Henry Cloud gives leaders the tools and techniques they need to achieve the performance they desire—in their organizations and in themselves. Drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience, Dr. Cloud shows why it's critical for leaders to set the conditions that make people's brains perform at their highest levels. How do great leaders do this? One way is through the creation of "boundaries"—structures that determine what will exist and what will not.Here you will learn seven leadership boundaries that set the stage, tone, and culture for a results-driven organization, including how to:• help people focus their attention on the things that matter most;• build the emotional climate that drives brain functioning;• facilitate connections that boost energy and momentum;• create organizational thought patterns that limit negativity and helplessness;• identify paths for people to take control of the activities that drive results;• create high-performance teams organized around the behaviors that drive results; and• lead yourself in a manner that protects the vision.The strong call to action in this book is that leaders are ridiculously in charge of all these elements, and they must own what they either create or allow to exist.Filled with inspiring and practical examples from Dr. Cloud's coaching practice, Boundaries for Leaders is essential reading for everyone who aspires to lead companies, teams, and cultures defined by high performance and healthy relationships.

    Under such pressure to stay alive—let alone grow—it’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in a never-ending cycle of “sell it—do it, sell it—do it” that leaves them exhausted, frustrated, and unable to get ahead no matter how hard they try.This is the exact situation Mike Michalowicz found himself in when he was trying to grow his first company. Although it was making steady money, there was never very much left over and he was chasing customers left and right, putting in twenty-eight-hour days, eight days a week. The punishing grind never let up. His company was alive but stunted, and he was barely breathing. That’s when he discovered an unlikely source of inspiration—pumpkin farmers.After reading an article about a local farmer who had dedicated his life to growing giant pump­kins, Michalowicz realized the same process could apply to growing a business. He tested the Pumpkin Plan on his own company and transformed it into a remarkable, multimillion-dollar industry leader. First he did it for himself. Then for others. And now you. So what is the Pumpkin Plan?Plant the right seeds: Don’t waste time doing a bunch of different things just to please your customers. Instead, identify the thing you do better than anyone else and focus all of your attention, money, and time on figuring out how to grow your company doing it. Weed out the losers: In a pumpkin patch small, rotten pumpkins stunt the growth of the robust, healthy ones. The same is true of customers. Figure out which customers add the most value and provide the best opportunities for sustained growth. Then ditch the worst of the worst. Nurture the winners: Once you figure out who your best customers are, blow their minds with care. Discover their unfulfilled needs, innovate to make their wishes come true, and overdeliver on every single promise.Full of stories of other successful entrepreneurs, The Pumpkin Plan guides you through unconven­tional strategies to help you build a truly profitable blue-ribbon company that is the best in its field.

    Author Brian Tracy explains the seven key elements of goal setting and the 12 steps necessary to set and accomplish goals of any size. Using simple language and real-life examples, Tracy shows how to do the crucial work of determining one's strengths, values, and true goals. He explains how to build the self-esteem and confidence necessary for achievement; how to overpower every problem or obstacle; how to overcome difficulties; how to respond to challenges; and how to continue moving forward no matter what happens. The book's "Mental Fitness" program of character development shows readers how to become the kind of person on the inside who can achieve any goal on the outside.

    In Fish! the heroine, Mary Jane Ramirez, recently widowed and mother of two, is asked to engineer a turnaround of her company's troubled operations department, a group that authors Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen describe as a "toxic energy dump." Most reasonable heads would cut their losses and move on. Why bother with this bunch of losers? But the authors don't make it so easy for Mary Jane. Instead, she's left to sort out this mess with the help of head fishmonger Lonnie. Based on a bestselling corporate education video, Fish! aims to help employees find their way to a fun and happy workplace. While some may find the story line and prescriptions--such as "Choose Your Attitude," "Make Their Day," and "Be Present"--downright corny, others will find a good dose of worthwhile motivational management techniques. If you loved Who Moved My Cheese? then you'll find much to like here. And don't worry about Mary Jane and kids. Fish! has a happy ending for everyone. --Harry C. Edwards

    As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways of seeing the world and their managerial practices. In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire. The updated and revised Currency edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever, Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and Frontiers for the Future. Mastering the disciplines Senge outlines in the book will:• Reignite the spark of genuine learning driven by people focused on what truly matters to them• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity• Free you of confining assumptions and mindsets• Teach you to see the forest and the trees• End the struggle between work and personal time

    At its root, the principle works like this: Like Dorothy and the gang in The Wizard of Oz, most businesspeople have the tools to succeed, but when things go wrong they blame circumstance or others instead of looking within for the true cause of unsatisfactory results. Once individuals learn to accept responsibility, they can use the Oz Principle to become better leaders. Now, with corporate scandals in the headlines and the culture of victimization running rampant at every level of the business world, Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman return with a new edition of The Oz Principle. Fully revised, this edition will update the statistics, concepts, and relevant companies through fresh, timely anecdotes and stories.

    They're told to identify and develop natural-born strengths, to mine their failures for insights into what they need to change, and to work hard to correct any real or perceived career-limiting deficiencies. Own the room. Eat last. Do you.Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that this popular leadership advice glosses over the most important thing you can do to be a great leader: Build others up. Leadership, at its core, is not about you. As Frei and Morriss show through inspiring stories from the NBA to ancient Rome to Silicon Valley, real leadership is about how effective you are at making other people better--and making sure that this impact endures even in your absence.Unleashed helps you do just that. Showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and inclusion to create a space in which other people can excel, Frei and Morriss provide practical, battle-tested tools--based on their work in companies such as Uber, Riot Games, Walmart, and others--along with interviews and stories from their own personal experience to make these ideas come alive. This book is your indispensable guide for unleashing greatness in other people . . . and, ultimately, in yourself.

    How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?   Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

         In Rise, Azzarello shares the insider secrets to advancing your career (while having a life) in three practical steps:  DO Better: Set Ruthless Priorities, work and lead more strategically, and deal with frustrating obstacles and stupid people. LOOK Better: Build your credibility with the people who can help (or blacklist) you.CONNECT Better: Develop your network without being political. Get on "the List" of people who get the best opportunities     Whether you are just starting up the corporate ladder, stuck midcareer, transitioning, or eyeing the corner office, Rise shows you the difference between getting ahead and just working hard.

    It's not the star.It's not money. It's not a strategy.It's something else entirely.Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the sixteen most dominant teams in history. At that point, he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?As Walker dug into their stories, a pattern emerged: Each team had the same type of captain--a singular leader with an unconventional skill set who drove it to achieve sustained, historic greatness.Fueled by a lifetime of sports spectating, twenty years of reporting, and a decade of painstaking research, The Captain Class tells the surprising story of what makes teams exceptional. Drawing on original interviews with athletes from two dozen countries, as well as general managers, coaches, executives, and others skilled at building teams, Walker identifies the seven core qualities of this Captain Class--from extreme doggedness and emotional control to a knack for nonverbal communication to tactical aggression and the courage to stand apart.Told through riveting accounts of some of the most pressure-soaked moments in sports history--from Bill Russell's legendary "Coleman Play" in the 1957 NBA Finals to Barcelona's "Figo Game" against Real Madrid in 2000--The Captain Class doesn't just bring these events to life; it presents a fresh, counterintuitive take on leadership that can be applied to a wide spectrum of competitive disciplines.The men and women who make up the Captain Class were never the most skilled athletes, nor were they gifted orators or paragons of sportsmanship. They were often role players who were allergic to the spotlight. In short, the seven attributes they shared challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like.

     The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation. Drawing on nearly 20 years of experience managing IDEO, Kelley identifies ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers. Among these approaches are the Anthropologist—the person who goes into the field to see how customers use and respond to products, to come up with new innovations; the Cross-pollinator who mixes and matches ideas, people, and technology to create new ideas that can drive growth; and the Hurdler, who instantly looks for ways to overcome the limits and challenges to any situation. Filled with engaging stories of how companies like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, Cargill and Samsung have incorporated IDEO's thinking to transform the customer experience, THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION is an extraordinary guide to nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal.

    By pursuing success in isolation - pushing others away as we push ourselves too hard - we are not just limiting our potential, we are becoming more stressed and disconnected than ever.In his highly anticipated follow-up to The Happiness Advantage, Achor reveals a better approach. Drawing on his work in 50 countries, he shows that success and happiness are not competitive sports. Rather, they depend almost entirely on how well we connect with, relate to, and learn from each other.Just as happiness is contagious, every dimension of human potential - performance, intelligence, creativity, leadership ability and health - is influenced by those around us. So when we help others become better, we reach new levels of potential, as well. Rather than fighting over scraps of the pie, we can expand the pie instead.Small Potential is the limited success we can attain alone. BIG Potential is what we can achieve together. Here, Achor offers five strategies - the SEEDS of Big Potential--for lifting the ceiling on what we can achieve while returning happiness and meaning to our lives.The dramatic shifts in how we approach work today demand an equally dramatic shift in our approach to success. Big Potential offers a new path to thriving in the modern world.

    Deep inside, we sense that more is possible. We long for soulful workplaces, for authenticity, community, passion, and purpose.In this groundbreaking book, the author shows that every time, in the past, when humanity has shifted to a new stage of consciousness, it has achieved extraordinary breakthroughs in collaboration. A new shift in consciousness is currently underway. Could it help us invent a more soulful and purposeful way to run our businesses and nonprofits, schools and hospitals?A few pioneers have already cracked the code and they show us, in practical detail, how it can be done. Leaders, founders, coaches, and consultants will find this work a joyful handbook, full of insights, examples, and inspiring stories.ADVANCE PRAISE"Congratulations on a spectacular treatise! This is truly pioneering work. In terms of integral sophistication, there is simply nothing like it out there."--Ken Wilber, from the Foreword"The most exciting book I've read in years on organization design and leadership models."--Jenny Wade, Ph.D., Author of Changes of Mind"A book like Reinventing Organizations only comes along once in a decade. Sweeping and brilliant in scope, it is the Good To Great for a more enlightened age. What it reveals about the organizational model of the future is exhilarating and deeply hopeful."--Norman Wolfe, Author of The Living Organization"A comprehensive, highly practical account of the emergent worldview in business. Everything you need to know about building a new paradigm organization!"--Richard Barrett, Chairman and Founder, Barrett Values Center"Frederic Laloux has done business people and professionals everywhere a signal service. He has discovered a better future for organizations by describing, in useful detail, the unusual best practices of today."--Bill Torbert, Author of Action Inquiry"As the rate of change escalates exponentially, the old ways of organizing and educating, which were designed for efficiency and repetition, are dying. Frederic Laloux is one of the few management leaders exploring what comes next. It's deeply different."--Bill Drayton, Founder, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

    Phil M. Jones has trained more than two million people across five continents and over fifty countries in the lost art of spoken communication. In Exactly What to Say, he delivers the tactics you need to get more of what you want.Best-selling author and multiple award-winner Phil M. Jones is highly regarded as one of the world's leading sales trainers.

    In addition, the completely updated fifth edition shows you how to build trust and confidence, be an active listener, manage a diverse group of individuals, conduct performance appraisals, and address many other challenges that come with the manager's job.Written in an inviting and accessible style, this classic skill-building book is an essential tool for becoming an effective, confident new manager."