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The Power of Thanks: How Social Recognition Empowers Employees and Creates a Best Place to Work

The most powerful word in your leadership vocabulary is . . . THANKS!

Building a fully engaged, energized workforce is the key to business success. The Power of Thanks reveals how leading companies like Intuit, JetBlue Airways, IHG, Symantec, ConAgra Foods, and The Hershey Company empower employees through social recognition, in which the practice of mutual appreciation and trust directs and rewards higher performance.

Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine, executives at the world-renowned employee recognition firm Globoforce, explain why social recognition is so powerful and how you can apply it in your company. Case by case, they show how a carefully planned and consistently executed Culture of Recognition business strategy inspires: Greater employee engagement and loyalty Stronger, more unified teams and departments A creative, innovative company culture Improved customer satisfaction Increased profitability and organizational health

Mosley and Irvine provide practical advice and proven examples for devising a powerful, growth-generating strategy that modernizes employee recognition for today’s social, global, multi-generational and 24×7 wired workforce.

When employees participate in a culture that makes everyone a stakeholder in the organization’s success, positive energy spreads like wildfire, and business results follow. Something so simple and powerful might work like magic, but it’s really just common sense. It’s smart management. It’s long-term thinking.

It’s The Power of Thanks.

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The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace

For readers of Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, and Freakonomics, comes a captivating and surprising journey through the science of workplace excellence.
 
Why do successful companies reward failure? What can casinos teach us about building a happy workplace? How do you design an office that enhances both attention to detail and creativity?
 
In The Best Place to Work, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D. uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work. Combining powerful stories with cutting edge findings, Friedman shows leaders at every level how they can use scientifically-proven techniques to promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance.
 
Among the many surprising insights, Friedman explains how learning to think like a hostage negotiator can help you diffuse a workplace argument, why placing a fish bowl near your desk can elevate your thinking, and how incorporating strategic distractions into your schedule can help you reach smarter decisions. Along the way, the book introduces the inventor who created the cubicle, the president who brought down the world’s most dangerous criminal, and the teenager who single-handedly transformed professional tennis—vivid stories that offer unexpected revelations on achieving workplace excellence.
 
Brimming with counterintuitive insights and actionable recommendations, The Best Place to Work offers employees and executives alike game-changing advice for working smarter and turning any organization—regardless of its size, budgets, or ambitions—into an extraordinary workplace.

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The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad)

The sensational new novel from “one of the most talented crime writers alive” (The Washington Post)

The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, in the grounds of a girls’ boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.

Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad—and one morning, sixteen-yearold Holly Mackey brings him this photo. “The Secret Place,” a board where the girls at St Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.

But everything they find leads them back to Holly’s group of close-knit friends and their fierce enemies, a rival clique—and to the tangled web of relationships that bound all the girls to Chris Harper. Every step in their direction turns up the pressure. Antoinette Conway is already suspicious of Stephen’s links to the Mackey family. St Kilda’s will go a long way to keep murder outside their walls. Holly’s father, Detective Frank Mackey, is circling, ready to pounce if any of the new evidence points towards his daughter. And the private underworld of teenage girls can be more mysterious and more dangerous than either of the detectives imagined.

The Secret Place is a powerful, haunting exploration of friendship and loyalty, and a gripping addition to the Dublin Murder Squad series.

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2014: A fallow murder investigation is resuscitated when Holly Mackey (daughter of Frank Mackey, both last seen in Faithful Place) brings Detective Stephen Moran (Mackey’s protege in Faithful Place) a fresh clue she’s discovered at her posh girls’ school where the murder took place. Hoping this is his chance to trade Cold Cases for the Dublin Murder Squad and revive his own career, Moran finagles himself a partnership with prickly lead cop Antoinette Conway. Together the detectives try to find the truth inside the secrets, loyalties, and misdirection thrown their way by two rival groups of teenage schoolgirls. As in her previous books, just when you think you’ve solved the mystery another curious twist appears and French keeps you guessing right up until the very end. –Seira Wilson

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The Secret Place: Dublin Murder Squad, Book 5

The sensational new novel from “one of the most talented crime writers alive”. (The Washington Post)

The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, in the grounds of a girls’ boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says I know who killed him.

Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad – and one morning, 16-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. “The Secret Place”, a board where the girls at St Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.

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Studio Spaces: Projects, Inspiration & Ideas for Your Creative Place (Better Homes and Gardens Cooking)

Create, update, and organize your creative workspace

With the economy still in a slump, handmade isn’t going anywhere. In the online and print crafting worlds, craft and art studios and workspaces are extremely popular topics—and storage and organization is a perennially hot topic. Combining the two brings together the best of both worlds in a collection of inspiration, how-to, projects, and sneak peeks into the studios of favorite designers.

With a unique combination of designer studios, inspiration, helpful projects, and creative how-to, you’ll find clever and helpful ideas to corral your crafting supplies, update your creative spaces, and spend more time creating and less time combating clutter. You’ll get an inside look at the studios of top designers and crafters Dozens of projects to help contain, organize, and manage craft supplies and stash Dozens of inspirational stories on studio and workspace organization Countless clever and unique tips and tricks for wrangling clutter and getting the most out of the space you have, freeing up time for more creativity

No matter what your craft or experience, Studio Spaces offers the inspiration and ideas you need to better organize and decorate your home studio and let the creativity flow.

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Falling into Place: Touched by Divine Inspiration

      “The Glass has Shattered but the Cross Remains”

In her book of “incidents” , Falling Into Place-Touched by Divine Inspiration,author S. R. Lewis recalls events detailing abuse, death and Angelic protection. Accounts of one’s journey that many people experience but these adversities were touched by spiritual direction. From a young age she experienced precognitive dreams and messages that seemed like she was watching scenes from a movie. Prepare to be inspired by gifts of healing, examples of faith, hope and love. Even in the most hopeless situations, feel how God healed her broken heart and carried her through the darkest moments of her life.

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Place of Healing: Wrestling With the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty

In this eloquent account of her current struggle with physical pain, Joni Eareckson Tada offers her perspective on divine healing, God’s purposes, and what it means to live with joy. Over four decades ago, a diving accident left Joni a quadriplegic. Today, she faces a new battle: unrelenting pain. The ongoing urgency of this season in her life has caused Joni to return to foundational questions about suffering and God’s will. A Place of Healing is not an ivory-tower treatise on suffering. It’s an intimate look into the life of a mature woman of God. Whether readers are enduring physical pain, financial loss, or relational grief, Joni invites them to process their suffering with her. Together, they will navigate the distance between God’s magnificent yes and heartbreaking non and find new hope for thriving in-between.