Business & Economics

Workers want and need to know their work is appreciated. Showing gratitude to employees is the easiest, fastest, most inexpensive way to boost performance. New research shows that gratitude boosts employee engagement, reduces turnover, and leads team members to express more gratitude to one another—strengthening team bonds. Studies have also shown that gratitude is beneficial for those expressing it and is one of the most powerful variables in predicting a person’s overall well-being—above money, health, and optimism. The WD-40 Company knows this firsthand. When the leadership gave thousands of managers training in expressing gratitude to their employees, the company saw record increases in revenue.

Despite these benefits, few executives effectively utilize this simple tool. In fact, new research reveals “people are less likely to express gratitude at work than anyplace else.” What accounts for the staggering chasm between awareness of gratitude’s benefits and the failure of so many leaders to do it—or do it well? Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton call this the gratitude gap. In this invaluable guide, they identify the widespread and pernicious myths about managing others that cause leaders to withhold thanks.

Gostick and Elton also introduce eight simple ways managers can show employees they are valued. They supplement their insights and advice with stories of how many of today’s most successful leaders—such as Alan Mulally of Ford and Hubert Joly of Best Buy—successfully incorporated gratitude into their leadership styles.

Showing gratitude isn’t just about being nice, it’s about being smart—really smart—and it’s a skill that everyone can easily learn.

Successful leaders today don’t dictate; they invite. They don’t dismiss; they welcome. They don’t neglect; they care. Now more than ever we must pay attention to the soft side of leadership if we want hard results. As leaders–from parents to CEOs–we must learn gracious leadership to truly, positively, change our spheres of influence.

In this passionate, powerful book, pastor and leadership mentor Terry Smith fleshes out five vital principles you need to become a hospitable leader. He shows that this type of leadership is not superficial niceness or allowing people to do whatever they want. Hospitable leadership is result-oriented because it’s motivated by genuine love. It’s how you create environments where people and dreams can thrive, where vision turns to action, and where great things happen regularly. Here is everything you need to become the type of leader people want to follow.

Muhammad Yunus, who created microcredit, invented social business, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in alleviating poverty, is one of today’s most trenchant social critics. Now he declares it’s time to admit that the capitalist engine is broken — that in its current form it inevitably leads to rampant inequality, massive unemployment, and environmental destruction. We need a new economic system that unleashes altruism as a creative force just as powerful as self-interest.

Is this a pipe dream? Not at all. In the last decade, thousands of people and organizations have already embraced Yunus’s vision of a new form of capitalism, launching innovative social businesses designed to serve human needs rather than accumulate wealth. They are bringing solar energy to millions of homes in Bangladesh; turning thousands of unemployed young people into entrepreneurs through equity investments; financing female-owned businesses in cities across the United States; bringing mobility, shelter, and other services to the rural poor in France; and creating a global support network to help young entrepreneurs launch their start-ups.

In A World of Three Zeros, Yunus describes the new civilization emerging from the economic experiments his work has helped to inspire. He explains how global companies like McCain, Renault, Essilor, and Danone got involved with this new economic model through their own social action groups, describes the ingenious new financial tools now funding social businesses, and sketches the legal and regulatory changes needed to jumpstart the next wave of socially driven innovations. And he invites young people, business and political leaders, and ordinary citizens to join the movement and help create the better world we all dream of.

The New York Times bestseller, is now completely revised and updated. In this edition, internationally recognized executive coach Lois P. Frankel reveals a distinctive set of behaviors–over 130 in all–that women learn in girlhood that ultimately sabotage them as adults.
She teaches you how to eliminate these unconscious mistakes that could be holding you back and offers invaluable coaching tips that can easily be incorporated into your social and business skills. Stop making “nice girl” errors that can become career pitfalls, such as:

Mistake #13: Avoiding office politics. If you don’t play the game, you can’t possibly win.
Mistake #21: Multi-tasking. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.
Mistake #54: Failure to negotiate. Don’t equate negotiation with confrontation.
Mistake #70: Inappropriate use of social media. Once it’s out there, it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Mistake #82: Asking permission. Children, not adults, ask for approval. Be direct, be confident.