Available Books
Corporate Culture expertice
Books by Nick Shepherd
I offer these books as a way of sharing my experience. I show you how poor culture costs money. I suggest ways to improve an organization’s culture. I also tell fictional stories that illustrate how culture works in real life. “No Fun at Great Toys” shows what happens when a poor leader only focuses on the bottom line. “Fun returns to Great Toys” shows how a good leader can turn the situation around. Take a look and see what you think. I am always open to suggestions, ideas and criticism. I also offer a few books “beyond culture” – in some other areas I believe I can add some value.
Non-Fiction on Culture
The Workplace Battlefield: Where talent goes to die
available on kindle or paperback
For many going to work everyday is like being on a battlefield. People’s desire to do a good job and contribute seems to be blocked by all manner of barriers and problems. This is the culture screen. Organizations suffer, employees suffer and the whole system fails to meet its’ potential. While organizations spend large sums of money to attract and retain talent, to drive growth, innovation and creativity, this investment is often wasted when people are unable to execute. Many organizations are trying to track and manage employee engagement, yet it remains stubbornly low. The culture screen explains the problems and offers solutions. At the heart of building a great workplace is governance and the role of leadership.
Responsible Business: The Pathway to a Great Workplace Culture
available in paperback
Business holds an important place in society. It benefits us by providing products and services that society wants or needs. Being “market driven” it has a core role in idea creation and through this encourages innovation and creativity. But business needs to “clean up its’ act” and restore a more effective balance between investors and other “stakeholders” – those who have an impact on or are impacted by its activities. This book establishes the need for change and take the reader through ideas, activities, and actions necessary to restore a balance between investor needs and those of society – to become more responsible. It is a way of thinking that embodies caring and respect for those and the world around us. This book embraces the importance of business purpose – but believes that this MUST combine both a social and a commercial purpose.
Toxic Culture: How to recognize, evaluate and fix them
available in paperback
Toxic cultures occur when leadership fails to clearly define, manage and sustain a foundation of acceptable behaviour. This book focuses on examples of toxic culture and explains how organziations need to address this problem and build expectations of behaviour, defining clearly “how we do things around here” so as to minimize issues and problems and engage the workforce as a sustainable competitive advantage.
The Cost of Poor Culture: The massive financial opportunity in an enhanced workplace climate
available on kindle and paperback
Organizational culture creates the foundation for an effective business. Few people realize the untapped financial potential that comes from a focus on a positive culture. This book demonstrates how surprises, excess costs and lost opportunities can be revealed and actions taken to improve organizational performance. It links the issue of culture to integrated reporting, human capital metrics and new approaches to cost management.
Corporate Culture – Combining Purpose and Values: How a poor culture can stifle creativity, innovation and success, and how to fix it.
available on kindle and paperback
Corporate Purpose is not enough for a human-centric organization. There must be a foundation of Values to guide behaviour between and among people. Without a clearly defined and embedded culture, there will be surprises, excess costs and lost opportunity. This book describes how to make your unique culture an enabler of success.
Fiction on Culture
No Fun at Great Toys
available on kindle or paperback
The story of Steve, the new CEO at Great Toys. Steve is faced with a culture that has deteriorated as a result of continual cost cutting. His challenge is to identify the issues that are destroying the business and develop solutions to get it back on track. The first book follows the trials and tribulations that Steve endures as everything he looks at seems to need attention. As the book moves forward, Steve starts to develop the solutions needed to change direction and convince the employees, customers, suppliers and others that he is committed to doing what is needed. This first book of two, focuses on the problems and issues, and the various strategic and operational solutions that start to be put in place.
Fun Returns to Great Toys
available on kindle or paperback
Steve, the CEO of Great Toys who we met in the first book “No Fun at Great Toys” now returns in book two and starts to implement all the changes needed to build an effective organizational culture. This book tracks the work of the Culture Change team, the executive Leadership team, and Steve, and the Board of Directors in their journey to change the way that they run the business. The book demonstrates how developing a people-centric, inclusive workplace sets the foundation for a return to success at Great Toys. A must read for existing and aspiring CEO’s, board members and others in leadership roles who are trying to r-vitalize their organizations for future success. Touching on aspects of ESG and Respobsible Business this book reflects the changes occuring in the way business is run in the 21st century knowledge economy.
Other Non-Fiction
Understanding and reporting human capital
available on kindle or paperback
This book begins to build the bridge between traditional HR reporting and the new generation of metrics needed to understand the strategic role that people play in today’s organizations. The book positions human capital metrics within an integrated thinking business model and seeks to address the challenges of emerging aspects such as organizational culture within the suggested approach. Part 1 of the book starts with currently available approaches that can be used as a base and then explains why these are no longer adequate. Part 2 suggests a framework for developing future metrics and explores emerging areas that will need to be addressed as human capital becomes more strategically planned and managed.
The Tunnels of Wallingford: Fact or Fiction
available on kindle and paperback
Wallingford in Oxfordshire, England is over 1,000 years old and prior to 1974 was in the Royal County of Berkshire. Some ruins of the Castle built by William the Conqueror still stand. There have long been stories about secret, hidden underground passages and tunnels under the town. These book has collected together many of the stories, and seeks to explore the question – are they fact or fiction?
How Accountants Lost Their Balance: How the profession has drifted away from reality and must adapt to an intangible world
available on kindle and paperback
Reliance on accounting information to understand organizational health and value is inadequate. Integrated reporting can provide part of the solution. Accountants must embrace the growing world of intangible assets and broad based stakeholders to ensure they remain relevant and valuable in a changing world. This book charts the problem and suggests some solutions.
Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations: How Effective Leaders Balance Task and Relationship to Build High Performing Organizations
available on kindle and paperback
An organization operating in the twenty-first century is different from one that operated during the Industrial Revolution. Todays focus is on optimizing human potential; people are the enablers of most aspects of intangible value. People develop relationships with suppliers, customers, distributors, and other third parties through which work is executed. In Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations, authors Nick Shepherd and Peter Smyth take an integrated view of organizational performance that blends a focus on both outcomes and relationships.
Controller’s Handbook
available on kindle and paperback
This 2nd edition of the Controllers handbook is an essential “primer” for accountants entering their first position as a Controller in any organization. The book approaches the role of senior financial manager by looking at how the financial and accounting aspects of the job remain important, yet the individual now has to view financial management from the perspective of a generalist viewpoint. The book places emphasis on the context of financial management and how skills in the areas of strategy, operations and resource allocation and consumption become more important when made as a member of an organization’s leadership team.