Reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. This book explains how you can adopt these principles - known as the 'Toyota Production System' or 'Lean Production' - to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry.

Ships from Spain. Please allow 10-18 business days to arrive at UK address (10-21 worldwide) due to postal service checks and customs. Can we bring more meaning to our lives and help change the world at the same time? Richard Branson, at his brilliant and motivating best, reveals how with his exciting new vision for the future. It is time to turn capitalism upside down - to shift our values, to switch from a profit focus to caring for people, communities and the planet.

A comprehensive introduction to the business of banking, this book covers both theoretical and applied issues relating to the global banking industry, highlighted by examples from across Europe and the wider international arena. It covers contemporary central banking and bank regulation issues comparing the UK, Eurozone and the US.

Argues that though globalization should be a powerful force for good, it has been badly mishandled by the West (especially its lead institutions, the World Bank and the IMF), and that the anti-globalizing protesters have much to say that we should listen to.

A gripping novel in which Alex Rogo fights to save his factory before it is closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. The story contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC).

In the modern world of business, it's all about the ability to earn the client's trust and thereby win the ability to influence them. This detailed resource book provides readers with the five crucial steps they need for developing, managing and improving client confidence.

Tagline: How to give a presentation with passion, persuasion, and impact. Presentations are meant to inform, inspire, and persuade audiences. Unfortunately all too often audiences leave feeling like they've wasted their time or somehow missed the point completely.

At last, a straightforward guide to help fill the people management learning gap for new managers

This book provides a comprehensive and exacting introduction to the principles and practice of external auditing. It describes and explains, in non-technical language, the nature of the audit function and the principles of the audit process. The book covers international auditing and accounting standards and relevant statute and case law.

The vital role of emotional intelligence in the new style of management - this is the book no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss. It transforms the art of leadership into the science of results.

Smart people often believe that the opinion of the crowd is always inferior to the opinion of the individual specialist. Philosophical giants such as Nietzsche thought that"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups". Henry David Thoreau lamented:"The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest member." The motto of the great and the ordinary seems to be: Bet on the expert because crowds are generally stupid and often dangerous. Business columnist James Surowiecki's new book The Wisdom of Crowds explains exactly why the conventional wisdom is wrong. The fact is that, under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. Groups don't even need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent people in order to be smart. Even if most of the people within a group are not especially well-informed or rational, it can still reach a collectively wise decision. Why? Because, as it turns out, if you ask a large enough group of diverse, independent people to make a prediction or estimate a probability, and then average those estimates, the errors each of them makes in coming up with an answer will cancel themselves out. Not any old crowd will do of course. For the crowd to be wise it has to satisfy four specific conditions, but once those conditions are met, its judgment is likely to be accurate.

Surowieki concentrates on three kinds of problems. The first are cognition problems (problems that are likely to have definitive answers, such as:"How many books will Amazon sell this month?"). The second are problems of coordination (problems requiring members of a group to figure out how to coordinate their behaviour with one another) and the third are problems of cooperation (getting self-interested, distrustful people to work together-- despite their selfishness). The brilliant first half of the book illustrates this theory with practical examples. The second half of the book essentially consists of case studies with each chapter talking about the way collective intelligence either flourishes or flounders. Much of this part deals with business topics such as corporations, markets and the dynamics of a stock-market bubble.

Surowieki has an engaging, direct style defending his surprising central thesis in entertaining ways by, for example, talking about laying bets on football games and political elections; traffic jams; Google; the Challenger explosion and the search for a missing submarine. The Wisdom of Crowds is an entertaining book making a serious point and by the end of the superb first half the reader has been made to accept that, while with most things, the average is mediocrity, when it comes to decision-making the average results in excellence. -- Larry Brown

Working With Emotional Intelligence takes the concepts from Daniel Goleman's bestseller, Emotional Intelligence , into the workplace. Business leaders and outstanding performers are not defined by their IQs or even their job skills, but by their"emotional intelligence": a set of competencies that distinguishes how people manage feelings, interact and communicate. Analyses done by dozens of experts in 500 corporations, government agencies and non- profit organizations worldwide conclude that emotional intelligence is the barometer of excellence on virtually any job. This book explains what emotional intelligence is and why it counts more than IQ, or expertise, for excelling on the job. It details 12 personal competencies based on self-mastery (such as accurate self- assessment, self- control, initiative and optimism) and 13 key relationship skills (such as service orientation, developing others, conflict management and building bonds). Goleman includes many examples and anecdotes--from Fortune 500 companies to a non-profit preschool--that show how these competencies lead to or thwart success.

Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can keep growing--it continues to develop with life experiences. Understanding and raising your emotional intelligence is essential to your success and leadership potential. This book is an excellent resource for learning how to accomplish this. -- Joan Price

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently . In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organisation debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as"treat people as you like to be treated";"people are capable of almost anything"; and"a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy.""Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write."This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place."

The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Buckingham and Coffman outline"four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills. First, Break All the Rules offers specific techniques for helping people perform better on the job. For instance, the authors show ways to structure a trial period for a new worker and how to create a pay plan that rewards people for their expertise instead of how fast they climb the company ladder."The point is to focus people toward performance," they write."The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this." Written in plain English and well organised, this book tells you exactly how to improve as a supervisor. -- Dan Ring

Perhaps one small flaw is the only thing that keeps you from where you want to be. This book states that people often do well in spite of certain habits rather than because of them - and need a 'to stop' list rather than what 'to do'. It intends to help global leaders overcome their unconscious annoying habits and become more successful.