Growth IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business


Tiffani Bova - 2018
    But, as you'll discover in Growth IQ, there are just ten simple--but easily misunderstood--paths to growth, and every successful growth strategy can be boiled down to picking the right combination and sequence of these paths for your current context.Tiffani Bova travels around the world helping companies solve their most vexing problem: how to keep growing in the face of stiff competition and a fast-changing business environment. Whether she's presenting to a Fortune 500 board of directors or brainstorming over coffee with a startup founder, Bova cuts through the clutter and confusion that surround growth.Now, she draws on her decades of experience and more than thirty fascinating, in-depth business stories to demonstrate the opportunities--and pitfalls--of each of the ten growth paths, how they work together, and how they apply to business today. You'll see how, for instance:  *  Red Bull broke Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's stranglehold on the soft drink market by taking the Customer Base Penetration path to establish a foothold with adventure sports junkies and expand into the mainstream.  *  Marvel transformed itself from a struggling comic book publisher into a global entertainment behemoth by using a Customer and Product Diversification strategy and shifting their focus from comic books to comic book characters in movies.  *  Starbucks suffered a brand crisis when they overwhelmed their customers with a Product Expansion strategy, and brought back CEO Howard Schultz to course-correct by returning to the Customer Experience path.Through Bova's insightful analyses of these and many other case studies, you'll see why it can be a mistake to imitate strategies that worked for your competitors, or rely on strategies that worked for you in the past. To grow your company with confidence, you first need to grow your Growth IQ.

Career Superpowers: Succeeding on Purpose


James A. Whittaker - 2014
    Take away the pedigreed and the prodigies—you know the people who are going to succeed no matter what—and the brown-nosers and right-time-right-place lottery winners and who do you have left? The people who succeeded on purpose. Study these folks carefully and you’ll find common themes around their path to the top. This book exposes the career strategies of the ultra-successful and analyzes them in detail. You’ll learn about personal strategies for identifying high-payoff activities and gain insight into being more effective as an individual contributor, manager and leader. You will learn how to identify and interact with the right set of career mentors and role models. Being successful doesn’t have to be an accident. Read this book and learn how to succeed on purpose.

You Had Me at "Hello, World": Mentoring Sessions with Industry Leaders at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Zynga and more!


Dona Sarkar - 2015
    Instead they shared with me their "career acumen" secrets, things they wished they had learned at school, but instead have had to learn the hard way..through years of experience. In this book, you will hear these leaders' secrets around: -Finding and using your superpowers , the qualities that make you completely unique and memorable - A script for how to negotiate your salary (in a non-aggressive way) and influence your managers and peers from day one - How to do that infamous "networking" thing everyone talks about, especially if you're not a networking event kind of person - How to have professional presence that sets you apart from everyone else - How to hit the ground running in the first 100 days and be the "rockstar" employee everyone talks about and wishes they could hire more of I've had all kinds of adventures during my 10 years of engineering at Microsoft but my absolute favorite thing has been building relationships, speaking to, and mentoring people (both in and out of the tech industry) on how to achieve their career goals while still being themselves. When I interviewed 25 tech leaders for advice on the questions I get over and over, I wanted to share it with more than just my mentees. This book is full of practical, do-today things as well as "scripts" and email templates that we have all actually used. Read the book and let's talk. I love reaching and meeting new people and you can now consider me “in your network” and I hope I can do the same for you. My best always, Dona

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die


Chip Heath - 2006
    Meanwhile, people with important ideas--entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists--struggle to make them "stick."In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas--and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

Verbal Judo: Redirecting Behavior with Words


George J. Thompson - 2012
    (Rhino) Thompson, PhD on the subject of Verbal Judo. Redirecting Behavior with Words explores the need for an approach to conflict and verbal abuse. By uniting the persuasive power found in the rhetorical persuasion of Aristotle and the physical re-directive power of Jigoro Kano's physical judo, this book expounds the principles of the Verbal Judo training program, now recognized around the world as an effective and pragmatic approach to conflict resolution. By using life examples from people in conflict, Thompson and his friend discuss the philosophy of conflict and the birth of Verbal Judo during a car road trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Las Vegas, Nevada. Each stop and each situation explores a problem and a solution using words to gain voluntary compliance from angry or emotionally frustrated people. Using a dialogue format and designed as a "Habit of Mind" philosophy for thinking creatively about conflict, Verbal Judo is the next step in resolving the issues that plague all of us when dealing with others in disagreement. From missed expectations to redirecting harsh words, this book was the ground floor for a program that has had over one million participants attending lectures since 1984.

Since Strangling Isn't an Option...: Dealing with Difficult People--Common Problems and Uncommon Solutions


Sandra A. Crowe - 1999
    Readers will learn why dealing with a difficult person doesn't have to ruin their day, the habits that cause conflict, and the techniques that can turn things around. It also gives readers insight into their own power in shaping relationships, and specific advice for handling different personality types. There really is a better way!

Leadership is Hell: How to Manage Well - And Escape with your Soul


Rob Asghar - 2014
    This book punctures that misguided myth—and it will liberate you from others’ expectations and from your own illusions about success. This book is a practical manual for leading the right way and for the right reasons. It explores how to identify and overcome the blind spots that may be hurting your career; whether you have the right mindset for the kind of success that you’re seeking; how to develop just the right amount of “healthy ego” to make an impact; and how to make an impact on the world in a way that’s true to who you are (be forewarned, this might involve a completely different path than your current one). This book will take you on a journey, showing you famous figures from history and the present—some who got it right, and some who didn’t. You’ll look at seven roads to hell within the world of leadership, and seven roads out of hell, to guide you safely to a meaningful legacy. All royalties support the University of Southern California’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative to prepare local urban schoolchildren for college.

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.

Sandler Success Principles: 11 Insights that will change the way you Think and Sell


David H. Mattson - 2012
    Now they are revealed for you to learn and use in your own business and career. A remarkable and sometimes painful part of the process is uncovering the truth about yourself, including how your self-image was shaped sometimes carelessly and perhaps even cruelly. As you grasp the influence of these “old tapes,” you see how you have unknowingly sabotaged your potential for being at the top tier of sales professionals. You may be astonished to discover what inner dialogue and even demons you now may choose to control and override. The results? You enjoy a significant advantage over those you seek to impress and persuade, and master a predictable way to reach and exceed your career, business and financial goals. The enormous benefits of self-knowledge and imaginative new tools for self-management are at the heart of the challenging and exhilarating lifelong process of implementing the Sandler Success Principles.

The Power of Attitude


Mac Anderson - 2004
    In The Power of Attitude, entrepreneur Mac Anderson presents some strong suggestions that can guide readers toward success. A complement to his first book The Nature of Success, this book features the same powerful imagery but emphasizes the internal workings of the mind and heart that drive a person in productive paths. As founder of Successories, the leading manufacturer of inspirational and motivational wall decor, Anderson practices what he preaches with notable results. In his introduction, he writes of his hope to "energize and inspire you to live the life of your dreams, and then also to make a positive difference in the lives of others."

Body Language It's what you don't say that matters


Robert Phipps - 2012
    From getting a job to getting a pay rise, and from closing a deal to managing the people around you, it makes a big difference. Robert Phipps, one of the world's leading body language experts shows you how to make it work for you. Busting some of the biggest body language myths, Phipps shows how to read other people's body language and to use yours to succeed in business and life.Loaded with practical tips, this book covers everything you ever need to know about body language, in a variety of business situations: GreetingsMeetingsPartingsPresentationsNegotiationsMotivationDeceptionManagingInterviewingDisciplining

The 30 Minute Happiness Formula


Rachel Rofe - 2014
    It's easy to read so you can get moving right away.To get started, simply scroll to the top of the page, select the "Buy" button, and start reading.

Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder


Reshma Saujani - 2019
    If you didn't care how your life looked on Instagram, or worry about what total strangers thought of you. Imagine if you could let go of the guilt, and stop beating yourself up for tiny mistakes. What if, in every decision you faced, you took the bolder path?Too many of us feel crushed under the weight of our own expectations. We run ourselves ragged trying to please everyone, all the time. We lose sleep ruminating about whether we may have offended someone, pass up opportunities that take us out of our comfort zones, and avoid rejection at all costs.There's a reason we act this way, Reshma says. As girls, we were taught to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers praised us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so we didn't get hurt, and steered us to activities at which we could shine.The problem is that perfect girls grow up to be women who are afraid to fail. It's time to stop letting our fears drown out our dreams and narrow our world, along with our chance at happiness.By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. Perfection may set us on a path that feels safe, but bravery leads us to the one we're authentically meant to follow.In Brave, Not Perfect, Reshma shares powerful insights and practices to help us override our perfect girl training and make bravery a lifelong habit. By being brave, not perfect, we can all become the authors of our biggest, boldest, and most joyful life.

Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment


Todd Rose - 2018
    This is the commonly accepted formula for fulfilling goals and dreams. But what if we have it exactly backwards? While this standard formula works for some it fails for far too many. Then there are those who buck the formula and triumph on their own terms. They are called dark horses. Researchers Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas have studied these dark horses, and in this groundbreaking book, use the experiences of these mavericks to demonstrate that there is a different and better formula for success.The Dark Horse Project was born at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to research alternative paths to excellence. Dark horses demonstrate that the secret to personal accomplishment is not dependent on connections, money, or standardized test scores. The secret is a special mindset that empowers them to consistently make the right choices to fit their circumstances and complement their unique interests and abilities. The philosophy behind this mindset is simple: it is not the pursuit of excellence that leads to fulfillment but rather the pursuit of fulfillment that leads to excellence.Dark Horse reveals the five elements of this mindset that have been road-tested by a wide array of individuals nurturing every manner of aspiration. No matter where you are in your career, Rose and Ogas show how the dark horse mindset can guide you to a life of purpose, authenticity, and achievement.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win


Jocko Willink - 2015
    you teach guys and gals about leadership and you've helped not only military guys but families." - Megyn Kelly"You show in the book how to motivate... thanks for writing the book Extreme Ownership." Bill O'Reilly"[Jocko] is the co-author of an incredible new book - which I've been loving. Trust me. Buy it." - Tim Ferriss"This is a life-learning lesson for everyone... the book is awesome." - Sean HannitySent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.