Books by Laura Stack

Announcing the release of Laura Stack’s newest book in January 2018!

Faster Together: Accelerating Your Team’s Productivity (Berrett-Koehler 2018)

With countless emails, constant communication, cascading deadlines, and seemingly endless meetings, it’s a wonder any of us gets anything done these days. You can try working harder or faster or smarter, but what really makes the difference is “teaming well.” A good team is the most powerful productivity machine in existence.

Laura Stack’s FAST model mobilizes teams to be the most effective they can be, while keeping each other’s best interests at heart. Teams learn to work together Fairly, accept Accountability, apply Systems Thinking, and maximize available Technology. An interactive assessment helps you evaluate your team’s current speed and rate of acceleration.

Every team may have its stars, but they couldn’t do their jobs without the rest of the team doing theirs. By the end of this book, you’ll truly understand the abilities of your team and how each member makes things go. So, rev your team’s engines, and you’ll soon be roaring down the track together!  ORDER HERE


Doing the Right Things Right: How the Effective Executive Spends Time (Berrett-Koehler) by Laura Stack #productivity

Doing the Right Things Right: How the Effective Executive Spends Time (Berrett-Koehler)

Download PDFDoing the Right Things Right details precisely how today’s leaders and managers can obtain profitable, productive results by managing the intersection of two critical values: effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness, Stack says, is identifying and achieving the best objectives for your organization-doing the right things. Efficiency is accomplishing them with the least amount of time, effort, and cost-doing things right. If you’re not clear on both, you’re wasting your time.

Stack identifies twelve practices that will enable executives to be effective and efficient, grouped into three areas where leaders spend their time, called 3T Leadership: Strategic Thinking (Business), Teamwork (Employees), and Tactics (Self). For each practice, Stack offers advice from her 25 years in the trenches, working with thousands of leaders globally. You’ll receive scores of new ideas on how you, your team, and your organization can boost productivity.  ORDER HERE or download PDF flyer (click PDF icon).


Execution IS the Strategy: How Leaders Achieve Maximum Results in Minimum Time by Laura Stack #strategy #leadership

Execution IS the Strategy: How Leaders Achieve Maximum Results in Minimum Time (Berrett-Koehler 2014)

In today’s world of disruptive change, three-year strategic plans have come into question. Companies whose strategies are celebrated in January are junked by March. The concept of dividing the process of strategy and execution just doesn’t make sense anymore. In the era of the lean start-up, rapid prototyping, and agile product development, organizations must often act first and strategize later. How can leaders adapt to this world without losing their strategic minds—or worse, their shirts?

Laura Stack’s breakthrough is showing leaders how execution—think of it as organizational productivity—can drive strategy, rather than the other way around. Using her L-E-A-D Formula ™ to leverage resources, create supportive environments, align operations with strategic priorities, and drive forward quickly, leaders can work with their people to adjust strategies in real time and get things done. You may not have time for strategic planning, but you’ll learn how to build an organizational culture that’s great at strategic execution. ORDER HERE


What To Do When There's Too Much To Do by Laura Stack #productivity

What to Do When There’s Too Much to Do: Reduce Tasks, Increase Results, and Save 90 Minutes a Day (Berrett-Koehler 2012)

These days, everyone is busy. Advances in technology mean there is more information to sort through than ever. Work hours have increased, but to-do lists are endless – schedules get blown in the first five minutes of the day. You could spend more time “planning” and “prioritizing” your list than actually doing the work! At work and in life, we all just have too much to do! And when you have too much to do, it’s hard to feel productive.

If you can’t do everything, you need to put your time and energy into what will yield the more important results. Laura Stack shows how to hone in on the high-value tasks, protect the time to do them, focus on their execution, and organize your life around the stuff that really matters. Her innovative, step-by-step Productivity Workflow Formula (PWF) allows you to spend less time and achieve greater results than you ever thought possible. We can no longer do more with less – we can’t put in more hours or work harder than we are now – we have to work differently and do less to achieve more. ORDER HERE


Supercompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best by Laura Stack #productivity

SuperCompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best (Wiley, 2010)

The new mantras “buckle down!” These times are about a return to quality rather than quantity; all of us must learn to be competent—and not simply competent, but SuperCompetent®. In this competitive economy, just being able to do your job is no longer enough. Competence is expected; you’ve got to be SuperCompetent to get an edge.

Written for High Potentials in Leadership Development programs, SuperCompetent will give you proven methods to reach your maximum potential and achieve breakthrough results. You’ll get to your productive best by mastering six keys to peak performance. ORDER HERE


The Exhaustion Cure: Up Your Energy from Low to Go in 21 Days by Laura Stack #productivity

The Exhaustion Cure: Up Your Energy from Low to Go in 21 Days (Random House, 2008)

Feeling fatigued? Wish you could have more get-up-and-go? If you’re like millions of Americans, you get home from a long day with barely enough energy to lift the remote control. But with Laura Stack’s comprehensive plan, you can regain your vitality in just three weeks. Let The Productivity Pro® help you eliminate the “energy bandits” from all aspects of your life–from your diet and your work schedule to your environment and your relationships–so you can start living in a way that will boost your energy.

Focusing on simple changes that make a huge difference, The Exhaustion Cure presents manageable ways to cut down on “energy bandits” and fill up on “energy boosters,” stop relying on caffeine, cigarettes and other substances to keep you going, avoid letting negative situations or people control your thoughts and actions, sneak in time for fitness during the busiest days, accomplish your goals and find more time to devote to your family. ORDER HERE


Find More Time: How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It by Laura Stack #productivity

Find More Time: How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It (Random House, 2006)

You have a sink full of dishes to wash, three loads of laundry to do, seventeen bills to pay, thirty-six e-mails to answer, a big stack of novels on the nightstand you’d love to read, and zero minutes of free time. You can’t add more hours to the day, but Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro®, will help you make the most of the time you have and get things done.

The Productivity Pro® helps you determine what you have under control and where you need to improve. Are you good at managing your bills but can’t find time to exercise? Do you get your kids to all their activities but end up constantly behind on laundry? Laura Stack shows you how to improve every area of your life.

Whether you need help on just a few things or feel like your life is totally out of control, Find More Time will help you organize your space, time, and information to reduce your stress and create and sustain a productive home environment, so you’ll have more time to enjoy your life. ORDER HERE


 Leave the Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time...and Feel Great About It by Laura Stack #productivity

Leave the Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time…and Feel Great About It (Random House, 2004)

Long hours. Juggling family and work. Deadlines. High stress levels. Today’s professionals are feeling more overworked and overwhelmed than ever before. Yet you CAN get more done than you ever thought possible—and still get home to your real life sooner. Laura Stack, “The Productivity Pro,” shows you how.

Leave the Office Earlier explores the ten key factors that improve results, lower stress, and save time in today’s workplace. Fun, interactive quizzes speed you to exactly the advice and techniques you need the most. You can tailor this information-loaded book to your own needs by focusing on your problem areas—such as time-wasters, distractions, email overload, or poor organization—and by following the easy-to-implement solutions. With Laura Stack’s help, you’ll work more efficiently and be more productive in every area of your life, so that you can really live according to your priorities. Don’t just work faster. Work better, reduce stress, and leave the office earlier! ORDER HERE