Search results for ""author michael watkins""

How did John F. Kennedy put a man on the moon in just under ten years?What can chess teach us about actionable insights?And why should you shake up a business at a time of great success?All of these questions have their answer in strategic thinking. But what is strategic thinking exactly? Are we born with it, or can we nurture it?As a distinct and important capability in leaders, strategic thinking is a remarkably poorly defined, little understood concept, confined to management courses and board meetings. But in The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, world-renowned expert Michael Watkins shows leaders how they can benefit from it, as long as they have the tools to nurture it.Exploring the six specific mental disciplines that together constitute strategic thinking, each chapter shows how they can create value, and offers prescriptions on how to develop the strategic thinking mindset ourselves. Academically grounded but jargon-free, with real-world examples from all sectors and ages, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking assesses our innate ability to think strategically, and helps us to cultivate it, leading to better decisions that get proven results.

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Breakthrough Business Negotiation is a definitive guide to negotiating in any business situation. This smart and practical book by Michael Watkins, a leading expert in negotiation at Harvard Business School, presents principles that apply to any negotiation situation and tools to achieve breakthrough results. Step by step, Breakthrough Business Negotiation demonstrates how to diagnose a situation, build coalitions, manage internal decision making, persuade others, organize a deal cycle, and create strategic alliances. Watkins also explains how to prevent disputes from poisoning deals.

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Named one of 100 Leadership & Success Books to Read in a Lifetime by Amazon Editors The world's most trusted guide for leaders in transition Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success. In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions--no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today's increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs. By walking you through every aspect of the transition scenario, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides the tools and strategies you need to avoid them. You'll learn how to secure critical early wins, an important first step in establishing yourself in your new role. Each chapter also includes checklists, practical tools, and self-assessments to help you assimilate key lessons and apply them to your own situation. Whether you're starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this book as your trusted guide.

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This fascinating and instructive book offers a revealing, blow-by-blow description of secret, headline-making negotiations in the Middleast, Korea, Africa, and Bosnia, as well as an invaluable guide to conducting such a difficult process of tremendous practical application to a wide variety of conflict resolution professionals. Based on extensive interviews and research with key players at the highest level, this book not only tells some incredibly dramatic stories but shows how to use these demonstrated strategies, skills, improvisational interventions and other techniques. Detailing breakthrough negotiations which brought the Israelis and Palestinians together for the first time in Oslo, built the Gulf War Coalition, ended the great divide between North and South Korea, and terminated the war in Bosnia, the authors employ a compelling narrative and didactic style to explain how to understand and apply sophisticated, field-tested methods of dispute resolution in a variety of situations.

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Who was Richard Kemp, after whom the Kemp's ridley sea turtle is named? Is Wake's Gecko named after Berkeley's Marvalee Wake? Or perhaps her husband, David? Why do so many snakes and lizards have Werner in their name? This reference book answers these and thousands of other questions about the origins of the vernacular and scientific names of reptiles across the globe. From Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti, the Florida cottonmouth subspecies named for Roger Conant, to Xantusia, the night lizard genera namesake of John Xantus, this dictionary covers everyone after whom an extant or recently extinct reptile has been named. The entries include a brief bio-sketch, a list of the reptiles that bear the individual's name, the names of reptiles erroneously thought to be associated with the person, and a summary of major-and sometimes obscure or even incidental-contributions made by the person to herpetology and zoology. An introductory chapter explains how to use the book and describes the process of naming taxa. Easy to use and filled with addictive-and highly useful-information about the people whose names will be carried into the future on the backs of the world's reptiles, The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles is a handy and fun book for professional and amateur herpetologists alike.

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The Eponym Dictionary is a series of brief but concise biographies of all those people after whom fish have been named in both the vernacular and scientific names. It also covers names which seem to be eponyms but are not, such as toponyms, names of organisations, ethnic groups, etc. It also shows the networks of scientific collaboration, friendship or patronage. Each species named after an individual is listed with their authors and years for context and wherever possible it is shown how the authors and the eponym are linked. Every effort has been made to be accurate and meticulous, and the book is also a repository of biographical knowledge that will entertain as well as inform. In conjunction with the other books it forms a database of everyone named in a vertebrate. For ease of use, this volume is designed as a dictionary, making it easy to find the person behind the name and, in doing so, discover which fish commemorates them and learn something of their lives and background. For many obscure individuals, these vignettes may be as full a biography of the person as possible, but for the famous it is merely a starting point that shows the enquirer, with confidence, the right person. Some brief entries summarise whole volumes of biography, especially those honoured in a name because of their standing in society rather than their scientific behaviour. There is a vast range of derivations related not just to scientists, zoologists and scholars, but also pop stars, TV and film personalities and writers. There is a whole world of aquarists and fish hobbyists, many of whom have been immortalised for adding to our knowledge of tropical fish. Moreover, there are many people whose only claim to fame is that naming. The parents, spouses, sons and daughters of ichthyologists are well-represented, as are their teachers and even their lovers. The Eponym Dictionary of Fishes is a web of relationships and connections, icons and idols.

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This fascinating reference book delves into the origins of the vernacular and scientific names of sharks, rays, skates and chimeras. Each entry offers a concise biography, revealing the hidden stories and facts behind each species’ name. Full of interesting facts and humorous titbits, the authors’ extensive research and detective work has made this book a comprehensive source of knowledge on everyone associated with the naming of a species. A fascinating resource for anyone with an interest in sharks, from curious naturalist to professional ichthyologist, it is an essential addition to the library of anyone wishing to satisfy those tickling questions on the mysteries behind the names. Sometimes a name refers not to a person but to a fictional character or mythological figure. Eptatretus eos is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn in reference to the pink colouring of the hagfish. The Chilean Roundray Urotrygon cimar, named after Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología in honour of its 20th anniversary, and the Angular Angelshark Squatina Guggenheim, named after the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, are both named after institutions. The Whiteleg Skate Amblyraja taaf is just a shorthand way of describing a toponym – Territoire des Terres australes et antarctiques françaises. There are also entries which are light-hearted such as the one for a lady who told us "that decoration of her cakes have included roughtail skate Bathyraja trachura, red abalone Haliotis rufescens, and chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha." Following the success of their previous Eponym Dictionaries, the authors have joined forces to give the Elasmobranch group of fishes a similar treatment but they have also included the describers and authors of the original descriptions of the fishes involved, in addition to those names that are, or appear to be, eponyms. They have tracked down some 850 names of living as well as dead people. Of these half are eponyms after people who have fish named after them and may also have described a fish or fishes. The other half are ichthyologists, marine biologists and other scientists who have become involved in the description and naming of sharks, rays, skates and chimeras. For each person mentioned there is brief, pithy biography. Additionally there are some 50 entries for what sound like eponyms but turned out not to have any connection to a person, such as the Alexandrine Torpedo is named after the city in Egypt and not Alexander the Great. In some cases these are a reminder of the courage of scientists whose dedicated research in remote locations exposed them to disease and even violent death. The eponym ensures that their memory will survive, aided by reference works such as this highly readable dictionary. Altogether 1,577 fishes are listed.

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More than 250,000 public sector managers in the United States take on new positions each year and many more aspire to leadership. Each will confront special challenges--from higher public profiles to a greater number of stakeholders to volatile political environments--that will make their transitions even more challenging than in the business world. Now Michael Watkins, author of the bestselling book The First 90 Days, applies his proven leadership transition framework to the public sector. Watkins and coauthor Peter Daly address the crucial differences between the private and public sectors that go to the heart of how success and failure are defined, measured, and rewarded or penalized. This concise, practical book provides a roadmap that will help new government leaders at all levels accelerate their transitions by overcoming nine transition challenges, ranging from clarifying expectations to defining goals to building a team to managing personal stress. The authors also offer detailed strategies for avoiding major "transition traps." Zeroing in on the challenges faced by new government leaders, The First 90 Days in Government is the indispensable guide for anyone seeking to lead and succeed in the public sector.

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New species of animal and plant are being discovered all the time. When this happens, the new species has to be given a scientific, Latin name in addition to any common, vernacular name. In either case the species may be named after a person, often the discoverer but sometimes an individual they wished to honour or perhaps were staying with at the time the discovery was made. Species names related to a person are ‘eponyms’. Many scientific names are allusive, esoteric and even humorous, so an eponym dictionary is a valuable resource for anyone, amateur or professional, who wants to decipher the meaning and glimpse the history of a species name. Sometimes a name refers not to a person but to a fictional character or mythological figure. The Forest Stubfoot Toad Atelopus farci is named after the FARC, a Colombian guerrilla army who found refuge in the toad’s habitat and thereby, it is claimed, protected it. Hoipollo's Bubble-nest Frog Pseudophilautus hoipolloi was named after the Greek for ‘the many’, but someone assumed the reference was to a Dr Hoipollo. Meanwhile, the man who has everything will never refuse an eponym: Sting's Treefrog Dendropsophus stingi is named after the rock musician, in honour of his ‘commitment and efforts to save the rainforest’. Following the success of their Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles, the authors have joined forces to give amphibians a similar treatment. They have tracked down 1,609 honoured individuals and composed for each a brief, pithy biography. In some cases these are a reminder of the courage of scientists whose dedicated research in remote locations exposed them to disease and even violent death. The eponym ensures that their memory will survive, aided by reference works such as this highly readable dictionary. Altogether 2,668 amphibians are listed.

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