The Predictable Surprise

In "The Predictable Surprise", Sylvester J. Schieber shows that forewarnings of the coming retirement crisis have been apparent for decades, but we have never mustered the political will to address the problem. This book explains how we have gotten into the retirement predicament and where we can go from here.

Two leading experts in managerial decision making show that many disasters in business are preceded by clear warning signals that leaders either miss or purposely ignore. Here they outline the six danger signals that suggest a predictable surprise may be imminent.

"Even the best-run companies can get blindsided by disasters they should have anticipated. These predictable surprises range from financial scandals to operational disruptions, from organizational upheavals to product failures. In Predictable Surprises, Max H. Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins show you how to minimize your risk by understanding and lowering the psychological, organizational, and political barriers preventing you from foreseeing calamity. They then describe the powerful tools--including incentives and formal coalitions--that business leaders can use to ferret out and fend off threats invisible to insiders. Failure to see what's coming exposes your company to predictable surprises. Given the stakes involved, this book should count among every business leader's most trusted resources."--Publisher's website.

The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

A “must-read” (Booklist) from Harvard Business School Professor and Codirector of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership: A guide to making better decisions, noticing important information in the world around you, and improving leadership skills. Imagine your advantage in negotiations, decision-making, and leadership if you could teach yourself to see and evaluate information that others overlook. The Power of Noticing provides the blueprint for accomplishing precisely that. Max Bazerman, an expert in the field of applied behavioral psychology, draws on three decades of research and his experience instructing Harvard Business School MBAs and corporate executives to teach you how to notice and act on information that may not be immediately obvious. Drawing on a wealth of real-world examples and using many of the same case studies and thought experiments designed in his executive MBA classes, Bazerman challenges you to explore your cognitive blind spots, identify any salient details you are programmed to miss, and then take steps to ensure it won’t happen again. His book provides a step-by-step guide to breaking bad habits and spotting the hidden details that will change your decision-making and leadership skills for the better, teaching you to pay attention to what didn’t happen, acknowledge self-interest, invent the third choice, and realize that what you see is not all there is. While many bestselling business books have explained how susceptible to manipulation our irrational cognitive blind spots make us, Bazerman helps you avoid the habits that lead to poor decisions and ineffective leadership in the first place. With The Power of Noticing at your side, you can learn how to notice what others miss, make wiser decisions, and lead more successfully.

Jacqueline Firkins's The Predictable Heartbreaks of Imogen Finch is a beautiful story of friendship, and second chances at love. Imogen Finch has just been through her seventeenth breakup. She saw it coming, so she's not as crushed as she might be, but with all seventeen of her exes leaving her for other partners, she's come to believe a prediction her well-intentioned and possibly clairvoyant mother made over twenty years ago: that Imogen would never come first at anything or to anyone. Is her love life failing due to a magical curse? Insufficient effort? Poor timing or personality mismatches? Everyone has opinions on the matter. Imogen's ready to give up altogether. But when Eliot Swift, her secret high school crush, returns to their small coastal town after a decade of nomadic travels, Imogen has new motivation to try again. Eliot's full of encouragement. He suggests that her curse is not only imagined, it's easily breakable. All they need is one win--any win--and she can believe in love, and in herself again. From trivia games to swimming races to corn-shucking contests, the pair sets out to snag Imogen her first first. But when victory proves more elusive than Eliot anticipated, and when his deep-seeded wanderlust compels him to depart for far away places, Imogen fears she's destined to remain in second place forever. Fortunately for them both, sometimes magic lingers in the most unexpected places. And love is far from predictable.

Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected is a fascinating look at how we can handle and harness surprise in our work, relationships, and everyday lives. Pop Quiz! Do you prefer when: A) Things go according to plan? B) When the unexpected happens? Most of us pick control and predictability. Yet research reveals a counterintuitive truth: surprise is the key that unlocks growth, innovation, and connection. It is also the secret ingredient in our best memories. Through colorful narratives and compelling scientific findings, authors Tania Luna and Dr. LeeAnn Renninger shine a light on the world's least understood and most intriguing emotion. They reveal how shifting our perception of surprise lets us thrive in the face of uncertainty. And they show us how surprise acts as a shortcut that turns a typical product into a meaningful experience, a good idea into a viral one, awkward small talk into engaging conversation, and daily life into an adventure.

This book provides a collection of fourty articles containing new material on both theoretical aspects of Evolutionary Computing (EC), and demonstrating the usefulness/success of it for various kinds of large-scale real world problems. Around 23 articles deal with various theoretical aspects of EC and 17 articles demonstrate the success of EC methodologies. These articles are written by leading experts of the field from different countries all over the world.