In You’ve Got to Be Kidding!, Nan DeMars explains why companies that have distinct ethical cultures are the best companies for which to work and also the most profitable. These companies have a strategic competitive advantage because they know how to resolve ethical dilemmas before they cause major problems. Ethical dilemmas are the result of human weaknesses and, therefore, will always exist. An ethical dilemma occurs when people must choose between two negatives (i.e., disobey their boss or defy their own conscience). Dilemmas cause stress that is harmful to employees’ health and productivity, while the company’s reputation and profits eventually suffer as well. By cultivating an ethical climate, companies can ensure that life in the workplace can be aligned with authentic morals and ethics.

Managing projects with sanctioned leadership authority can be challenging. In Results Without Authority, Tom Kendrick provides a detailed guide to help leaders gain and maintain control throughout a project’s lifecycle, with special consideration for leaders who lack formal authority over team members. Because projects range in complexity and character, Kendrick provides various options for leaders to pick and choose from the detailed guidelines and examples in order to find the information that is most appropriate to their projects. By focusing on process, influence, and metrics, leaders of all kinds can successfully see projects through to conclusion. 

Today’s young people make up the most wired generation in history. They are growing up in a period of technological innovation, economic recession, and instant access to information, which is shaping their wants and needs from brands. Millennials hold the power to help brands launch or languish, so marketers are faced with the daunting challenge of understanding their complex mindsets. In Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right, youth marketing expert Tina Wells provides business professionals with a road map to understanding the Millennial Generation. Wells provides tips and strategies marketers can use to figure out who Millennials are, what they want right now, and what they will want in the future. 

In What You Need to Know about Starting a Business, Kevin Duncan offers would-be entrepreneurs a crash course in setting up any kind of business. He provides advice and tips on everything from refining the idea for the business to setting up accounting systems and selecting staff. The book also touches on money issues, business plans, and what the owner of a startup needs to do to ensure the business becomes durable. Above all, Duncan tells those who want to start a business not to get trapped into doing endless preparation and putting off opening their business until they have it perfectly planned out. Those who start with a good idea in the right location can tweak the details as they go.

In Positioned Dan L. Ward and Rob Tripp discuss strategic workforce planning (SWP) and its value for businesses and HR departments. SWP is the formal process of getting the right people with the right skills in the right roles at the right time. It intertwines human resources (HR) with business strategy and workforce analytics and enables companies to improve hiring, retention, training, and development by making data-based Decisions. Ward, Tripp, and more than 30 active SWP and HR professionals and consultants, present theories and case studies of big businesses and government organizations to illustrate best practices and explain analytics. Each chapter is written by a different contributor.

In The Decision Maker, Dennis Bakke depicts, through the fictional saga of one company, a transition to delegated decision making that results in new responsibilities for virtually all employees. MedTec, employing almost 200 people, is a medical device company recently acquired by Tom, Jim, and a hands-off private-equity investor. With reluctant support from Jim, who agrees to watch the bottom line, Tom sets out to transform the corporate culture of MedTec by empowering people at all levels of the company to make decisions that would traditionally have been passed up to a higher level. There are pitfalls, setbacks, and unexpected successes along the way, in what for Tom is largely a learning-by-doing experience.

In Fantastic, author Alan Austin-Smith attempts to answer the age old question of why some people are consistently more successful than others. Having studied many successful people, Austin-Smith presents the Fantastic Theory, a presentation of the seven characteristics that all fantastic people have. In order to be fantastic, people must stand out above the rest who are merely good enough by adopting the seven characteristics. These characteristics are known as “the other stuff” and are the secret of successful people. Austin-Smith stresses throughout the book that simply reading and learning is not enough; people must take action in order to move in the direction of their dreams. Being good is not enough; to be successful people must strive to be fantastic at what they do.

In Fantastic, author Alan Austin-Smith attempts to answer the age old question of why some people are consistently more successful than others. Having studied many successful people, Austin-Smith presents the Fantastic Theory, a presentation of the seven characteristics that all fantastic people have. In order to be fantastic, people must stand out above the rest who are merely good enough by adopting the seven characteristics. These characteristics are known as “the other stuff” and are the secret of successful people. Austin-Smith stresses throughout the book that simply reading and learning is not enough; people must take action in order to move in the direction of their dreams. Being good is not enough; to be successful people must strive to be fantastic at what they do. 

Various forces, such as regulatory reporting, Medicare mandates, better educated consumers, and the continuing struggle of physicians to earn a living while still taking good care of patients, have made collaboration a prerequisite for achieving excellence in healthcare. In Getting It Done, editors Kenneth H. Cohn and Steven A. Fellows have brought the expertise of many healthcare experts together. Each chapter is written by a different author or group of authors and presents a case, analyzes it, summarizes key concepts, and offers lessons learned. Practitioners can find real-life solutions to difficult situations and gain valuable knowledge from others who have dealt with similar issues. If the community of physicians is not fully engaged in daily operations that drive improvements in performance, important achievements in healthcare cannot be realized. 

In Risky Is the New Safe, Randy Gage suggests that in today’s brave new world, the most dangerous action is inaction. The economic models and systems of the past are no longer relevant. Conventional thinking and playing it safe will lead yesterday’s household names into financial disaster, and the new winners will be the contrarian thinkers and brash visionaries who recognize that the accelerating pace of change provides an endless series of opportunities for greatness.