Geoff Colvin

What if everything you know about raw talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong? Very few people are truly great at what they do. But why aren't they? Why don't we manage businesses like Warren Buffett, play golf like Tiger Woods or play the violin like Itzhak Perlman? Greatness doesn't come from inborn talent but from 'deliberate practice'. This isn't the kind of hard work that your parents told you about, but more of it equals better performance. Talent is Overrated will change the way you think about your life and work - and will inspire you to achieve more in everything you do. Great performance isn't reserved for a preordained few.

What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

Talent is Overrated

Talent Is Overrated

It's easy to imagine a nightmare scenario in which computers simply take over most of the tasks that people now get paid to do. The unavoidable question—will millions of people lose out, unable to best the machine?—is increasingly dominating business, education, economics, and policy. The bestselling author of Talent Is Overrated explains how the skills and economy values are changing in historic ways and offers a guide to what's next for all workers. Mastering technical skills that have historically been in demand no longer differentiates us as it used to. Instead, our greatest advantage lies in our deepest, most essentially human abilities—empathy, creativity, social sensitivity, storytelling, humor, relationship building, and expressing ourselves with greater power than logic can ever achieve. These high-value skills craete tremendous competitive advantage—more devoted customers, stronger cultures, breakthrough ideas, and more effective teams. And while many of us regard these abilities as innate traits, it turns out they can all be developed. As Colvin shows, they're already being developed in a range of farsighted organizations, including the Cleveland Clinic, the U.S. Army, and Stanford Business School.

What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will

Humans Are Underrated

Terrance M. Scott

Minimize problem behavior and maximize student success! Acting-out behavior by students manifests in ways that make classroom management and teaching very challenging. Building on a model using seven phases of acting-out behavior presented in the first edition, the newly updated edition draws on new research in applied behavior analysis, sound instructional principles, and functional behavior assessment to deliver a clear roadmap for educators to design interventions in a clear, systematic, and achievable matter. Features include: Managing each phase of the acting-out cycle—from structuring the classroom, to handling escalated behavior, to recovery Case studies that distill concrete action steps from the book’s concepts Checklists, tools, resources, and templates for applying the book’s principles to any classroom

Managing the Cycle of Acting-Out Behavior in the Classroom

While many practicing Christians are relatively satisfied with their prayer life, others are not. The latter often find their prayer practice has dried up. Their traditional forms of prayer at churches have become routine and empty. In a very real sense, there is a void in their spiritual lives. They want a deeper union with God yet experience an unsettling estrangement with their current pathway in prayer. In Contemplative Prayer at Work in Our Lives, Geoff Colvin draws on his own experiences, studies of spiritual literature, and participation in retreats and meditation groups, to unravel the challenging practice of contemplative prayer, a unique form of meditation involving very few words in silence and stillness. Contemplative prayer centers on the fundamental belief that God dwells not only in the world at large but also at the center of our being. This book offers Christians an approach for understanding contemplative prayer followed by hands-on detail for developing and sustaining a practice that hopefully leads to a richer and fuller spiritual journey to union with God.

Resting in God's Presence and Action

Contemplative Prayer at Work in Our Lives

George Sugai

In Pursuit of Positive and Proactive Behaviors – The Challenge Every school wants to provide a safe, preventive, and positive learning environment, but recent shifts in societal and cultural norms have given rise to sometimes troublesome and reactive behaviors. Schools wonder how to address these problematic behaviors while making real change happen. This book offers seven procedural steps to build a proactive schoolwide discipline plan that maximizes teaching and learning, prevents problem behaviors, and maintains desirable behavior to enhance school success. Get started in creating a positive and supportive environment by learning how to: ? Develop, teach, and maintain school-wide behavior expectations ? Correct problem behaviors ? Sustain your plan for the long haul

A Guide for Principals and Leadership Teams

Seven Steps for Developing a Proactive Schoolwide Discipline Plan

Martin R. Sheehan

Based on Geoff Colvin’s bestselling book, Managing the Cycle of Acting-Out Behavior in the Classroom, this practitioner-friendly guide provides special and general education teachers of autistic students with a six-phase positive behavior support model that includes interventions for each phase. Outlining practical steps for preventing and responding to the various phases of meltdown behavior in students with autism spectrum disorder, you’ll find: • An overview of ASD • Examples of meltdown behavior • Common triggers • Addressing sensory issues • Establishing expectations and rules • Collaborating with parents • And much more Teachers will find experienced guidance for providing a supportive environment in which students with ASD can succeed.

Managing the Cycle of Meltdowns for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This systematic approach to classroom management provides evidence-based strategies for assessing student insubordination and offers guidelines for developing individual intervention plans that improve cooperation.

A Road Map for Teachers, Specialists, and Behavior Support Teams

Managing Noncompliance and Defiance in the Classroom

Never waste a crisis - the current recession is a turning point into a new economic world, a world full of opportunity for those who understand what's happening, why it's happening, and what it means for them. Some businesses - and some people - will emerge from this downturn stronger and more dominant than when it started. Others will weaken and fade. It all depends on critical choices they make right now. Geoff Colvin, one of world's most respected business journalists, says even the scariest recession has an upside. The best managers know that conventional thinking won't help them win in these tough times. They're taking smart, practical steps that will not only keep them strong, but will also distance them from the pack for years to come. The dozens of top-performing leaders Colvin interviewed reject the common view that slashing costs and firing employees is all that matters. They see the recession as a rich opportunity to restructure, reinvent and reimagine their businesses and lay the groundwork for future growth. Written in Colvin's characteristic reader-friendly style, "The Upside of the Downturn" shows how anyone - from small business owner to global conglomerate CEO - can benefit from his ten solidly grounded strategies. He shows how to find opportunities that will increase your company's competitiveness and build its long-term value. For example: reset priorities. Easy to say, harder to do. Pursuing the lofty goals set in good times can be disastrous now; re-evaluate people and steal some good ones. Mass layoffs are a tempting way to cut costs, but great companies often find smarter alternatives. And if your competitors are unwise enough to fire their best people, grab them; keep investing in the core. Trim the fat from your budgets but not the muscle. The best companies actually increase some spending in a recession, funding the areas that make them unique and valuable; and, price with courage. Many companies assume they must - yet the long-term damage often outweighs the short-term boost. Colvin shows how these strategies really work, using examples of major companies that have applied them with inspiring results and discovered those hidden gems of opportunity and those elusive 'green shoots' of recovery.

10 Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath

The Upside of the Downturn

Never waste a crisis. Some businesses—and some people—will emerge from today’s economic tumult stronger and more dominant than when it started. Others will weaken and fade. It all depends on critical choices they make right now. Geoff Colvin, one of America’s most respected business jour-nalists, says even the scariest turbulence has an upside. The best managers know that conventional thinking won’t help them in tough times. They’re taking smart, practical steps—frequently unconventional and even counterintuitive—that will not only keep them strong, but will also distance them from the pack for years to come. The dozens of top-performing leaders Colvin interviewed reject the common view that slashing costs and firing employ­ees are the only effective tactics. They see volatility as a rich opportunity to reinvent their organizations and lay the ground-work for future growth. Colvin shows us how these strategies really work, using exam-ples of major companies that have successfully applied them.

Management Strategies for Difficult Times

Larry Selden

One of the oldest myths in business is that every customer is a valuable customer. Even in the age of high-tech data collection, many businesses don't realize that some of their customers are deeply unprofitable, and that simply doing business with them is costing them money. In many places, it's typical that the top 20 percent of customers are generating almost all the profit while the bottom 20 percent are actually destroying value. Managers are missing tremendous opportunities if they are not aware which of their customers are truly profitable and which are not. According to Larry Selden and Geoff Colvin, there is a way to fix this problem: manage your business not as a collection of products and services but as a customer portfolio. Selden and Colvin show readers how to analyze customer data to understand how you can get the most out of your most critical customer segments. The authors reveal how some companies (such as Best Buy and Fidelity Investments) have already moved in this direction, and what customer-centric strategies are likely to become widespread in the coming years. For corporate leaders, middle managers, or small business owners, this book offers a breakthrough plan to delight their best customers and drive shareowner value. From the Hardcover edition.

Discover Which is Which, and Turbo-Charge Your Stock

Angel Customers & Demon Customers

As technology races ahead, what will people do better than computers? What hope will there be for us when computers can drive cars better than humans, predict Supreme Court decisions better than legal experts, identify faces, scurry helpfully around offices and factories, even perform some surgeries, all faster, more reliably, and less expensively than people? It’s easy to imagine a nightmare scenario in which computers simply take over most of the tasks that people now get paid to do. While we’ll still need high-level decision makers and computer developers, those tasks won’t keep most working-age people employed or allow their living standard to rise. The unavoidable question—will millions of people lose out, unable to best the machine?—is increasingly dominating business, education, economics, and policy. The bestselling author of Talent Is Overrated explains how the skills the economy values are changing in historic ways. The abilities that will prove most essential to our success are no longer the technical, classroom-taught left-brain skills that economic advances have demanded from workers in the past. Instead, our greatest advantage lies in what we humans are most powerfully driven to do for and with one another, arising from our deepest, most essentially human abilities—empathy, creativity, social sensitivity, storytelling, humor, building relationships, and expressing ourselves with greater power than logic can ever achieve. This is how we create durable value that is not easily replicated by technology—because we’re hardwired to want it from humans. These high-value skills create tremendous competitive advantage—more devoted customers, stronger cultures, breakthrough ideas, and more effective teams. And while many of us regard these abilities as innate traits—“he’s a real people person,” “she’s naturally creative”—it turns out they can all be developed. They’re already being developed in a range of far-sighted organizations, such as: • the Cleveland Clinic, which emphasizes empathy training of doctors and all employees to improve patient outcomes and lower medical costs; • the U.S. Army, which has revolutionized its training to focus on human interaction, leading to stronger teams and greater success in real-world missions; • Stanford Business School, which has overhauled its curriculum to teach interpersonal skills through human-to-human experiences. As technology advances, we shouldn’t focus on beating computers at what they do—we’ll lose that contest. Instead, we must develop our most essential human abilities and teach our kids to value not just technology but also the richness of interpersonal experience. They will be the most valuable people in our world because of it. Colvin proves that to a far greater degree than most of us ever imagined, we already have what it takes to be great. From the Hardcover edition.

Geoff Colvin

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