No Magic Bullets: Seven Steps to Better Performance

No Magic Bullets: Seven Steps to Better Performance Review

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No Magic Bullets: Seven Steps to Better Performance Feature

Just like successful diets, building a high performing workforce requires more than chasing after the latest quick-fix fad or hiring the best consulting gurus to get your organization on track. Companies often look for a silver bullet, a single program that solves all their problems. Author Joe Willmore presents a convincing case why chasing a magic bullet is a road without end. In place of that, Willmore offers a simple, seven step plan that will successfully build a high performing workforce, which then results in organization-wide improvement that sustains bottom-line value. Along with the plan, the author provides examples that illustrate key points and concepts, as well as practical advice that spurs action.

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The New School of Information Security

The New School of Information Security Review

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The New School of Information Security Feature

<>“It is about time that a book like The New School came along. The age of security as pure technology is long past, and modern practitioners need to understand the social and cognitive aspects of security if they are to be successful. Shostack and Stewart teach readers exactly what they need to know--I just wish I could have had it when I first started out.”

--David Mortman, CSO-in-Residence Echelon One, former CSO Siebel Systems

 

Why is information security so dysfunctional? Are you wasting the money you spend on security? This book shows how to spend it more effectively. How can you make more effective security decisions? This book explains why professionals have taken to studying economics, not cryptography--and why you should, too. And why security breach notices are the best thing to ever happen to information security. It’s about time someone asked the biggest, toughest questions about information security. Security experts Adam Shostack and Andrew Stewart don’t just answer those questions--they offer honest, deeply troubling answers. They explain why these critical problems exist and how to solve them. Drawing on powerful lessons from economics and other disciplines, Shostack and Stewart offer a new way forward. In clear and engaging prose, they shed new light on the critical challenges that are faced by the security field. Whether you’re a CIO, IT manager, or security specialist, this book will open your eyes to new ways of thinking about--and overcoming--your most pressing security challenges. The New School enables you to take control, while others struggle with non-stop crises.

• Better evidence for better decision-making
  Why the security data you have doesn’t support effective decision-making--and what to do about it

  
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Ruling by Statute: How Uncertainty and Vote Buying Shape Lawmaking

Ruling by Statute: How Uncertainty and Vote Buying Shape Lawmaking Review

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Ruling by Statute: How Uncertainty and Vote Buying Shape Lawmaking Feature

What are the main factors that allow presidents and prime ministers to enact policy through acts of government that carry the force of law? Or, simply put, when does a government actually govern? The theory presented in this book provides a major advance in our understanding of statutory policy making. Using a combination of an original analytical framework and statistical techniques, as well as historical and contemporary case studies, the book demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, variations in legislative passage rates are the consequences of differences in uncertainty, not partisan support. In particular, it shows that a chief executive's legislative success depends on the predictability of legislators' voting behavior and whether buying votes is a feasible option. From a normative standpoint, the book reveals that governability is best served when the opposition has realistic chances of occasionally defeating the executive in the legislative arena.

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Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method

Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method Review

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Making Political Science Matter: Debating Knowledge, Research, and Method Feature

Making Political Science Matter brings together a number of prominent scholars to discuss the state of the field of Political Science. In particular, these scholars are interested in ways to reinvigorate the discipline by connecting it to present day political struggles. Uniformly well-written and steeped in a strong sense of history, the contributors consider such important topics as: the usefulness of rational choice theory; the ethical limits of pluralism; the use (and misuse) of empirical research in political science; the present-day divorce between political theory and empirical science; the connection between political science scholarship and political struggles, and the future of the discipline. This volume builds on the debate in the discipline over the significance of the work of Bent Flyvbjerg, whose book Making Social Science Matter has been characterized as a manifesto for the Perestroika Movement that has roiled the field in recent years.

Contributors include: Brian Caterino, Stewart Clegg, Bent Flyvbjerg, Mary Hawkesworth, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Gregory J. Kasza, David Kettler, David D. Laitin, Timothy W. Luke, Theodore R. Schatzki, Sanford F. Schram, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Corey S. Shdaimah, Roland W. Stahl, and Leslie Paul Thiele.

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Statistical Thinking in Sports

Statistical Thinking in Sports Review

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Statistical Thinking in Sports Feature

Since the first athletic events found a fan base, sports and statistics have always maintained a tight and at times mythical relationship. As a way to relay the telling of a game's drama and attest to the prodigious powers of the heroes involved, those reporting on the games tallied up the numbers that they believe best described the action and best defined the winning edge. However, they may not have always counted the right numbers. Many of our hallowed beliefs about sports statistics have long been fraught with misnomers. Whether it concerns Scottish football or American baseball, the most revered statistics often have little to do with any winning edge.

Covering an international collection of sports, Statistical Thinking in Sports provides an accessible survey of current research in statistics and sports, written by experts from a variety of arenas. Rather than rely on casual observation, they apply the rigorous tools of statistics to re-examine many of those concepts that have gone from belief to fact, based mostly on the repetition of their claims. Leaving assumption behind, these researchers take on a host of tough questions-

Is a tennis player only as good as his or her first serve?

Is there such a thing as home field advantage?

Do concerns over a decline in soccer's competitive balance have any merit?

What of momentum-is its staying power any greater than yesterday's win?

And what of pressure performers? Are there such creatures or ultimately, does every performer fall back to his or her established normative?

Investigating a wide range of international team and individual sports, the book considers the ability to make predictions, define trends, and measure any number of influences. It is full of interesting and useful examples for those teaching introductory statistics. Although the articles are aimed at general readers, the serious researcher in sports statistics will also find the articles of value and highly useful as starting points for further research.

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Managing Sports Organizations, Second Edition: Responsibility for Performance (Fundamentals of Sport Management)

Managing Sports Organizations, Second Edition: Responsibility for Performance (Fundamentals of Sport Management) Review

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Managing Sports Organizations, Second Edition: Responsibility for Performance (Fundamentals of Sport Management) Feature

Managing Sport Organizations, 2e is a newly updated and comprehensive introduction to the themes and elements surrounding sport management. The book teaches management theory and principles in a coherent manner, helping to reinforce these concepts for students in schools of business, and serving to introduce them to students in other school settings (kinesiology, exercise science, sport science). The authors introduce important industry segment information chapter by chapter, allowing students to wed theory and application throughout. An online Instructor's Manual and a Test Bank are available as well.

· Important industry segment information is introduced chapter by chapter, allowing students to wed theory and application throughout
· Effectively weaves sport industry issues with fundamental management theories and practices
· Provides informative introductions to all fundamental aspects of sport management- Leadership, Information Technology, Media, Facility management, HR and much more

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Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation

Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation Review

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Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation Feature

People tend to think of creativity and strategy as opposites. This book argues that they are far more similar than we might expect. More than this, actively aligning creative and strategic thinking in any enterprise can enable more effective innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and organizing for the future.

By considering strategy as a creative process (and vice versa), the authors define ‘creative strategy’ as a mindset which switches between opposing processes and characteristics, and which drives every aspect of the business. The authors draw experiences and cases from across this false divide – from the music industry, sports, fashion, Shakespearean theatre companies, creative and media organizations and dance, as well as what we might regard as more mundane providers of mainstream products and services – to uncover the creative connections behind successful strategy.

“Creative Strategy is a talisman for those looking to take a new path”

Matt Hardisty, Strategy Director, Mother Advertising

“It has been said that business is a hybrid of dancing and calculation – the former incorporating the creative within a firm, the latter the strategic. Bilton and Cummings show how these apparently contradictory processes can be integrated. Their insights about how firms can ‘create to strategize’ and ‘strategize to create’ are informative for managers and management scholars alike.”

Jay Barney, Professor and Chase Chair of Strategic Management, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

“In today’s world, new thinking – creativity – is required to tackle long-standing problems or address new opportunities. The trouble is few organizations understand how to foster and apply creativity, at least in any consistent manner. This book provides new insights into just how that can be done.  It moves creativity from being just the occasional, and fortuitous, flash of inspiration, to being an embedded feature of the way the organization is run.”

Sir George Cox, Author of the Cox Review of Creativity in Business for HM Govt., Past Chair of the Design Council

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