Managing the Mobile Workforce: Leading, Building, and Sustaining Virtual Teams, By Michael Kroth and David Clemons (McGraw-Hill)

In the global marketplace, people can work practically anywhere and anytime. Managing the Mobile Workforce shares stories about organizations that have taken the risk to unleash--literally--their workers from the chains of daily commutes, 9-to-5 business hours, and the same old cubicles they have sat in day after day, year after year, and even decade after decade.

David Clemons, an entrepreneur within the enterprise mobile and online training industry, and Michael Kroth, an expert and author on how leaders can create highly motivating work environments, together deliver rock-solid guidance on the essentials for building, leading, and sustaining a highly productive virtual workforce. Clemons and Kroth present the real-life relationships between managers and employees through interviews of thought leaders and executives that will engage your thinking about how the right leadership, combined with technology, can make all the difference.

Tools, tips, and strategies for hiring, training, supporting, and motivating the modern mobile workforce IDC has estimated that mobile workers worldwide will surpass one billion by 2011. This isn't just a trend, but the direction that business is heading. Managing the Mobile Workforce gives managers and executives at all levels key essentials for coping with this new reality, empowering them to create, sustain, support, and reward a highly passionate and productive mobile work force. Managing the Mobile Workforce

• Shares startling facts and figures indicating how many workers already are and will be working
• Explains why trust is the glue that binds managers and workers together across vast distances—and how to achieve it
• Provides strategies to manage performance in a virtual world--and why mobility can actually increase productivity
• Reveals how technology and great leadership can reduce the virtual distance between you and your mobile workers
• Gives eight motivational principles and tools for mobile leaders
• Suggests a new way of looking at the virtual team development process

Stories from top execs at Samsung, Deloitte LLP, Hewlett-Packard, LEGO, and the Federal Office of Personnel Management, along with thought leaders like Joel Barker and Stephen M. R. Covey and other key industry experts will show you how the mobile workforce is changing the very landscape of business--and what you can do starting today to recreate their successes in your own organization.

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Career Development Basics, By Michael Kroth and McKay Christensen (ASTD Press)

Even in the best financial times, career development is often relegated to the back of the bus because it’s seen as a short-term cost rather than a long-term investment with lasting impact. But the reality is that career development helps people strive for meaningful accomplishment in the workplace, and both individuals and organizations thrive when their goals are being met.

This book is intended to empower training and development leaders with the knowledge and tools needed to become catalysts for bringing a career development focus to their organizations. Because busy managers in today’s hectic business environment already have plenty on their plates, Career Development Basics jump-starts the learning curve by providing a succinct, ready-to-apply approach to this challenge.

Within this book you’ll find a sound, no-nonsense framework for implementing a career development focus, supplemented by an array of easy-to-understand materials.

More Information about Career Development Basics

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The Manager As Motivator, by Michael Kroth (Praeger Publishing)

You Have the Ability

You have the ability to be a great motivator. You have the potential to tap the exceptional creativity, productivity, and enthusiasm residing in each employee.

Your hands may be tied by corporate policies and problems. You may be frustrated with the support you receive. You may have few resources and many challenges. You can still be a powerful motivator.

You may be shy. The thought of giving a pep talk may mortify you. You can still be a powerful motivator.

You may have employees who don’t seem to care at all. You can still be a powerful motivator.  

(Excerpted from The Manager As Motivator (Praeger Publishing)

What You Will Miss If You Don’t Read This Book

The Manager as Motivator will give you timeless motivational principles that are simple to understand and execute in your work environment. You don’t need inborn magical qualities or the ability to make an inspiring pep talk to motivate people. This book will give straightforward approaches you can apply to all aspects of your life.

This book is meant to be used, not read and put on a shelf. It’s a personal coach to pick up anytime you are wrestling with the best way to help employees reach their fullest potential. Unlike other books this will focus not only on how to cause excitement in your employees, project team members, and other co-workers but also upon how to build a sustainable motivating work environment. 

(Excerpted from The Manager As Motivator (Praeger Publishing)

What others are saying:

One part reflection, two parts inspiration, and three parts celebration--put it all together and you have a practical and highly useable guide to maximizing your management potential. This book should be on every manager's reading list, every year.
- Hallie Preskill, Ph.D., Professor, School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University

Michael Kroth tells us how even the most non-charismatic leader at any organizational level can be a powerful motivator. Filled with practical, easy-to-use strategies, this book is a great read and the kind of book you will dog ear, mark up, and really use to get the most out of the staff and volunteers in your organization.
- Anne Blouin, CAE, Chief Learning & Community Officer, ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Managers, executives or any leader interested in getting the best out of people on the job will benefit from the book's relaxed style and uncomplicated techniques. Managers who follow Kroth's suggestions are likely to find themselves surrounded by people who are energized and committed to the job and the organization.
- Tim Hatcher, Associate Professor, North Carolina State University Editor, Human Resource Development Quarterly

A vitally important, eminently readable, and exceedingly practical book on motivation. A must read for the manager wishing to influence high performance.
- Steve Buchholz, Author of Aftershock: Helping People Through Corporate Change

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Transforming Work, by Patricia Boverie and Michael Kroth (Perseus Publishing)

Transforming Work is about the indispensable necessity of passion for personal and organizational success in the workplace. It includes research, theory, and practical ideas for creating passionate work environments for organizations, and for your own journey to passionate work.

What others are saying:

"An excellent resource which teaches you how to bring your passionate self to work each day–and how to take it home with you at night."
– Richard Leider, Founder, The Inventure Group and author of Whistle While You Work and Repacking Your Bags

"Boverie and Kroth have unlocked one of the essential keys to talent retention. Their insights on passion from the point of view of the individual and the organization give leaders all the ammunition and ideas they need . . .This book can make a difference in building a culture of growth and development, so critical to employee satisfaction."
– Dr. Beverly Kaye, author of Up Is Not the Only Way

"Boverie and Kroth understand the importance of work that is personally meaningful and exciting, and their book will show you how to get those qualities back into your own worklife."
- William Bridges, Author of Transitions and JobShift

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