Book picks similar to
Key Management Ratios: Key Management Ratios by Ciaran Walsh
business
management
finance
economics
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
Eric Schmidt - 2019
In addition, this business genius mentored dozens of other important leaders on both coasts, from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to educators to football players, leaving behind a legacy of growing companies, successful people, respect, friendship, and love after his death in 2016.Leaders at Google for over a decade, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle experienced firsthand how the man fondly known as Coach Bill built trusting relationships, fostered personal growth—even in those at the pinnacle of their careers—inspired courage, and identified and resolved simmering tensions that inevitably arise in fast-moving environments. To honor their mentor and inspire and teach future generations, they have codified his wisdom in this essential guide.Based on interviews with over eighty people who knew and loved Bill Campbell, Trillion Dollar Coach explains the Coach’s principles and illustrates them with stories from the many great people and companies with which he worked. The result is a blueprint for forward-thinking business leaders and managers that will help them create higher performing and faster moving cultures, teams, and companies.
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
Reed Hastings - 2020
It has led nothing short of a revolution in the entertainment industries, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue while capturing the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people in over 190 countries. But to reach these great heights, Netflix, which launched in 1998 as an online DVD rental service, has had to reinvent itself over and over again. This type of unprecedented flexibility would have been impossible without the counterintuitive and radical management principles that cofounder Reed Hastings established from the very beginning. Hastings rejected the conventional wisdom under which other companies operate and defied tradition to instead build a culture focused on freedom and responsibility, one that has allowed Netflix to adapt and innovate as the needs of its members and the world have simultaneously transformed.Hastings set new standards, valuing people over process, emphasizing innovation over efficiency, and giving employees context, not controls. At Netflix, there are no vacation or expense policies. At Netflix, adequate performance gets a generous severance, and hard work is irrel-evant. At Netflix, you don't try to please your boss, you give candid feedback instead. At Netflix, employees don't need approval, and the company pays top of market. When Hastings and his team first devised these unorthodox principles, the implications were unknown and untested. But in just a short period, their methods led to unparalleled speed and boldness, as Netflix quickly became one of the most loved brands in the world.Here for the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, bestselling author of The Culture Map and one of the world's most influential business thinkers, dive deep into the controversial ideologies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe and never-before-told stories of trial and error from Hastings's own career, No Rules Rules is the fascinating and untold account of the philosophy behind one of the world's most innovative, imaginative, and successful companies.
Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
John E. Mackey - 2012
cofounder Raj Sisodia argue for the inherent good of both business and capitalism. Featuring some of today’s best-known companies, they illustrate how these two forces can—and do—work most powerfully to create value for all stakeholders: including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment.These "�Conscious Capitalism" companies include Whole Foods Market, Southwest Airlines, Costco, Google, Patagonia, The Container Store, UPS, and dozens of others. We know them; we buy their products or use their services. Now it’s time to better understand how these organizations use four specific tenets—higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, and conscious culture and management—to build strong businesses and help advance capitalism further toward realizing its highest potential.As leaders of the Conscious Capitalism movement, Mackey and Sisodia argue that aspiring leaders and business builders need to continue on this path of transformation—for the good of both business and society as a whole.At once a bold defense and reimagining of capitalism and a blueprint for a new system for doing business grounded in a more evolved ethical consciousness, this book provides a new lens for individuals and companies looking to build a more cooperative, humane, and positive future.
Value-Based Fees: How to Charge - and Get - What You're Worth (The Ultimate Consultant Series)
Alan Weiss - 2002
Unlike the contingency fees of attorneys, Weiss explains, his technique is about establishing a win-win dynamic with clients, while accommodating buyers' egos that "you get what you pay for." Filled with stories of successful consultants, sample proposals, letters of agreement, and other practical tools, Value-Based Fees' pragmatic advice includes:Step-by-step guidance on how to establish value-based fees How to create the "good deal" dynamic in client relationships Sixty ways to raise fees and increase profits immediately How to prevent and rebut fee objections How to use retainers wisely How to develop fee progression strategies How to make money while you sleep, eat, and play! Value-Based Fees clearly explains how to charge for your value--and get--what you're worth, providing the kind of nontheoretical, pragmatic advice that will help to improve any consultant's practice immediately.
Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen
Rita McGrath - 2019
Only those leaders who can “see around corners”–that is, spot the disruptive inflection points developing before they hit–are poised to succeed in this market. Columbia Business School Professor and corporate consultant Rita McGrath contends that inflection points, though they may seem sudden, are not random. Every seemingly overnight shift is the final stage of a process that has been subtly building for some time. Armed with the right strategies and tools, smart businesses can see these inflection points coming and use them to gain a competitive advantage. Seeing Around Corners is the first hands-on guide to anticipating, understanding, and capitalizing on the inflection points shaping the marketplace.
How to Lead: What You Actually Need to Do to Manage, Lead, and Succeed
Jo Owen - 2005
Every organization is looking for emerging leaders, and for those who stand out, there's a bright future ahead. The good news is that everybody can develop and show leadership skills, wherever you are in your career. It's never too early, or too late. An awful lot of guff has been written about leadership - whatever others would have you believe, you can be an effective leader even if you aren't a composite of Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and Shackleton. How to Lead is the book to cut through the daunting hero talk, the nonsense and the fluff. Put simply, leadership is about what you do and how you behave, so that's what this book is about. Based on actual research, it sets out the practical skills and behaviours that distinguish effective from less effective leaders, and shows you how to develop and deliver these vital assets. It doesn't absolutely guarantee success, but it loads the dice in your favour.
The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy: Classic Concepts and New Perspectives
Carl W. Stern - 2006
"The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy" offers a broad and up-to-date selection of the firm's best ideas on strategy with fresh ideas, insights, and practical lessons for managers, executives, and entrepreneurs in every industry. Here's a sampling of the provocative thinking you'll find inside:"You have to be the scientist of your own life and be astonished four times: at what is, what always has been, what once was, and what could be.""The majority of products in most companies are cash traps . . . .[They] are not only worthless, but a perpetual drain on corporate resources.""Use more debt than your competition or get out of the business.""When information flows freely, reputation, more than reciprocity, becomes the basis for trust.""As a strategic weapon, time is the equivalent of money, productivity, quality, even innovation.""When brands become business systems, brand management becomes far too important to leave to the marketing department.""The winning organization of the future will look more like a collection ofjazz ensembles than a symphony orchestra.""Most of our organizations today derive from a model whose original purpose was to control creativity.""Rather than being an obstacle, uncertainty is the very engine of transformation in a business, a continuous source of new opportunities.""IP assets lack clear property lines. Every bit of intellectual property you can own comes with connections to other valuable innovations."
What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-Smart Executive
Mark H. McCormack - 1984
Featuring a new foreword by Ariel Emanuel and Patrick WhitesellMark H. McCormack, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in American business, is widely credited as the founder of the modern-day sports marketing industry. On a handshake with Arnold Palmer and less than a thousand dollars, he started International Management Group and, over a four-decade period, built the company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with offices in more than forty countries.To this day, McCormack's business classic remains a must-read for executives and managers at every level. Relating his proven method of "applied people sense" in key chapters on sales, negotiation, reading others and yourself, and executive time management, McCormack presents powerful real-world guidance on- the secret life of a deal - management philosophies that don't work (and one that does) - the key to running a meeting--and how to attend one - the positive use of negative reinforcement - proven ways to observe aggressively and take the edge - and much more Praise for What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School "Incisive, intelligent, and witty, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School is a sure winner--like the author himself. Reading it has taught me a lot."--Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman, News Corp, chairman and CEO, 21st Century Fox "Clear, concise, and informative . . . Like a good mentor, this book will be a valuable aid throughout your business career."--Herbert J. Siegel, chairman, Chris-Craft Industries, Inc."Mark McCormack describes the approach I have personally seen him adopt, which has not only contributed to the growth of his business, but mine as well."--Arnold Palmer"There have been what we love to call dynasties in every sport. IMG has been different. What this one brilliant man, Mark McCormack, created is the only dynasty ever over all sport."--Frank Deford, senior contributing writer, Sports Illustrated
Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
Noah J. Goldstein - 2008
But what makes people say yes to our requests? Persuasion is not only an art, it is also a science, and researchers who study it have uncovered a series of hidden rules for moving people in your direction. Based on more than sixty years of research into the psychology of persuasion, Yes! reveals fifty simple but remarkably effective strategies that will make you much more persuasive at work and in your personal life, too.Cowritten by the world's most quoted expert on influence, Professor Robert Cialdini, Yes! presents dozens of surprising discoveries from the science of persuasion in short, enjoyable, and insightful chapters that you can apply immediately to become a more effective persuader. Why did a sign pointing out the problem of vandalism in the Petrified Forest National Park actually increase the theft of pieces of petrified wood? Why did sales of jam multiply tenfold when consumers were offered many fewer flavors? Why did people prefer a Mercedes immediately after giving reasons why they prefer a BMW? What simple message on cards left in hotel rooms greatly increased the number of people who behaved in environmentally friendly ways?Often counterintuitive, the findings presented in Yes! will steer you away from common pitfalls while empowering you with little-known but proven wisdom.Whether you are in advertising, marketing, management, or sales, or just curious about how to be more influential in everyday life, Yes! shows how making small, scientifically proven changes to your approach can have a dramatic effect on your persuasive powers.
The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary
Joseph A. Michelli - 2006
Since 1992, its stock has risen a staggering 5,000 percent! The genius of Starbucks success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences, stimulate business growth, generate profits, energize employees, and secure customer loyalty-all at the same time. The Starbucks Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of the world's most admired companies, according to Fortune magazine. With unique access to Starbucks personnel and resources, Joseph Michelli discovered that the success of Starbucks is driven by the people who work there-the partners -and the special experience they create for each customer. Michelli reveals how you can follow the Starbucks way to Reach out to entire communities Listen to individual workers and consumers Seize growth opportunities in every market Custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved Filled with real-life insider stories, eye-opening anecdotes, and solid step-by-step strategies, this fascinating book takes you deep inside one of the most talked-about companies in the world today. For anyone who wants to learn from the best-and be the best-The Starbucks Experience is a rich, heady brew of unforgettable user-friendly ideas.
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
Louis V. Gerstner Jr. - 2002
By 1993, the computer industry had changed so rapidly the company was on its way to losing $16 billion and IBM was on a watch list for extinction -- victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.Then Lou Gerstner was brought in to run IBM. Almost everyone watching the rapid demise of this American icon presumed Gerstner had joined IBM to preside over its continued dissolution into a confederation of autonomous business units. This strategy, well underway when he arrived, would have effectively eliminated the corporation that had invented many of the industry's most important technologies.Instead, Gerstner took hold of the company and demanded the managers work together to re-establish IBM's mission as a customer-focused provider of computing solutions. Moving ahead of his critics, Gerstner made the hold decision to keep the company together, slash prices on his core product to keep the company competitive, and almost defiantly announced, "The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision."Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? tells the story of IBM's competitive and cultural transformation. In his own words, Gerstner offers a blow-by-blow account of his arrival at the company and his campaign to rebuild the leadership team and give the workforce a renewed sense of purpose. In the process, Gerstner defined a strategy for the computing giant and remade the ossified culture bred by the company's own success.The first-hand story of an extraordinary turnaround, a unique case study in managing a crisis, and a thoughtful reflection on the computer industry and the principles of leadership, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement. Taking readers deep into the world of IBM's CEO, Gerstner recounts the high-level meetings and explains the pressure-filled, no-turning-back decisions that had to be made. He also offers his hard-won conclusions about the essence of what makes a great company run.In the history of modern business, many companies have gone from being industry leaders to the verge of extinction. Through the heroic efforts of a new management team, some of those companies have even succeeded in resuscitating themselves and living on in the shadow of their former stature. But only one company has been at the pinnacle of an industry, fallen to near collapse, and then, beyond anyone's expectations, returned to set the agenda. That company is IBM.Lou Gerstener, Jr., served as chairman and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 to March 2002, when he retired as CEO. He remained chairman of the board through the end of 2002. Before joining IBM, Mr. Gerstner served for four years as chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco, Inc. This was preceded by an eleven-year career at the American Express Company, where he was president of the parent company and chairman and CEO of its largest subsidiary. Prior to that, Mr. Gerstner was a director of the management consulting firm of McKinsey & Co., Inc. He received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Business Adventures
John Brooks - 1969
What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety. These notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.Stories about Wall Street are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance. John Brooks’s insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save the British pound, one gets the sense that history really does repeat itself.
The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business
Erin Meyer - 2014
Renowned expert Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain where people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together.When you have Americans who precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans who get straight to the point (“your presentation was simply awful”); Latin Americans and Asians who are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians who think the best boss is just one of the crowd—the result can be, well, sometimes interesting, even funny, but often disastrous.Even with English as a global language, it’s easy to fall into cultural traps that endanger careers and sink deals when, say, a Brazilian manager tries to fathom how his Chinese suppliers really get things done, or an American team leader tries to get a handle on the intra-team dynamics between his Russian and Indian team members.In The Culture Map, Erin Meyer provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business. She combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice for succeeding in a global world.
The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise
Mehrdad Baghai - 1999
It revitalizes organizations and invigorates the people in them, creating energy, a sense of purpose, and the glow of being on a winning team. Like the alchemy of old, it seeks to transform the everyday into the exalted by means that seem little short of magical. Yet growth is often elusive, achieved at unacceptable costs, or managed in fits and starts. Based on over three years of research and application at high-performing companies around the world, The Alchemy of Growth is a comprehensive, practical approach to initiating, achieving, and sustaining profitable growth -- today and tomorrow. As the book shows, the secret is to manage business opportunities across three time horizons at once: extending and defending core businesses, building new businesses, and seeding options for the future. The Alchemy of Growth offers managers at all levels the tools and concepts for investing in the right initiatives, capabilities, and talent to propel their companies into the future.
It's the Manager: Gallup finds the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization's long-term success.
Jim Clifton - 2019
Who is the most important person in your organization to lead your teams through these changes? Gallup research reveals: It’s your managers.While the world’s workplace has been going through extraordinary historical change, the practice of management has been stuck in time for more than 30 years. The new workforce -- especially younger generations -- wants their work to have deep mission and purpose, and they don’t want old-style command-and-control bosses. They want coaches who inspire them, communicate with them frequently and develop their strengths. Who is the most important person in your organization to lead your teams through these changes? Decades of global Gallup research reveal: It’s your managers. They are the ones who make or break your organization’s success. When you have great managers who can maximize the potential of every team member, you will see organic revenue and profit growth, and you will give every one of your employees what they most want today: a great job and a great life. This is the future of work.
It’s the Manager
includes exclusive content from Gallup Access -- Gallup’s new workplace platform, chock full of additional content, tools and solutions for business. Your book comes with a code for the CliftonStrengths assessment, which reveals your top five strengths.