Business
50 Simple Things Your Business Can Do
Many of us are growing more aware of what we can do in our homes to help save the earth’s resources. Now learn creative alternative to run your business to work for the earth, saving resources and money. This is, after all, the bottom line.
75 Cage-Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work: Shake-Em-Up Questions to Open Meetings, Ignite Discussion, and Spark Creativity by Dick Whitney and Melissa Giovagnoli
Warning: the contents of this package may shock any group into an unprecedented frenzy of creative thought and action. Toss out your tired problem-solving approaches and turn instead to 75 far-out but fully field-tested questions that clean out the cobwebs and get your mind moving in new and productive directions. Each question is followed by commentaries, exercises, and tips to jump-start your creative thinking, improve leadership, resolve conflicts on the job, foster a growth mentality, encourage better time management, and much more!
99% Inspiration: Tips, Tales & Techniques for Liberating Your Business Creativity by Bryan Mattimore
Success magazine tells it like it is: “Every minute you spend with this fun-to-read book will enhance your creativity by leaps and bounds… It truly delivers on its promise of helping people and companies achieve new breakthroughs.” You’ll love what you find in this book– including “The World’s Best Creative Techniques,” “$50 Million and Counting: How to Brainstorm Cost-Cutting Ideas,” “Humor Me!: The Creation and Uses of Business Humor,” “Brainstormer’s Bootcamp: How to Facilitate Creative Sessions,” etc.
101 Ways to CAPTIVATE a Business Audience by Sue Gaulke
This handy book is a smorgasbord of audience-tested quotes, anecdotes, experiences, and insights that will help you to: customize your message, generate ideas fast, organize your material, energize your voice, create exciting visual aids, tame troublemakers, control nervousness, add sizzle every six minutes, and minimize stress while maximizing charisma (and standing ovations). With this book, you’ll look, act, and feel like a million bucks… and a spectacular speaker. James Hennig (former President, National Speakers Association): “This book is a must-read for any person who addresses business audiences– even top, experienced professional speakers. It’s easy and fun to read and has immediate application value!”
301 Great Management Ideas … From America’s Most Innovative Small Companies edited by Sara Noble
Who says good ideas have to cost big bucks? Drawn from INC. magazine, here you’ll find the best collection of inspiring and innovative ideas that have worked with dramatic results. You’ll be stunned, surprised, and delighted to find hands-on tips that you can implement in your own organization right away. You, too, can win in this idea sweepstakes!
301 Ways to Have Fun at Work by Dave Hemsath and Leslie Yerkes
Fun is a serious business. In a survey of over 4000 businesspeople around the world, the authors discovered how fun (and the energy it creates) is a powerful strategic tool for achieving extraordinary results. Here is the best material they received– inspirational and innovative insights from individuals at all corporate levels. You can open this book to any page and find valuable ideas to use immediately to put fun into: the work environment (“Giggle While You Work”), communication (“Funny You Should Say That”), training (“Learning the Fun-damentals”), meetings (“Having Fun– Wish You Were Here”), team-building (“How to Create Fun-atics”), and simple acts of fun (“Sanity Breaks”). A 302nd way to have fun is to read this funtastic book!
301 More Ways to Have Fun at Work by Dave Hemsath
At first glance, it’s an oxymoron: “fun at work.” But if you glance through this book, you’ll discover, in fact, that fun may be the single most important trait of highly effective organizations. Drawing on the results of thousands of surveys, Dave discovered that having fun at work has a significant impact on an employee’s creativity, productivity, morale, job satisfaction, and retention.
You can open this book to any page and find valuable ideas to use immediately to put fun into: hiring, sales and marketing, customer service, events, leadership, and the corporate culture. Throughout the book, Fun Facts, Fun Quotes, and Fun Resources provide humorous, inspirational, and innovative insights about the effects of fun on workplace performance. The author includes Dave’s Hierarchy of Fun (with apologies to Abraham Maslow), a review of the 12-step method for the fun-impaired workplace, and hundreds of real-life examples of how individuals and organizations have successfully improved their Fun Quotient. A 302nd way to have fun is to read this funtastic book!
365 Ways to Manage Better by Bob Nelson
This timeless and timely perpetual calendar is the perfect companion for Bob Nelson’s books. You’ll be grinning from year to year with this calendar– it is filled with quotes and proven tips to motivate and make everyone’s day more productive. You’ll even learn the two things people want more than money and sex. Whether you have one employee or a large company, this collection of inspiration for managers is a great gift for team leaders, coaches, teachers… and you!
1001 Ways to Energize Employees by Bob Nelson
We are very energized by this book! It’s the perfect follow-up to 1001 Ways to Reward Employees. Bob Nelson reveals what real companies across America are doing to involve their employees– and why it’s the key to their success. Weaving together case studies, examples, techniques, research highlights, and quotes from business leaders, this practical handbook is chock-full of suggestions for increasing employee enthusiasm. Dr. Stephen Covey sees this book as “a motherlode of practical ideas and practices on building employee morale and unleashing employee potential– it represents the new frontier of organizational effectiveness.” This book will help you and your co-workers to exclaim, “Thank God it’s Monday!”
1,001 Ways to Inspire Your Organization, Your Team and Yourself by David Rye
Forget all of the “here today, gone tomorrow” management fads. If you’re looking for a management system that has genuine staying power and consistently produces dramatic results– or if you’re seeking a way to inspire yourself every day– you’ve come to the right place! This unique, results-oriented book enables you to select from a menu of everyday motivational issues that include plenty of curve balls and mistakes to avoid. In a format that is fun to read and right on target, you’ll learn: how to simply diagnose your own personality type and understand what motivates others; how to keep yourself and others motivated all the time, even (and especially) in adverse situations; how to avoid dead-ends when dealing with different personality types; how to apply motivational approaches to common and uncommon employee problems; how to motivate your boss and anybody else who can influence your career.
1,001 Ways to Motivate Yourself and Others by Sang Kim
With its unique mixture of inspirational maxims and how-to applications, this book appeals to the thinker, the dreamer, and the doer. Includes 160 ways to motivate yourself, 60 ways to motivate your boss, 111 ways to motivate your employees, 75 ways to motivate your team, 54 ways to motivate your students, 50 ways to motivate your clients and customers, 30 ways to motivate conflict resolution, 75 ways to motivate change, 39 ways to motivate leadership, 95 ways to motivate productivity, and much more. Motivate yourself to buy this book!
1001 Ways to Reward Employees by Bob Nelson
This has been one of our best-selling books ever! If you’re looking for a goldmine of innovative ways to put smiles on the faces of people at work, this book is for you. Management consultant Bob Nelson researched all corners of the American business community to come up with this incredible collection of low-cost rewards and proven strategies of every conceivable type for every conceivable situation. Ken Blanchard says “This book is a godsend to every well-intentioned manager or frustrated employee” who wants to make the work environment more productive, motivating, and fulfilling.
The Art of Mingling: Easy, Fun, and Proven Techniques for Mastering Any Room by Jeanne Martinet
If you ever suffer from mingle phobia, this book will show you how to overcome your fears, meet new people with charm and confidence, and achieve success at every kind of event– business or social. Learn fancy footwork (advanced mingling techniques) and new technologies (mingling in the 90’s). This amusing guide is filled with dozens of ways you can: develop the right mindset for entering a room full of strangers, deliver opening lines that really work, keep the conversation alive and interesting, master the etiquette of escape, recover from faux pas, and negotiate “tough rooms.”
The Art of Mixing Work and Play by Steve Wilson
This book has lots of light recipes for PWLOARYK (mixing work and play). You’ll discover how to be more satisfied, creative, and productive at work in the 90’s. PWLOARYK includes: what to do if you can’t tell a joke; more than 100 specific ways that corporate America is having fun at work; T.Q.I.F. (total quality is fun… or it should be); the “uh-oh squad,” a workplace innovation; 50 ways to bring humor to the classroom; and trading in your Rolex for a Mickey Mouse. The time has come to mix work and play!
Ben & Jerry’s: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor by Fred “Chico” Lager
This fascinating book provides insight on why Ben & Jerry’s was chosen to receive the first Corporate Compassion, Humor & Creativity Award at the 1994 annual international conference sponsored by The HUMOR Project. This is the story of the birth and mirth of a company with a now‑famous motto: “If it’s not fun, why do it?” Get the scoop on one of the most inspiring– and certainly most entertaining– business books of our time. Milton Moskowitz (author of The 101 Best Companies to Work for in America) says, “Here’s entrepreneurship as it was never taught at Harvard Business School.” As a fringe benefit, the book comes with a coupon for one free pint of B&J’s ice cream.
Brain Boosters for Business Advantage: Ticklers, Grab Bags, Blue Skies, and Other Bionic Ideas by Arthur VanGundy
Ever feel like your idea-generating abilities are about as effective as consulting a Ouija® board? This readable, hands-on book is filled with 101 fun, enlightening, brain-boosting techniques, games, and activities for sparking creativity in individuals and groups. From “Dead Head Deadline” to “Idea Shopping” to “Modular Brainstorming” to “Brainsketching”, this comprehensive book contains every significant idea generation method to give you immediate results in meetings, strategic planning, new product development, continuous improvement efforts, training sessions, and more! Doug Hall: “These methods have been successfully used with Walt Disney, Nike, Pepsi Cola, and Procter & Gamble. In each case, the bottom line was RESULTS. THE STUFF IN THIS BOOK REALLY WORKS!”
Brain Teasers for Team Leaders: Hundreds of Word Puzzles and Number Games to Energize Your Meetings by Leslie Bendaly
Are you looking for a way to break the ice at a first meeting? Have you just been assigned to lead a cross-functional (or dysfunctional) team? Or are you trying to get your group thinking outside the box? Or are you a trainer, teacher or speaker looking for some fresh ideas to get things going at your next workshop, class or conference? For all of the above, you’ve come to the light place! This book is a goldmine of 1000+ activities that can be reproduced as handouts or overheads. These mental icebreakers will help capture and maintain a group’s attention, spark creative thinking and mental sharpness, increase participation, and add fun to otherwise mundane meetings.
Care Packages for the Home: Dozens of Ways to Regenerate Spirit Where You Live by Barbara Glanz
This book is a great “life balance” complement to Care Packages for the Workplace! Too many families these days seem to be in “survival” mode. Rushing from one activity to another, trying to juggle work commitments with home responsibilities, today’s families often find themselves with little time to show their caring. This priceless book is filled with countless, inexpensive ways to help families forge more caring, creative, and joyful places to live. Through the stories of real-life families, schools, and neighborhoods, Barbara encourages you to take action by adapting the ideas to your own family… whether yours is a traditional family, a single-parent family, a blended family, an extended family or a retired family. Steven Covey: “This wonderful book is literally overflowing with fun, uplifting, and creative (yet practical) ideas that will enhance your family life and bless those around you in a tremendous way.” As a special bonus, the book is blessed with dozens of John McPherson’s CLOSE TO HOME cartoons to invite smiles and laughter. This book will leave you feeling regenerated, renewed, and refreshed– what a great CARE package for you and your family!
Care Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do to Regenerate Spirit at Work by Barbara Glanz
In a world filled with downsizing, rightsizing, and shaftsizing, this heartwarming book is the antidote! It is filled with hundreds of fun- and morale-boosting suggestions. Whether you are employee or boss, learn how to put more C.A.R.E. into your workplace through “Creative Communication,” “Atmosphere” and “Appreciation for All,” “Respect” and “Reason for Being,” “Empathy” and “Enthusiasm”. Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, applauds: “I love this book! It gives you simple, practical techniques for putting the spirit of love, joy, and caring back into the workplace.”
Catch!: A Fishmonger’s Guide to Greatness: Stop Floundering and Become More Effective in Your Life and Work by Cyndi Crother and the Crew of World-Famous Pike Place Fish
This is no ordinary fish tale! Here is the first book written from the world-renowned Pike Place Fish crew’s perspective. It is not a parable— it is the real inside story of 17 coworkers who have each been transformed from ordinary to great in their experiences with Pike Place Fish (which was identified by CNN as “the most fun place to work” in the United States). Our advice: catch this inspiring book and the principles in it if you want to pursue your dreams and aspirations while providing funderful customer service. In deed, the funny line and bottom line do intersect!
Change Is Everybody’s Business by Pat McLagan
Ken Blanchard tells it like it is in the Foreword: “This book picks up where Who Moved My Cheese left off. The bottom line is that, with the help of insights and tips in this book, you can mine and claim your change power.” Taking a conversational approach to a serious subject, Pat uses stories, examples, and illustrations to drive home the message that everybody in an organization has the power to make changes for the better. Questionnaires throughout the book enable you to evaluate how ready you are to make the most of both planned and unplanned change. Stephen Covey sums it up: “This book is an insightful blend of wisdom, principles, examples, and humor, as well as many how-tos when it comes to dealing with the inevitable— change!”
Claw Your Way To The Top: How To Become The Head Of A Major Corporation In Roughly A Week
You will have to claw your way back into your chair after you fall out of it while reading this book. By the way, Dave dedicated this book to “Burton R. Legume, inventor, who in 1907 dreamed up the concept of the hold button, without which the modern industrial economy would not be possible.”
Corporate Celebration: Play, Purpose, and Profit at Work by Terrence Deal and M.K. Key
How can you restore company spirit, reinvigorate morale, build commitment and loyalty, increase productivity, boost your bottom line, and instill work with meaning and joy all at the same time? Celebrate! You’ll celebrate this book as it provides step-by-step advice on the what, why, and how of seven types of corporate celebration. Drawing on lots of examples, anecdotes, and do-able ideas, the authors provide clear guidelines for top-flight rituals and celebrations in the workplace which arise from shared vision and values and recognize individuals as heroes and heroines. Matt Weinstein notes that this book lets you in on “a big secret of successful companies: that there is a direct correlation between play and productivity at work!” In a time when many organizations are suffering from the fallout from restructuring, reengineering, and downsizing, this book offers a refreshing nad practical approach to creating community in the workplace and revitalizing business.
Creative Work: The Constructive Role of Business in a Transforming Society by Willis Harman and John Hormann.
This is a sweeping, hopeful, and through-provoking look at how highly successful businesses around the world are changing their workplaces into profitable enterprises that value people, creativity, and purposeful work. Sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, this pathbreaking book presents a compelling image of the future – on personal, professional and planetary levels.
The Creative Communicator: 399 Ways to Make Your Business Communications Meaningful & Inspiring by Barbara Glanz
Get out of the rut of dreary memos, dismal meetings, and negative feedback. Communicate your commitment to service and quality in fresh, exciting ways that people will notice and remember. Through real‑life examples and easy‑to‑implement ideas, you’ll learn how to create dynamic mission statements and policies; develop inventive marketing materials; show appreciation for your employees and customers; make the most of video, e‑mail, voice mail, and fax machines. Og Mandino: “This book is the very best I’ve ever read on the subject.”
Creativity In Business by Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers
This book shows how creativity in business can enrich us and those who work with us. Tom Peters even suggests that the title could have been “The Joy of Business.” Drawing from their famous Stanford University course, the authors show how creativity can be accessible to all of us. Chapters include: “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Surrender,” “Destroy Judgment, Create Curiosity,” “Ask Dumb Questions: Find Your Own Wisdom.” This is much more than just a business book– it will change the ways you meet all the challenges in your life.
Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner
This updated and revised 500,000+ international best-seller has been a best-seller for us, too! See V-40-07 on page 40 for a great video that describes just some of the rich content you’ll also find in this book. This book and the video make for a powerful dynamic duo that will also bring out the best in you!
The Emotional Intelligence Activity Book: 50 Activities for Promoting EQ at Work by Adele Lynn
This is the first book of activities dedicated to developing Emotional Intelligence which is a greater predictor of success in life and at work than I.Q. You’ll find 50 innovative activities to be used either for individuals or groups. Arranged according to the 5 core competencies of E.I. (self-awareness and control, empathy, social expertness, mastery of vision, and personal influence), the book features fun, field-proven exercises, easy-to-use reproducible worksheets, and valuable debriefing questions. As an added bonus, the author also offers coaching tips and training formats for H-day, 1-day, and 2-day programs.
Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry by Albert Bernstein
Vampires come in many shapes: the living dead who think their “talents” place them above the laws of nature, lords of darkness with huge egos and tiny consciences, scary monsters who use their tempers like terrorists use bombs, and blood-suckers who think others were created for their convenience. Your emotional intelligence will soar as you recognize the different vampire personality types, identify which defense strategies to employ to prevent one from striking, and figure out what to do if and when you find yourself under attack. With a combination of wisdom, pitch-perfect wit, and dead-on practical advice, this book shows how to tickle/tackle co-workers, bosses, friends, and family members who could otherwise drain your emotional and psychological well-being. By the end of this book, you’ll develop the tools and confidence you need to take on the most draining people in your life without shedding a single drop of blood.
Energetic Meetings: Enhancing Personal and Group Energy & Handling Difficult Behavior by Jeanie Marshall
Do you attend too many “bored” meetings? Here is the answer to time-wasting meetings: Jeanie weaves traditional meeting effectiveness strategies with innovative approaches to creating a positive climate. The book also includes helpful suggestions for dealing with 22 difficult behavior patterns, ideas about transforming difficulty into empowerment, an excellent list of related books for further reading, and a variety of energy release techniques.
Escape from Management Hell: 12 Tales of Horror, Humor, and Heroism by Robert Gilbreath
Twelve execs are heading home from a leadership retreat when their plane crashes. They awake in a foul inferno, confronted by Satan’s chief operating officer, with only one hope of escape: They must amuse the Devil with stories about the folly and futility of their own business practices. In twelve wildly entertaining, brilliantly inventive tales, change‑management expert Gilbreath illustrates the problems managers face; shatters common myths about innovation, leadership, control, and consensus building; and shares sage advice on transforming modern management into a haven/heaven of creativity, courage, and lasting change. All management books should be this much fun!
Executive Smart Charts & Other Insider Revelations on Corporate Insanity by Herb Stansbury
As chairman of the board of a $3.5 billion corporation, Herb has had plenty of opportunity to observe the foibles, pretensions, and absurdities that abound in the office. He is also the creator of the nationally-syndicated “Smart Charts” cartoon. Eloquent in their simplicity, these cartoons have long decorated office doors, desks, and file cabinets around the country. In book form, they not only make a humorous collection– they also provide a valuable perspective for people seeking to maintain (or regain) their business sanity. You’ll enjoy such chapters as “Humor in and Around the Boardroom,” “Doodling Up the Corporation,” and “What’s New in Humanoid Resources?”
Fax This Book: Over 100 Sit-Up-and-Take-Notice Cover Sheets for Better Business by John Caldwell
With 3,000,000 fax machines competing for attention in the U.S. this nationally syndicated cartoonist brings you an easy and humorous way to make your serious messages stand out. This book contains photocopiable and reusable fax cover sheets for almost every business situation – it is indispensable for any office that wants to inject humor in everyday notes, memos, dunning notices, invitations, publicity releases, invoices, bulletin boards, etc.
Frank and Ernest Career Advice: How to Make Your Bob Work for You by Tom Greening
Do you want to keep your job… and your sanity at the same time? Dr. Greening shows how to apply psychotherapeutic and self-help techniques to avoid problems anad attain success on the job. Cartoon characters from the popular Frank and Ernest strip by Bob Thaves help us laugh at such workplace woes as fear of failure, fear of success, job dissatisfaction, shyness, and stress (“I think my identity crisis came when my Leisure” and “Entrepreneur” magazines came on the same day.”)
Frank and Ernest Manager: A Friendly Introduction to the Principles of Management by Jim Rosenzweig, Fremont Kast, and Terence Mitchell
Buffaloes by “textbook” management? This volume contributes to organizational well-being by helping managers laugh while they learn how to move from dysfunctional professional solemnity to functional leadership. Popular cartoon characters Frank and Ernest illustrate this very useful “leader’s digest.”
Fun and Gains: Motivate and Energize Staff with Workplace Games, Contests and Activities by Carolyn Greenwich
You’re in for some fun and gains if you use these lively, results-based activities, which will help you to: revitalize staff performance, improve communication, create winning attitudes, reinforce professionalism, inspire new goals, increase sales and productivity, and promote an exciting, motivated work environment. This book includes a CD-ROM with 46 useful tools, visual aids, and certificates that can be printed to use in the activities and to present to your team members, participants, and students. The CD-ROM is worth the price of admission alone (requires Windows 95, NT 3.51 or later, minimum of 8-16 MB RAM and 10 MB hard disk space, CD-ROM drive).
The Fun Factor: Games, Sales Contests and Activities That Make Work Fun and Get Results by Carolyn Greenwich
Are you looking for ways to create happier employees, energize the office, stimulate creative thinking, reward your staff, help employees embrace change, and achieve higher profits… and have fun doing it? If so, you’ve come to the light place! This easy how-to guide is filled with 155 games, contests, and team-building activities that managers and trainers can use to inspire and motivate people on the job. It includes handouts, certificates, and proven strategies used by successful managers. The Fun Factor will show you how to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity– by making work fun!
Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work by Leslie Yerkes
Disposing of the myth that fun and work are mutually exclusive. Leslie shares real-life examples, strategies, ideas, resources, tools, tips, and techniques that will help any organization become a place where people love to work. By harnessing the power of fun, companies find they can better retain employees and customers, motivate teams, improve productivity, increase innovation, and build esprit de corps. Leslie details precisely how 11 successful companies (including Southwest Airlines, Pike Place Fish, etc.) have integrated fun into the normal course of business and shows how this has translated into improved results across the board. Drawing on these success stories, Leslie illustrates the 11 powerful Principles of the “Fun/Work Fusion.” This book will inspire you to inject a sense of playfulness and joy into your workday.
Funny Business: A Speaker’s Treasury of Business Humor for all Occasions by Gene Perret and Linda Perret
As Bob Hope’s head writer, Gene Perret won three Emmy Awards for his work on The Carol Burnett Show. Let these two pros help you incorporate humor into your business communications and laugh your way up the corporate ladder. Over 1100 proven‑effective jokes, stories, and anecdotes are organized into 89 categories covering every aspect of business, from job interviews to coffee breaks. Also includes 7 sure‑fire steps for delivering a joke, many helpful hints on the value of humor in business communication, tips on creating your own humor, plus a funny foreword by Phyllis Diller.
Funny Thing Happened at the Interview: Wit, Wisdom and War Stories from the Job Hunt by Greg Farrell
Thirteen million Americans are actively looking for jobs or are being restructured, downsized, and laid off; 120 million are worried about keeping their current jobs. This book is a delightful collection of over 100 truth-is-funnier-than-fiction stories about people seeking jobs. Besides their sheer entertainment value, each tale has a “moral of the story” to it. Illustrated with fun cartoons, this is a hilarious “how to” and “how not to” interview guide for job hunters, interviewers, career counselors, and personnel and HRD departments.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Boardroom: Using Humor In Business Speaking by Michael Iapoce
In this engaging book, you will learn: the value of humor in business as a powerful communication tool, how to inject humor into your presentations and meetings, how to select appropriate humor, and how to create and deliver humor with style through your own comic persona. You’ll also find loads of one-liners and humorous stories to make a point for every audience and occasion.
Fuzzify!: Borenwords And Strategies For Bureaucratic Success by Jim Boren
If you have ever been frustrated in dealing with (or within) a bureaucracy, this bureaucratic survival guide is for you. With sharp wit and insight, this Boren-again bureaucrat will help you to laugh your way through the red tape (which, of course, should only be cut length-wise). Along the way, Jim shares his famous dictum: “When in charge, ponder; when in trouble, delegate; when in doubt, mumble.” This book will definitely (and humorously) help make the world safe for bureaucracy!
Get Weird!: 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company A Great Place to Work by John Putzier
Humor and creativity go hand-in-hand in this chock-full-of-ideas, reader-friendly book that overflows with ways to make your workplace a fun and bottom-line-successful environment for everyone. By changing the very tone and culture of your organization with these quick, easy, and often-inexpensive ideas, you can enhance employee morale, innovative thinking, and productivity. Libby Sartain (VP at Southwest Airlines and Chair of the Society for Human Resource Management) says that this “is the only book I’ve ever seen that actually has as many great ideas for creating a culture of fun and innovation as we do. If we had written a how-to book on out-of-the-box best practices for high performance, this would have been it!”
Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company by Jim Harris
We love this book, too! This reader-friendly, hands-on guide offers over 140 “best practices” used by companies of all sizes to generate phenomenal levels of employee commitment and productivity. These innovative yet realistic people practices include action ideas to: create a positive, high-energy workplace, put heart back into the organization and fun back into daily work, open and broaden the lines of communication, and drive “learning” into every nook and cranny of the company. Brief case studies give insight into three exemplary, high-performance companies. A practical and inspiring book.
The Golden Rule of Schmoozing: The Authentic Practice of Treating Others Well by Aye Jaye
Aye Jaye believes schmoozing has gotten a bad rap over the years, conjuring images of oily used car salesmen and sycophantic co-workers. But he’s here to take the word back and to prove that schmoozing is the Golden Rule at full throttle. It’s a skill and an art form that encourages people to say, “You’ve made my day” instead of demanding, “Make my day!” It’s a technique for turning others on, not taking others on. A schmoozer is someone who talks with people as if they really matter… which they do! This truly entertaining book is loaded with practical tips and hysterical stories illustrating the power of schmoozing– including: the Top Ten List for schmoozing the boss, schmoozing for a job, managing with schmooze, schmoozing for love, making up with schmooze, schmooze yourself to good health, and the winning-by-grinning schmooze.
How to Work a Room: Learn the Strategies of Savvy Socializing– for Business and Personal Success by Susan Roane
In the age of networking, do you have the skills to work a room? Whether it’s a cocktail party, a convention or a business function, having the confidence and know-how to meet new people can make all the difference to your personal and professional success. This book will help you learn how to: overcome 5 common roadblocks to making new contacts, use 7 strategies to meet more people, and put into practice the 10 commandments of connecting. Also includes dozens of humor do’s and don’t’s… along with tips on how to tap the dynamic duo of charm and chutzpah.
Humor at Work: The Guaranteed, Bottom-Line, Low-Cost, High-Efficiency Guide to Success Through Humor by Esther Blumenfeld and Lynne Alpern
This excellent book tells you why and shows you how to mix business with pleasure. Humor works at work– and this book will work by giving you practical tips on how to apply humor to your job. Key chapters deal specifically with the uses of humor in sales and customer relations, secretarial and support positions, teaching, the health care field, and parenting. Includes an extensive resource chapter. You’re in for a treat as you learn tricks of the humor trade in communicating, dealing with difficult situations, and leading groups.
Humor Works by John Morreall
Increased productivity. High morale. Effective change management. Reduced workplace conflict, stress, and burnout. These aren’t laughing matters– or are they? Using dozens of examples, anecdotes, exercises, and tips, this book will help you experience the benefits of humor for yourself and will show you how to implement them in your work. Includes chapters on “Play Is Not the Opposite of Work,” “Laugh for the Health of It,” “Humor Is the Opposite of Stress,” “Humor Makes Us Mentally Flexible,” “Laughter as Social Lubricant,” “Humor in Formal Communications,” “When It’s Wrong to Laugh,” and “Mirthful Management.”
I Love My Job!: A Digest of Workplace Wit and Wisdom by Steve and Jocelyn Herbelin
You’ll love this book! Prop up your feet and prepare for a humorous look at the world of work from behind the office water cooler. The authors have gathered a wacky collection of amusing and charming anecdotes about real life in the office zoo. In the process, they turn work from a four-letter-word into a laughing matter. In the style of the popular Reader’s Digest column, “All in a Day’s Work,” the 124 stories in this book are short, sweet, and funny. The book also includes a very helpful 400+ item topical index as well as an index of “the morals of the stories.” Whether looking for a quick pick-me-up, a story to spice a speech, or some laughter to change the pace at a “bored” meeting, you’ll find it here. Want to lighten the tension in the cubicles? Leave a copy of this delightful digest in the staff lounge and watch the workers of the world unite… in laughter.
Jest for Success: How to Win with Wit by Malcolm Kushner
Your career is no laughing matter. That’s why it’s time to get serious about humor! In an era of merger mania, downsizing, and global competition, humor can provide the winning edge. As entertaining as it is informative, this well-written book shows you how to: make your point (and score points) with humor, manage conflict (crack jokes, not skulls), motivate with humor (the carrot and the shtick), add humor to the corporate culture to increase productivity, boost morale and build effective teams, smooth the way in negotiations, handle awkward and embarrassing situations with a light touch, and tap the power of humor on the Internet. In short, this book is a goldmine filled with gems to help you put a smile in your business style… and laugh all the way to the bank!
Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less and Make More Money by Doug Hall
Tom Peters: “I LOVE THIS BOOK! (And I rarely— never before, truth be told— go that far.) It SOARS!… worth its weight and price 1000 times over. Doug provides GAJILLIONS of practical examples… and you must read them all. PLEASE, P-L-E-A-S-E read and ingest this book. You may end up making a ton of money. Far more important… your life will take on Meaning as never before— meaning that flows from the relentless pursuit of making a dramatic difference.” Doug is on a Robin Hood-like quest to translate the wisdom he’s discovered researching and advising Fortune 500 corporations into practical tactics for small and medium-sized organizations as well. In this book, he reveals the data-driven strategies for doubling or even tripling the odds of success for your new products, services, advertising, and sales. We are sold on Doug’s passion and practical, powerful ideas for jump-starting creativity, meaning, and success in life.
Laugh & Grow Rich: How to Profit from Humor in Any Business by Rick Segel and Darren LaCroix
This streetwise and witty book will help you make $en$e of humor! Full of amazing, real-life humor success stories, amusing examples, and powerful tools, this blueprint for business success and fun focuses on how to build stronger customer, client, and employee relationships; how to differentiate yourself from the competition by marketing with mirth; how to keep your good employees by hiring with humor and by building humor into the corporate culture; how to deal with the funsuckers in every office; how to make wit not war (comedy secrets for presentations and meetings); and why we do business with people with whom we have fun. You’ll be learning and laughing all the way to the bank with this goldmine that shows humor is in the dough: you can make your bottom line rise with laughter.
Laughing Nine to Five: The Quest for Humor in the Workplace by Clyde Fahlman
When you were a child, you laughed 400 times a day. As an adult, you’re lucky to log in 10 laughs a day… and most of those are not on the job. What happened? This book shows how organizations and workers can recapture humor chuckle by chuckle. Along the way, you’ll have fun with memos, e-mail messages, management fads, and acronyms that find their way into organization files and copy machines. Humor in the workplace need not be on oxymoron– in fact, you would be wise to use this book to link laughter with communication, creativity, perspective, and productivity in the workplace.
Lead Your Staff to Think Like Einstein, Create Like DaVinci, and Invent Like Edison by Don Blohowiak
If you ever feel pressure to “do more with less,” this book is for you. In 52 brief chapters (one for each week of the year), you’ll find hundreds of real-world Action Steps that you can use to: be a genius, pick up sagging morale, increase staff skills, encourage extraordinary performance in the face of increased competition, tear down mental electric fences, make a habit of breaking habits, avoid managing by buzzword, meet your idea quota, and be serious but not solemn at work.
Leading on the Creative Edge: Gaining Competitive Advantage through the Power of Creative Problem Solving by Roger Firestien
Enlightening will strike you again and again in this electrifying book. Whether you lead a multi-million dollar corporation, help a volunteer group, coach Little League, teach in a classroom or work for a non-profit organization, this book provides you with vital insights on: how to develop a creativity-nurturing environment, how mistakes can actually help you become more creative, and cutting-edge research on creativity (what works, what doesn’t). Roger shows you how to nurture your own creativity while igniting the creative contributions of everyone in your organization. He provides examples of the extraordinary bottom-line results created by those who have chosen to lead on the creative edge.
The Light Touch: How to Use Humor for Business Success by Malcolm Kushner
Your career is no laughing matter. That’s why it’s time to get serious about humor. As entertaining as it is informative, this book shows you how to make your point (and score points) with humor, how to manage conflict (crack jokes, not skulls), how to motivate with humor (the carrot and the shtick), and how to add humor to the corporate culture (and do a humor audit). This is a funtastic, practical guide in search of excellence and humor in the workplace.
Make It Happen Before Lunch: 50 Cut-to-the-Chase Strategies for Getting the Business Results You Want by Stephan Schiffman
This book gives you lots of food for thought and field-tested business advice that will take years off your learning curve… and put years into your earning curve! It provides 50 painless, proven, practical principles that will help you make something good happen before lunch at work every day. That’s a habit that pays off handsome dividends. Chock-full of strategies and anecdotes applicable to virtually every business situation, Schiffman’s blueprint for high achievement shows you exactly how to: “obsess about the right stuff,” throw the conversational ball in a way that dramatically increases the likelihood that the other person will respond positively to you, and persevere dynamically when people give you static. Whether you’re high or not-so-high on the corporate ladder, you’ll get more of what you want out of work (and out of life) when you make it happen before lunch.
Make Their Day!: Employee Recognition That Works: Simple Ways to Boost Morale, Productivity, and Profits by Cindy Ventrice
Filled with practical, real-life strategies from successful companies, this book describes what employers and employees each expect from recognition, why most recognition efforts miss the mark, and what you can do to give morale and productivity a genuine, lasting boost. You’ll discover the key elements of effective recognition, how to spend less money to obtain better results, and how to create a work environment where employees thrive, want to stick around, and strive to do their best for you and the organization. This book will make your day!
Making Humor Work: Take Your Job Seriously And Yourself Lightly by Terry Paulson
Here’s a fun and practical book that shows how humor can enhance communications, unlock the receptivity of others, disarm anger, and dispel anxiety. Filled with plenty of insightful information, useful strategies, provocative quotes, and practical exercises, this is a great source for upgrading your humor skills (without degrading your colleagues)! Learn for yourself why it is never a crime to have fun on the job. Jest for success!
Making Work Fun: Doing Business with a Sense of Humor by Ron Garland
A best-seller from our last catalog, this book captures an important idea: People who have fun on the job tend to work better, harder, and smarter! In fact, more fun = greater productivity! Using jokes, cartoons, and a light touch, Ron Garland shows you how to make your workplace a more positive and healthy environment for both employees and for profits! His 101 “Fun Ideas” can bring added energy and enthusiasm to your workplace.
Management in Small Doses by Russell Ackoff
Do you ever have “the management blahs?” Prolific author Ackoff has the cure. This book offers 52 measured weekly doses of practical wisdom that inform, provoke, entertain and amuse. Ackoff writes with marvelous insight and practical common sense (of humor). A smasher of so-called “accepted wisdom,” he is highly irreverent, yet never irrelevant. Here you’ll find sure-fire ways to raise the quality of work-life in your company.
Management Would Be Easy… If It Weren’t for the People by Patricia Addesso
Robert Lorber, co-author of Putting the One-Minute Manager to Work, says, “If you really want to understand managing people, read this book!” This handbook skillfully presents principles of psychology using behavioral examples along with many practical manager’s checklists of solutions in the areas of communications, learning, perception, stress, teams, leadership, etc. This book is fun reading and filled with sound advice and valuable techniques for handling the “people” side of management. It’s about time somebody wrote a book like this!
The Golden Rule of Schmoozing: The Authentic Practice of Treating Others Well by Aye Jaye
Aye Jaye believes schmoozing has gotten a bad rap over the years, conjuring images of oily used car salesmen and sycophantic co-workers. But he’s here to take the word back and to prove that schmoozing is the Golden Rule at full throttle. It’s a skill and an art form that encourages people to say, “You’ve made my day” instead of demanding, “Make my day!” It’s a technique for turning others on, not taking others on. A schmoozer is someone who talks with people as if they really matter… which they do! This truly entertaining book is loaded with practical tips and hysterical stories illustrating the power of schmoozing– including: the Top Ten List for schmoozing the boss, schmoozing for a job, managing with schmooze, schmoozing for love, making up with schmooze, schmooze yourself to good health, and the winning-by-grinning schmooze.
Managing Time Your Way with Ann McGee-Cooper and Duane Trammell
Based on the best-selling book above, this 25-minute video gives you lots of lively ideas, useful tips, and expert insights through a stimulating magazine format. Ann and Duane reveal the secrets of making time work for you and re-charging your work with fun– whether you’re a logical individual with a knack for neatness or a free-spirited creative type who lives and works surrounded by towering piles of paper. This is an excellent video for you to use personally or with a training group, class or staff.
Managing to Have Fun by Matt Weinstein
The funny line and the bottom line come together in this book filled with great ideas on how to bring humor and humanity back into the workplace. Based on his work with some of America’s best-known and most profitable companies, Matt presents a step-by-step plan for building enthusiastic, high-performance teams and offers hundreds of tried-and-true techniques for enhancing employee satisfaction, personal pride, and performance. Ken Blanchard says this book “is a fun read, but don’t let its playful tone fool you. This is an important book about a serious subject, a must-read for any manager who wants to boost morale, manage stress, and establish a positive, proactive corporate culture.”
Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice by Alan Weiss
The new and updated edition of this best-selling guide will show you how to market and develop your business into one that generates $1,000,000 or more annually. This book will help you grab the amazing new opportunities in this era of corporate downsizing and mergers. From setting fees to identifying new clients to obtaining capital, this guide walks you step-by-step through the process of developing a successful consulting business: keeping your sense of humor, building relationships, seeing twists and turns as opportunities rather than as threats, and growing your self-esteem and business at the same time. The book offers practical insights into such subjects as: the ten basic principles of million dollar consulting, how jobs get in the way of careers, surefire strategies for growing your firm, how to use technology and live to talk about it, and turning bad times into good times by playing your cards right. This book could be a real ace up your sleeve!
Mirth in Management by William Higginbotham
This bottom mine and the funny line come together in this book, a 50-year compilation of humorous incidents in the often serious-and-solemn corporate world. This collection of anecdotes provides perspective on management issues, creativity, communications, human relations, etc. Bill offers many examples of how to see and use humor in managing yourself, managing others and managing to keep your cool in stressful situations.
Motivating and Retaining Employees: Handle With Care: Creative, Low-Cost Ways to Raise Morale, Increase Commitment, and Reduce Turnover by Barbara Glanz
Based on research with employees at dozens of organizations, this book provides hundreds of practical, real-life ways managers can engage, develop, and motivate employees to peak performance. Through an incredible array of excellent mini-case-studies (“Ideas in Action”), you’ll learn positive, tried-and-true: approaches to create an organizational culture that is supportive instead of cutthroat; strategies to maximize profitability and joy on the job; tips for making employees want to do their best work; and tools for reducing dissatisfaction and turnover. After reading this book, you will be motivated to retain (and put into practice) the CARE model for understanding what employees really want: Creative Communication, Atmosphere and Appreciation for All, Respect and Reason for being, Empathy and Enthusiasm.
NUTS!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg
Southwest Airlines received the first Corporate Compassion, Humor & Creativity Award at The HUMOR Project’s annual conference. Discover the inner workings of a company that avoids management fads, believes that customers come second (but can still get positively outrageous service), and settles legal disputes by arm wrestling. How can a company be so NUTS and so successful? Now, Southwest’s secrets are out: with love and laughter at its foundation, Southwest created a culture of people who have fun, take responsibility, and get a tremendous amount of work done. Learn how to transfer the Southwest inspiration and magic into your own work and personal life. Warren Bennis: “The story of Southwest Airlines is as much fun to read as it is reader friendly and useful. I promise you it’s a blueprint for all organizations who want to succeed.” Tom Peters puts it in a NUTshell: “If you take time to read only one business book this year, I strongly encourage you to read NUTS!”
Oh Lord, It’s Monday by Esther Blumenfeld and Lynne Alpern
A light-hearted jaunt through the business world that helps keep things in perspective. It’s hard to flip just one page at a time when chapters beckon with such titles as “How to Lose Customers & Antagonize Them for Life” (customer relations); “Who Wants Financial Advice From a Spotted Mackerel?” (Consultants and other experts); and “It’s Hard to Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps When You’re Naked” (clues for rookies).
Positively Outrageous Service: New & Easy Ways to Win Customers for Life by T. Scott Gross
Create lifetime customer loyalty where creativity and a touch of old‑fashioned showmanship on the job can wow customers and win market share. This book shows how to invite the customer to play and how to make sure your service is out of proportion to the circumstance. Your customers will go away delighted and determined to tell everyone they meet about how wonderful your company is. Includes many inspiring true stories of outrageous service in action.
Positively Outrageous Service: How to Delight and Astound Your Customers and Win Them for Life, Second Edition by T. Scott Gross
This book will invite you to learn the art of Positively Outrageous Service (POS): above-and-beyond service with a dash of creativity and personality, doing the unexpected unexpectedly, and giving customers more than they could hope for. Filled with a wealth of heartfelt and humorous service success stories, this book shares innovative and practical ideas on how to WOW! customers, engage your customers “in fun,” and build super customer service into your corporate culture. Learn how a caring personality, pizzazz, and a good sense of humor makes $en$e! Scott wrote THE book on service— in fact, his book is so good that Southwest Airlines ordered over 10,000 copies for its own employees.
Positively Outrageous Service and Showmanship: Industrial Strength Fun Makes Sales Sizzle!!! by T. Scott Gross
Personality. It’s what separates today’s corporate winners from the also-rans. Scott reveals the secrets of adding personality to any product or service, and offers a wealth of innovative ways to WOW! customers… which, in turn, will generate positive WOM (word of mouth). Filled with dozens of service/showmanship success stories that will touch and amuse you, this book includes practical ideas on how to engage your customers “in fun” and how to build customer service into your corporate culture. Learn how a caring personality, pizzazz, and a good sense of humor will lead to business success. Scott wrote the book on service– in fact, his book is so good that Southwest Airlines ordered over 10,000 copies for its own employees.
Power Networking: 55 Secrets for Personal & Professional Success by Donna & Sandy Vilas
Packed with proven methods, this book will help you: understand your Networking Profile, eliminate roadblocks to successful networking, say good-bye to the Lone Ranger mentality, introduce yourself so people will be inspired to call on you, generate a continuous flow of referrals from clients and associates, and uncover and activate your hidden network. John Bradshaw: “Power Networking captures the essence of what can be achieved by developing mutually supportive and trusting relationships.”
Recognizing and Rewarding Employees by R. Brayton Bowen
As qualified employees become increasingly scarce, you can reward yourself with the first book to provide a comprehensive understanding of up-to-the-minute motivational findings combined with hundreds of hands-on applications. You’ll gain insight on the new workforce (doing more with less, teamwork, globalization, the search for meaningful work), the many forms of recognition, the difference between rewarding and manipulating, and what reward systems move people and organizations closer to their goals. Filled with eye-catching icons and checklists, this book will help you discover powerful tips and guidelines on: establishing a constructive culture, coaching, embracing diversity, unlocking innovation, rites of recognition, and using the complementary tools of recognition and reward to create a more energized, empowered employee— and a more enjoyable and productive workplace.
Smart Moves for People in Charge by Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman
If you loved 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, you’ll love this book! Reward yourself by picking up the 130 checklists of 1500+ proven tips and techniques in the most user-friendly collection of management methods every gathered. You’ll find 11 elements for entrepreneurial thinking, 16 tips for delivering compelling speeches, 14 ways to get great ideas from employees, 11 strategies to position your company for the future, 12 guidelines for managing by wandering around (MBWA), and much more. No matter what your position is, this book will help you to manage your job and yourself more effectively. Your first smart move: buy this book… for yourself and your co-workers!
The Southwest Airlines Way: The Power of Relationships for Superior Performance by Jody Gittell
Southwest Airlines (official airline for our April conference) received the first Corporate Compassion, Humor & Creativity Award from The HUMOR Project. Discover the inner workings of the company that Fortune magazine called “the most successful airline in history.” With a market value greater than the rest of the U.S. airline industry combined, Southwest is a remarkable company with amazing and amusing management practices. They must be doing something light! With love and laughter as a foundation, Southwest created a culture of people who have fun, take responsibility, engage in a real team effort, and get a tremendous amount of work done. This hot-off-the-press book documents the secrets to their success… and how you can apply these relationship-based performance principles and people-management practices with dramatic results in your own life and work. Full of frontline tales of Southwest’s innovative management style, this compelling book reveals how any organization can implement Southwest’s secrets to having the funny line and the bottom line meet.
SuccessAbilities!: 1003 Practical Ways to Keep Up, Stand Out and Move Ahead at Work by Paula Ancona
Busy working people want precise answers to their job and career questions– without sifting through a lot of mumbo jumbo. Drawing from her syndicated column, Paula provides you with one of the easiest workplace advice books you’ll ever find. Learn about career moves (getting and keeping good jobs and charting your own career path), working smarter, communication skills (both speaking and writing), and self-improvement (quick stress busters, balancing work and family). Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper: “This book is a wealth of practical information at your fingertips. You’d have to attend 100 seminars to get all this detail.”
A Survival Guide for Working with Humans: Dealing with Whiners, Back-Stabbers, Know-It-Alls, and Other Difficult People by Gini Graham Scott
The relationships you have with your coworkers can determine not just how pleasant your 9-to-5 life is, but also your ability to get your job done… and even your long-term career success. Packed with real-life strategies for engaging even the most difficult people, this resource includes interactive quizzes, true-to-life conflict scenarios, and helpful profiles of common personality types. Covering everything from knowing when (and how) to speak up to gracefully navigating through uncomfortable-but-necessary confrontations to turning problems into opportunities, this book is an essential guide that no human should be without.
Tales of Knock Your Socks Off Service: Inspiring Stories of Outstanding Customer Service by Kristin Anderson and Ron Zemke.
Working with people and serving customers can be rewarding, fulfilling, and uplifting… or it can be frustrating, infuriating, and fatiguing. This book will knock your socks off with its humorous and inspiring compendium of almost 200 tales about customer service heroes and their random acts of service kindness that bring customers back to an organization again and again. “A must-read for anyone striving for excellence in service to others.” (Kathy Pettit, Director of Customers, Southwest Airlines). Ensure that your customers will walk away (and come back) with a smile on their faces… put a smile on your face and buy this book!
That’s a Good One: Corporate Leadership with Humor by Bob Ross
The punchline really can help the bottomline, and here’s a book that shows how! This is an enlightening exploration of the positive benefits humor can provide when introduced into the workplace. It includes chapters on “What Motivates Employees” and “Strengthening Your Communications with Humor.” In short, this book shows that humor works… at work!
They Shoot Managers Don’t They?: Managing Yourself and Leading Others in a Changing World by Terry Paulson
In today’s tough business climate, we need to do more than just manage conflict and change; we need to make change work. This book presents people‑oriented techniques any manager can use to improve morale and teamwork, to handle conflict and to manage your manager– by finding “that elusive middle ground-‑ somewhere between doormat and steamroller.” A variety of cartoons and quotes keep the pages flying and the ideas coming!
This Job Should Be Fun: The New Profit Strategy For Managing People In Tough Times by Bob Basso with Judi Klosek
Based on interviews with 14,000 CEO’s, managers and workers, the authors show how companies have made successful, eye-on-the-bottom-line fun a reality. The key is a value system that promotes three simple ideas: I care; you matter; and this job should be fun. The book itself certainly is a fun roadmap filled with strategies and action steps to help people move beyond job satisfaction to having productive fun at work.
Time Management for Unmanageable People by Ann McGee‑Cooper with Duane Trammell
If you’re creative but chaotic, if your To‑Do lists are messy and your desk is a disaster, if you’re easily sidetracked by fresh inspirations and bored silly by the idea of “time management”… this book is for you. You’ll learn to recognize the “Time Bandits” who steal your time and energy, combat “hurry sickness,” and recapture up to 60 fresh hours each month… all while having the time of your life. Playful yet practical, witty and intelligent, this is a terrific book.
Tips & Traps for Entrepreneurs: Real-Life Ideas and Solutions for the Toughest Problems Facing Entrepreneurs by Courtney Price and Kathleen Allen
Whether you’re thinking of starting a business, are already managing your own venture, or are just trying to manage yourself… you can capitalize on the expert advice in this book. This get-ahead guide is filled with valuable insights that can help you avoid costly mistakes, save time, and move steadily toward success. With quick answers, real-life examples, and handy checklists, the authors provide succinct, easy-to-understand do’s and don’ts on recognizing “hot” entrepreneurial opportunities, understanding how your business affects your personal life, creating a virtual company (how to look big when you’re not), growing your business, building guerrilla marketing, and giving back to the community. Whether you know it or not, everyone is going to need to have sharp and savvy entrepreneurial know-how as we turn the corner into the 21st Century. This book will give you a running start.
Totally Useless Office Skills: 75 Great Ways to Play at Work by Rick Davis
The most important book you’ll ever read… is probably not this one. Prepare yourself for a life-altering experience as the Professor of Totally Useless Skills shows you how to play at work. You’ll learn totally useless things to do at your desk, things to do when put on hold, and even ways to show off in the break room. Rick will teach you such tricks of the trade as credit card buzzing, how to disappear your boss’ head, instant printed business card, how to tear a phone book in half, software balancing, floating pencil, flying memos, calculator words, advanced doodling, fax fun, and coffee cup balancing. These are guaranteed antidotes to occupational stress… and you’ll learn you can do things you never thought you could do. Hmmm? Could it be these skills are not useless after all?
Up Your Productivity by Kurt Hanks
This is a different kind of business book‑‑ one made for easy reading, one that would be entertaining and fun to read even though its purpose is serious. It is packed with solid information that will make you a better manager, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to understand it. Written from experience, spiced with light and enlightening illustrations, this book can enable you to measure your effectiveness, increase your productivity and job satisfaction, and help others around you to do the same. The step‑by‑step style makes learning effortless and enjoyable.
Using Humor for a Change: 101 Clever Ideas to Lighten Up the Workload by Scott Friedman
With change, uncertainty, and job insecurity sweeping through America today, stress is at record highs. One of the key stress management tools is humor… for a change of pace and perspective. This book is a compilation of clever ideas you can put to immediate use when you feel stress creeping up your back. Each tip is illustrated by a light and delightful cartoon.
Using Humor For Effective Business Speaking by Gene Perret
Have you ever had butterflies while speaking? If so, join the crowd! This book could be a great help to you. Written by a top writer for Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, and Phyllis Diller (to name a few), this clear, concise, and humorous book is divided into three sections: The Business of Humor in Business, Creating Your Humor, and Delivering Your Humor. This book is no joke for those who want to use humor effectively to communicate important messages– it offers fun with a purpose.
What Mona Lisa Knew: A Woman’s Guide To Getting Ahead In Business By Lightening Up by Barbara Mackoff
This is not necessarily for women only. In fact, Dr. Mackoff presents dozens of very useful ideas on how to jest for success on-the-job that everyone could use. At the same time, she helps women discover how to nurture their sense of humor. Barbara uses hundreds of fun and instructive anecdotes in addressing such topics as: the oh-so-serious woman, humor as a state of mind, five sure-fire humor formulas, caution: men at work, light parenting, and grace under pressure.
What’s So Funny About Looking for a Job? by Scott Badler
Humorous anecdotes and common‑sense advice combine in this positive guide. Being out of work is no joke, but the higher your spirits, the better the chances of keeping your sanity while you search. When you need a good laugh‑‑ to relieve stress, release frustration, and feel better about yourself‑‑ reach for this book. You’ll also find funny stories, cartoons, practical tips on how and where to look for jobs, and a generous portion of hope. A great gift for a career-changing or job‑seeking friend or family member.
Whistle While You Work: Heeding Your Life’s Calling by Richard Leider and David Shapiro
The events of September 11 caused countless people to re-examine what is important to them in life. Many people revisited the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” This book will help you answer that very important question. It is a liberating, practical, and fun guidebook that will help you find work that is truly satisfying, deeply fulfilling, and consistent with your most heartfelt values. Featuring a unique “Calling Card” exercise, you’ll have a chance to explore 52 “natural preferences” as a way of uncovering your “right work.” Here’s a chance for you to discover how to make a living doing what you were born to do… and to whistle while you work.
Why Didn’t I Think Of That? by Roger Firestien
This short book presents a tall tale– a wonderful fable set in the world of business. Dr. Firestien did think of a personal and professional guide to better ideas and decision making. He presents it in this fable which offers ten tools on how to be deliberately creative. The moral of the story is you can be more creative than you think– and if you think!
“Yes, But…”: The Top 40 Killer Phrases and How You Can Fight Them by Chic Thompson
“We’ve always done it this way.” “It’s not in the budget.” “Don’t be ridiculous.” Have you ever run into these creativity-killers? This book gives you the tools you need to bulletproof your own great ideas and encourage great ideas in colleagues, friends, and family. Lighthearted cartoons and commonsense text show you how to recognize and diffuse the Top 40 Killer Phrases before they destroy creative potential. Provides provocative, practical, and playful thoughts on how to turn a “Yes, But…” mentality into “Yes, And…” thinking. Includes “The Top Ten Fight Back Phrases.”
You Don’t Have to Go Home from Work Exhausted: The Energy Engineering Approach by Ann McGee-Cooper with Duane Trammell and Barbara Lau
Based on the formula, “Energy equals work plus play,” this large format handbook is chock-full of practical principles that tell you how to be more productive while leading a balanced life. You’ll learn how to put passion, power and joy into work and play, how to reclaim your kid spirit, and how to build a nest for organizational innovation. This book takes a humorous look at the energy traps we fall into– then gives specific techniques to help us climb out. Suggestions are easy-to-follow and, readers report, they work.