The guide focuses on how to devise systems to suit your strategy and goals, not on how to generate information on their activities and results for external use. It covers the principles, ideas and practice involved in performance management. As organisations review their systems and ask ‘what does performance mean for them?’ and what measures and reporting will convey this information to their stakeholders, this guide offers relevant and up-to-date experience in performance management and how it can lead to improvements in performance.

By having a performance management system in place, organisations can focus on the better use of its resources and meeting desired goals and objectives. But many organisations still find this process difficult to manage. The guide covers the broad perspective of performance management. It sets out the principles of sound performance management and discusses the various tools and techniques which can be used when developing and operating performance management systems.

The guide is published by CIPFA
at £100.

The Guide makes it clear from the outset that Total Place is not a service improvement initiative nor is it a cost-cutting exercise. It is an approach to ‘public value’ that includes both improvement and innovation and a close eye on the value to the citizen being generated by each public service pound spent. It is also an attempt to bring all of the contributors to public value together in one place.

Total Place is different from the myriad initiatives that have washed over the bows during the last twenty years because it is the first time that two crucial triads have been brought together in a single piece of work. The task triad is made up of customers, counting and culture. The player triad is formed by agencies, citizens and Whitehall. The ‘task’ of Total Place has been to consider all these key aspects in the creation of public value.

The design of Total Place has been to create as much connection between the different players in public value as possible. No one agency in a place or department in Whitehall has dictated the work.

Total Place has demonstrated that local partnerships can create the relationships and space necessary to enable the community to act collectively to implement the decisions made.

The Total Place Practitioners Guide can be downloaded here .

His group coaching model, incorporating living case studies, has been developed over more than 20 years of delivering programs to top-level executives and sets the standard in the field of leadership group coaching.

Written for coaches, consultants, leadership development directors, and anyone working in or with teams, The Hedgehog Effect begins with an in-depth analysis of what teams and groups are all about. The intricacies of leadership coaching are illustrated with an elaborate example of a team coaching intervention.

In Part Two, the author applies a psychodynamic lens to the dynamics of teams and groups, taking a close look at relationship patterns, how groups evolve, and the phenomenon of the group-as-a-whole. Part Three takes a more systemic perspective, addressing the challenges that change processes pose for people in organizations, and how to create best places to work. Kets de Vries supports the whole with the story of an organizational change initiative accomplished through group coaching.

Published by Jossey Bass. ISBN: 978-1-1199-7336-2. £29.99

As teams become more and more global and distributed, visualization provides an important channel of communication—one that opens up the group’s mind to improving work systems and processes by understanding relationships, interconnections, and big picture contexts.

Visual Teams shares best practices and uses visualization as a power tool for process improvement by providing teams with a common language for high performance. The book explores how any kind of team can draw on the principles and practices of creative design teams in the software, architectural, engineering, and information design professions.

The author introduces the Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance™ Model and related tools—a system used throughout companies such as Nike, Genentech, Becton Dickinson, Chevron, and others.

Visual Teams presents a comprehensive framework, best practices, and unique visual tools for becoming an innovative, high-performance team.

Published by Wiley. ISBN: 978-1-1180-7743-6. £19.99.

The book is filled with lessons and examples from the author’s 40 years of experience. It shows how to set performance standards, make sure the right work is being done, and remove performance barriers. It also illustrates how leaders can make the transition to the next level and achieve full performance.

The author explains the pipeline performance concept in dealing with pervasive uncertainty. He also demonstrates the expected results at every level of leadership and suggests approaches to successful implementation.

Published by Wiley. ISBN: 978-0-470-87728-9 £23.97

The authors offer a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities facing women in the workforce across the globe. This compilation is particularly useful, and inclusive, because Davidson and Burke purposefully identify trends and advances in both emerging and developed nations. For those interested in understanding the forces shaping the work lives of women around the world, this book will be an important addition to their libraries.

There is a looming crisis in organizational leadership, with demographic factors and globalization leading to an international talent war. Against that background, continuing bias against women seeking leadership responsibilities means organizations are failing to develop available talent, and when corporations experience economic difficulties the consequences bear disproportionately on women managers.

Marilyn J. Davidson’s research interests include minority entrepreneurs; lesbian, gay and transsexuals in the workplace; women in management; gender pay gaps; occupational stress and gender differences; and diversity and equality in the workplace.

Ronald J. Burke’s work has focused on the relationship between the work environment and individual and organizational health.

Published by Gower. ISBN: 978-0-566-08916-9. £65.00

These leaders need a deep understanding of what motivates us as human beings and how we tap into and influence other people’s self-motivation.

In his previous best-selling books The Six Secrets of Change, Leading in a Culture of Change, and Turnaround Leadership, Michael Fullan examined the concepts and processes of change. In Change Leader he turns his focus to the core practices of leadership that are so vital for leading in today’s complex world. He reveals seven core practices for today’s leaders, all of which appear to be deceptively simple but actually get to the essence of what differentiates a powerful leader from one who is merely competent. They include being resolute, motivating the masses and collaborating to compete.

Throughout the book Fullan argues that powerful leaders have built bedrocks of credibility, have learned how to identify the few things that matter most, and know how to leverage their skills in ways that benefit their entire organization.

The author shows leaders how to avoid policies and strategies that focus on shallow and short-term goals and develop leadership skills for long-term success.
With a wealth of illustrative examples from business, education, nonprofit, and government sectors Change Leader provides a much-needed leadership guide for today’s turbulent climate.

Published by Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0-470-58213-8. £18.99

Whether public services are seen as Beauty (in Scandinavia, say) or The Beast (by the US Tea Party, for example), they face increased demands and reduced resources almost everywhere. Inevitably, one solution that has been turned to has been IT. (This is particularly true of local government, the health and education sectors, and the emergency services, which have invested heavily in IT ‘solutions’.) New computer systems – often alongside merged back office functions, economies of scale and outsourcing – are regularly expected to offer a better and faster service at lower cost.

David Wastell calls our continuing and misplaced faith in imposed, computer-based solutions ‘technomagic’. In Managers as Designers in the Public Services, he draws startling parallels between our expectations of IT solutions in the public sector and the expectations of Melanesian canoe-builders who use bunches of grass to drive heaviness and slowness out of their boats. He then uses detailed examples and case studies from the UK and USA to show just how misplaced has been our reliance on IT-based ‘solutions’ to public sector problems. But this book is much more than an informed and devastating critique of the UK’s Integrated Children’s System, US educational reform and the high-profile failure of the London Ambulance Service.

He goes on to develop and apply the principles of Systems Thinking and Design Thinking to show how we need a ‘design revolution’ in the public services. Rather than monitoring, measuring and controlling, public sector managers need to see themselves as designers, whose job it is to reshape work systems and the whole workplace. He then uses two further case studies to give concrete examples of Design Thinking in action, with highly positive outcomes from design-based approaches to IT innovation.

Published by Trearchy Press. ISBN: 978-1-908009-31-9. £19.50

How can women break through? Break Your Own Rules distills the six faulty assumptions, or “rules”, most women follow that get in the way—then delivers the correlating new rules that promise to clear that path. For example, the old rule of “Focus on Others” must be replaced by “Take Center Stage,” “Hard Work Will Get You There” must yield to “Be Politically Savvy.” “Play It Safe” must give way to “Play to Win.” “Ask Permission” must be replaced by “Proceed Until Apprehended.”

The book features the results of over 1,700 interviews with executives in Fortune 1000 companies, as well as the authors’ new research and ongoing work with over 5,000 professional women. It showcases previously-untold stories from high profile women including Ann Moore (CEO, Time Inc.), Susan Ivey (CEO, Reynolds American), Cathy Bessant (Global Executive for Technology and Operations for Bank of America), Lynn Ford (CEO, ING Solutions).

The authors reveal what it really takes for any woman to succeed at the highest levels.

Published by Jossey-Bass ISBN: 978-1-1180-6254-8. $20.76

Words like ‘networks’, ‘alliances’, ‘partnerships’ and ‘communities’ reflect our sense of connectedness and require a very different orientation to leadership. We can no longer operate with a divide and conquer mentality, putting self-interest above the common good.

In this groundbreaking and thoughtful book, the author explains that there are seven keys we need to possess if we want to be a source of inspiration to others. She describes how we can establish security, generate passion, share power and inspire love. She also stresses the importance of the voice truth and trusting our intuition.

Published by Random House. EAN 9781846043253. £9.99