Based on four years of primary research, this book explains the evolution of the modern consumer and clearly demonstrates why traditional advertising no longer works. Illustrated with an extensive number of examples of advertising campaigns and full of practical tools.

Research shows that consumer conversations, client happiness and empowered employees are the pillars of growth in a successful company. However, many organizations make decisions that contradict these findings and hamper their prospects of expansion. The Conversation Company will help your organization become a business in which people are the key driver of growth, sharing engaging content and building the company's culture and business objectives. People now expect any brand to have a human 'face' and you need to define a clear set of values for both employees and customers, incorporating them in your marketing so that all company communication reflects the DNA of your organization. Based on solid research and including interviews and case studies of companies such as Zappos, Kodak, Nokia and Microsoft, The Conversation Company is the key to sustainable success.

Mobile devices, new digital technologies and the increasing popularity of social media all contribute to the ever-growing gap between internet-savvy consumers and traditional means of advertising. With the old tried and tested techniques no longer being effective, marketers, who do not want to fall behind, need to find novel ways to engage with the new-sprung breed of consumers. To do this, learning to listen and communicate with your consumers is critical. Based on four years of primary research, The Conversation Manager explains the evolution of the modern consumer and clearly demonstrates why traditional advertising no longer works. Illustrated with an extensive number of examples of advertising campaigns, this book is full of practical tools to help you transform your company strategy and kick-start conversations with your customers.

Managing Humans is a selection of the best essays from Michael Lopp's popular website Rands in Repose(www.randsinrepose.com). Lopp is one of the most sought-after IT managers in Silicon Valley, and draws on his experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland. This book reveals a variety of different approaches for creating innovative, happy development teams. It covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build lasting and useful engineering culture. The essays are biting, hilarious, and always informative.

Radical Candor is the sweet spot between managers who are obnoxiously aggressive on the one side and ruinously empathetic on the other. It is about providing guidance, which involves a mix of praise as well as criticism, delivered to produce better results and help employees develop their skills and boundaries of success. Great bosses have a strong relationship with their employees, and Kim Scott Malone has identified three simple principles for building better relationships with your employees: make it personal, get stuff done, and understand why it matters. Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Drawing on years of first-hand experience, and distilled clearly to give actionable lessons to the reader, Radical Candor shows how to be successful while retaining your integrity and humanity. Radical Candor is the perfect handbook for those who are looking to find meaning in their job and create an environment where people both love their work, their colleagues and are motivated to strive to ever greater success.

You have to talk with a colleague about a fraught situation, but you're worried that they'll yell, or blame you, or shut down. You fear your emotions could block you from a resolution. But you can communicate in a way that's constructive--not combative. Difficult Conversations walks you through: Uncovering the root cause of friction Maintaining a positive mind-set Untangling the problem together Agreeing on a way forward Don't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives--from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.

Conversation techniques and tools that can help strong managers become great leaders Often the very same skills and traits that enable rising stars to achieve success "tenacity, aggressiveness, self-confidence" become liabilities when promoted into a leadership track. While managers' conversations are generally transactional and centered on the task at hand, leaders must focus on people, asking great questions and aligning them with the vision for the future. Leadership mindsets and skills can be developed, and Leadership Conversations provides practical guidance for connecting with others in ways that transform each interaction into an opportunity for organizational and personal growth. Identifies four types of conversation every leader must master: building relationships, making decisions, taking action, and developing others Provides an action plan for boosting your personal leadership potential, as well for developing leadership skills in others Draws on the authors' rich experience coaching and working with leaders at a wide range of organizations, including NASA, the U.S. Navy, intelligence agencies, Boeing, Gillette, Bausch & Lomb, and Georgetown University Leadership Conversations is required reading for both high-potential managers looking to make it to the next level and leaders looking to develop their people.

Whether your team is in an office, on a field, in a classroom, or in your living room-have you ever felt they had more to give, but you weren't quite sure how to get it out of them? Have you ever thought they might benefit from a coaching conversation, but you didn't really know what to say or how to say it? Are you looking for that one new idea, that one simple strategy that will take your team's performance-and your career-to the next level? If so, The Weekly Coaching Conversation is definitely the book for you. Every once in a while a book like this comes along with a message so simple-yet so profound-it literally transforms people's lives. In a story as inspiring as it is informative, bestselling author Brian Souza reveals the secrets to unleashing a person's potential. Introducating a groundbreaking, yet easy-to-apply framework that's backed by years of rigorous research, The Weekly Coaching Conversation gives managers, supervisors, and team leaders that playbook to turbocharge any teams' performance.

Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller! Congratulations, you're a manager! After you pop the champagne, accept the shiny new title, and step into this thrilling next chapter of your career, the truth descends like a fog: you don't really know what you're doing. That's exactly how Julie Zhuo felt when she became a rookie manager at the age of 25. She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations? Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager. The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including: * How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included) * When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway * How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss * Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answers Whether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.

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