and Taking Care of Business.

This book describes a marketing and design approach called "total design,"which is about not only making but marketing and promoting a good or service both successfully and profitably. It offers an integrated, holistic approach to the whole process. It's integrative because the design,marketing, and branding must give a clear and consistent story about the product. It's holistic becuase "total design" engages consumers on all levels.

The American way of life, built on individual liberty and limited government, is on life support. American freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business, practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors, or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government—not because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.” In this provocative book, acclaimed social scientist and bestselling author Charles Murray shows us why we can no longer hope to roll back the power of the federal government through the normal political process. The Constitution is broken in ways that cannot be fixed even by a sympathetic Supreme Court. Our legal system is increasingly lawless, unmoored from traditional ideas of “the rule of law.” The legislative process has become systemically corrupt no matter which party is in control. But there’s good news beyond the Beltway. Technology is siphoning power from sclerotic government agencies and putting it in the hands of individuals and communities. The rediversification of American culture is making local freedom attractive to liberals as well as conservatives. People across the political spectrum are increasingly alienated from a regulatory state that nakedly serves its own interests rather than those of ordinary Americans. The even better news is that federal government has a fatal weakness: It can get away with its thousands of laws and regulations only if the overwhelming majority of Americans voluntarily comply with them. Murray describes how civil disobedience backstopped by legal defense funds can make large portions of the 180,000-page Federal Code of Regulations unenforceable, through a targeted program that identifies regulations that arbitrarily and capriciously tell us what to do. Americans have it within their power to make the federal government an insurable hazard like hurricanes and floods, leaving us once again free to live our lives as we see fit. By the People’s hopeful message is that rebuilding our traditional freedoms does not require electing a right-thinking Congress or president, nor does it require five right-thinking justices on the Supreme Court. It can be done by we the people, using America’s unique civil society to put government back in its proper box.