Leadership is the habit of making good choices. Even in difficult and uncertain circumstances, the most effective leaders focus their attention and overcome entrenched patterns of behavior to push an organization to new heights of success. This capability is no fluke: the latest research on the brain shows that we can pinpoint the mental activity associated with it—and cultivate it for our benefit. In this book, Art Kleiner, a strategy expert; Jeffrey Schwartz, a research psychiatrist; and Josie Thomson, an executive coach, give a transformative explanation of how cutting-edge neuroscience can help business leaders set a course toward better management. Mapping the functions of a manager onto established patterns of mental activity, they identify crucial brain circuits and their parallels in organizational culture. Strategic leaders, they show, play the role of wise advocates: able to go beyond day-to-day transactional behavior to a longer-term, broader perspective that articulates their organization’s deeper purpose. True leaders can play this influencer role in an organization because they have cultivated similar self-reflective habits in their own minds. Providing a powerful guide to decision strategies and their consequences, The Wise Advocate helps managers find their own inner voice and then make that voice ring out loud and clear, with a four-step program for practice and catalytic implications for management strategy, executive education, and business results.

Two neuroscience experts explain how their 4-Step Method can help identify negative thoughts and change bad habits for good. A leading neuroplasticity researcher and the coauthor of the groundbreaking books Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz has spent his career studying the human brain. He pioneered the first mindfulness-based treatment program for people suffering from OCD, teaching patients how to achieve long-term relief from their compulsions. Schwartz works with psychiatrist Rebecca Gladding to refine a program that successfully explains how the brain works and why we often feel besieged by overactive brain circuits (i.e. bad habits, social anxieties, etc.) the key to making life changes that you want—to make your brain work for you—is to consciously choose to “starve” these circuits of focused attention, thereby decreasing their influence and strength. You Are Not Your Brain carefully outlines their program, showing readers how to identify negative impulses, channel them through the power of focused attention, and ultimately lead more fulfilling and empowered lives.

Traditional "push/pull" marketing no longer works. Even highly-touted customer relationship initiatives are failing. Smart companies are pioneering an entirely new route to higher margins and sustainable competitive advantage: customer advocacy. This book reveals how it works, why it works, and how to make it work for your company. In today's environment, you must build unprecedented trust among customers who have more information, options, and sophistication than ever. You must transcend "relationship marketing" to focus on maximizing customer interests and deepening customer partnerships. It's not easy. But if you do it, you gain immense opportunities your competitors simply can't touch. Glen Urban offers a complete blueprint for getting there. You'll learn how to improve on all eight elements of customer advocacy, from transparency to partnership. Urban answers frequently asked questions about advocacy strategies, helping you identify and overcome your most significant obstacles. Then, drawing on new case studies, he shows how to align culture, metrics, incentives, and organization, driving effective advocacy throughout your entire organization.

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.

Wise Leadership provides current and emerging leaders with a grounded, intuitive framework to help them understand and master multiple leadership identities, allowing them to adapt seamlessly to different leadership settings and challenges. Anchored in a wisdom-based approach, Kessler digs into leadership’s philosophical core to uncover the six fundamental challenges leaders face and presents the corresponding set of six synergistic competencies or tools that readers can develop to solve them. Bridging scholarship with practice, each part of this leadership toolbox is outlined in a clear and consistent way so that readers can learn exactly when, why, and how to use it. The user-friendly format also eases comparison and customization of the different approaches along with a consideration of their strengths and dangers. Incorporating colorful examples and practical guidelines, this book will equip both students and professionals with a dynamic repertoire of flexible leadership skills that will help them succeed in any situation.

A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

A slave runs away from his master. A mutual friend steps in to mediate between the two of them. Can there be healing in such a scarred relationship? In the face of such a daunting breach, is reconciliation (not to what was, but to what God designed) even possible? This is the situation faced in the book of Philemon. From this short New Testament letter, pastor and author Dhati Lewis (Among Wolves) unpacks key principles that Paul applied to being an advocate in the midst of division. The divisions of our day don’t look the same as Paul’s, but the principles are timeless. In 2 Corinthians 5, God commissioned us to be his ambassadors and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Whether we’re engaging in issues of politics, ethnicity, or religious beliefs, our heart posture should be one of an advocate set on reconciliation. The problem is, too many of us approach difficult conversations with the heart of an aggravator. Aggravators sometimes look like they are pursuing good things, but their heart is not toward reconciliation. Any motive less than reconciliation falls short of the desires of God’s heart. We need godly advocates in every sphere of life. This book will specifically apply these principles to issues of ethnic division. Are you willing to call any division caused by discrimination, prejudice, or racism a sin? Do you want to grow in your ability to navigate tense and emotional conversations about ethnic divisions? Are you ready to become an advocate?

The definitive classic that has helped more than 400,000 people defeat obsessive-compulsive behavior, with all-new material from the author An estimated 5 million Americans suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and live diminished lives in which they are compelled to obsess about something or to repeat a similar task over and over. Traditionally, OCD has been treated with Prozac or similar drugs. The problem with medication, aside from its cost, is that 30 percent of people treated don't respond to it, and when the pills stop, the symptoms invariably return. In Brain Lock, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., presents a simple four-step method for overcoming OCD that is so effective, it's now used in academic treatment centers throughout the world. Proven by brain-imaging tests to actually alter the brain's chemistry, this method doesn't rely on psychopharmaceuticals. Instead, patients use cognitive self-therapy and behavior modification to develop new patterns of response to their obsessions. In essence, they use the mind to fix the brain. Using the real-life stories of actual patients, Brain Lock explains this revolutionary method and provides readers with the inspiration and tools to free themselves from their psychic prisons and regain control of their lives.

An eminent conductor's theories on musical training--musicians should read full scores and be familiar with the musical conventions and cultural milieu of the composer's time--are punctuated by lively anecdotes and reminiscences of his international musical career

'The Devil's Advocate' brings a fresh approach to the do's and don'ts of good advocacy. Written with humour and style, the title explains clear techniques, taking the reader through the practical application of advocacy step-by-step.