But the reality often falls short... Now imagine having a team where everyone steps up and performs all of the leadership tasks. Imagine a team that is constantly sharing knowledge and pushing the envelope--one that does long term planning and produces outstanding performance. A Team of Leaders shows readers how to design systems that nurture the leadership potential of every employee--the key to creating high-performance teams. The book's proven principles and techniques include: ● The Five-Stage Team Development Model that maps the transition from traditional to self-directed teams ● Best practices in team process design ● A Team Value Creation Tool that allows members to appreciate the significance of what they contribute each day ● Visual Management ● And more Filled with real-world examples, this fresh approach transforms passive groups of disparate people into effective teams of leaders--workplace teams that work!

    After stints as CEO of Parker Brothers and then Lenox, Stearns accepted the invitation to leave his corporate career to become the president of World Vision US, where he became the longest serving president in their seventy-year history. During his tenure there he implemented corporate best practices, lowering overheads while tripling revenues. His leadership in calling the American church to respond to some of the greatest crises of our time, notably the HIV and AIDS pandemic, and the global refugee crisis, challenged Christians to embrace a bold vision for compassion, mercy, and justice. In Lead Like It Matters to God, Stearns shares the leadership principles he has learned over the course of his remarkable career. As a leader who has navigated both secular and sacred spaces, Stearns claims that the values Christian leaders embrace in their workplaces are actually more important than the results they achieve--that God is more concerned about a leader's character than a leader's success. With wisdom, wit, and biblical teaching, Stearns shares captivating stories of his life journey and unpacks seventeen crucial values that can transform leaders and their organizations. When leaders embody values such as integrity, courage, excellence, forgiveness, humility, surrender, balance, generosity, perseverance, love, and encouragement, they not only improve their witness for Christ, they also shape institutions, influence culture, improve team performance, and create healthy workplaces where people can flourish. Through this book, Stearns will inspire a new generation of Christian leaders to boldly take their values into their workplaces to tangibly demonstrate the character of Christ, the love of Christ, and the truth of Christ as they live out their faith in full view of others.

    Ambiguity is the corporate default state, a condition so prevalent that "tolerance for ambiguity" has become a clich�d job requirement.It doesn't have to be this way.In Clarity First, Karen provides methods and insights for achieving clarity to unleash potential, innovate at higher levels, and solve the problems that matter to deliver outstanding business results. Both a visionary road map and practical guide, this book will help leaders:-Identify and communicate the organization's true purpose-Set achievable priorities-Deliver greater customer value through more efficient processes-Provide greater transparency about true versus assumed performance-Build strong problem-solving and critical thinking capabilities throughout the organization-Develop personal clarity to be a more direct, purposeful, and successful leaderEliminating ambiguity is the first step for leaders and organizations to achieve strategic goals. Learn how to gain the clarity needed to make better decisions, lead more effectively, and boost organizational performance.When it comes to leading an outstanding organization, every great leader needs Clarity First.

    But power is not merely shifting and dispersing. It is also decaying. Those in power today are more constrained in what they can do with it and more at risk of losing it than ever before. In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research, Naím shows how the antiestablishment drive of micropowers can topple tyrants, dislodge monopolies, and open remarkable new opportunities, but it can also lead to chaos and paralysis. Naím deftly covers the seismic changes underway in business, religion, education, within families, and in all matters of war and peace. Examples abound in all walks of life: In 1977, eighty-nine countries were ruled by autocrats while today more than half the world's population lives in democracies. CEO's are more constrained and have shorter tenures than their predecessors. Modern tools of war, cheaper and more accessible, make it possible for groups like Hezbollah to afford their own drones. In the second half of 2010, the top ten hedge funds earned more than the world's largest six banks combined. Those in power retain it by erecting powerful barriers to keep challengers at bay. Today, insurgent forces dismantle those barriers more quickly and easily than ever, only to find that they themselves become vulnerable in the process. Accessible and captivating, Naím offers a revolutionary look at the inevitable end of power—and how it will change your world.

    It matters WHY you do it. “What’s good, if brief, is twice as good.” – Baltasar Gracian Don't you hate it when you've always wanted to read a book but never able to quite find the time? Or do you just want to extract the key ideas of a book without having to spend weeks and months reading through it all? Fret not! Welcome to Top Line Summaries, brought to you by BrevityBooks Publishing - encapsulating the core concepts, big ideas and best bits from all your favourite business and leadership, personal development and self-help bestselling books. In an age where personal time is more limited than ever, our core belief is that ‘being brief is best.’ Whether in business or at home, Topline Summaries will get you on the express road to success! The latest book to get the infamous 'Topline Summary Treatment' is Simon Sinek's groundbreaking book, Start with Why. “The more organizations and people who learn to start with WHY, the more people there will be who wake up being fulfilled by the work they do.” – Simon Sinek, Start with Why Have you ever wondered why some companies fail, others do average, and some - the rare few – become huge success stories? Why is it that some leaders never achieve greatness and others motivate millions? What sets apart the mundane from the masterful, the indifferent from the inspirational? Simon Sinek encapsulated the answers to all of these questions in his groundbreaking book Start with Why, following on from his hugely popular and now legendary TED talk. We have extracted the best and most pertinent parts of the book and here it now is, available just a short read away!

    It was also a weapon.Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple—it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.Thanks to Steve Jobs’s uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.It’s by crushing the forces of Complexity that the company remains on its stellar trajectory.As ad agency creative director, Ken Segall played a key role in Apple’s resurrection, helping to create such critical marketing campaigns as Think different. By naming the iMac, he also laid the foundation for naming waves of i-products to come.Segall has a unique perspective, given his years of experience creating campaigns for other iconic tech companies, including IBM, Intel, and Dell. It was the stark contrast of Apple’s ways that made Segall appreciate the power of Simplicity—and inspired him to help others benefit from it.In Insanely Simple, you’ll be a fly on the wall inside a conference room with Steve Jobs, and on the receiving end of his midnight phone calls. You’ll understand how his obsession with Simplicity helped Apple perform better and faster, sometimes saving millions in the process. You’ll also learn, for example, how to:• Think Minimal: Distilling choices to a minimum brings clarity to a company and its customers—as Jobs proved when he replaced over twenty product models with a lineup of four.• Think Small: Swearing allegiance to the concept of “small groups of smart people” raises both morale and productivity.• Think Motion: Keeping project teams in constant motion focuses creative thinking on well-defined goals and minimizes distractions.• Think Iconic: Using a simple, powerful image to symbolize the benefit of a product or idea creates a deeper impression in the minds of customers.• Think War: Giving yourself an unfair advantage—using every weapon at your disposal—is the best way to ensure that your ideas survive unscathed.Segall brings Apple’s quest for Simplicity to life using fascinating (and previously untold) stories from behind the scenes. Through his insight and wit, you’ll discover how companies that leverage this power can stand out from competitors—and individuals who master it can become critical assets to their organizations.

    This book has a wide audience, anyone from the ages 18-31, and the people that employ them. The book is not meant for just people in business, it is meant for any professional. What John has seen, on a national level, is a need for additional training resources for the millennial group on core aspects of being a professional. This book helps them lead a healthy and successful life. Author’s Bio: John M. Crossman is a nationally recognized writer and speaker to college students with regard to careers and success. In addition, he is a mentor and a passionate advocate for young professionals. John is President of Crossman & Company, a regional commercial real estate company based in Orlando. He is married and has two daughters.

    It’s the new way forward for anyone trying to win customers’ loyalty, influence public opinion, and even change the world. In Uprising, Scott Goodson, founder and CEO of StrawberryFrog, the world’s first cultural movement agency, shows how your idea or organization can successfully ride this wave of cultural movements to authentically connect to the lives and passions of people everywhere.We are in the midst of a profound cultural transformation in which technology is making it easier than ever for anyone to share ideas, goals, and interests. Working with companies and brands ranging from SmartCar to Pampers to Jim Beam to India’s Mahindra Group, StrawberryFrog and Goodson have led a paradigm focal shift away from one-on-one selling to sharing.Using client case studies and contributions from a global team of movement marketing forerunners—among them, political guru Mark McKinnon; Lee Clow, creative chief at TBWA/Chiat/Day; Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki; and Marty Cooke, who helped make yellow LIVESTRONG bracelets synonymous with the fight against cancer—Goodson details why and how individuals and companies are embracing the movement phenomenon. He then applies these insights to practical steps that you can take right now to reach people through what matters most to them, including:Stop talking about yourself—let the movement control your messageHome in on the core objectives of your concept or brand—and align these values with what people are for (or against)“Light the spark”—create a culture within your organization that can embrace and drive a movementLeverage your assets—content, events, expertise, connecting platforms—to give people tools to spread your gospelAdjust concepts to travel across borders and link people across cultural boundariesThe examples and guidance in this book will prepare you to find, connect to, and even lead the next big movement. What happens next is up to you. Get up. Go out. And create a brand Uprising of your own.

    Greatness doesn't come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades. The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness.Colvin shows that the skills of business: negotiating deals, evaluating financial statements obey the principles that lead to greatness, so that anyone can get better at them with the right kind of effort. Even the hardest decisions and interactions can be systematically improved.This new mind-set, combined with Colvin's practical advice, will change the way you think about your job and career, and will inspire you to achieve more in all you do.

    Strategy and innovation expert, Max McKeown, draws on millions of years of evolution to create a practical and strategic set of rules which take adaption from an involuntary coping strategy to a deliberate winning strategy.To show how adaptability works McKeown looks at a rich set of examples, problems and situations. He includes the 15-year old geneticist working from his basement, and the Italian town that said no to seemingly inevitable change. Along the way, he visits the adaptation of Western technology to the social structures of sub-Saharan Africa and explores how quantum games may solve the world's trickiest problems. He looks inside global corporations like Starbucks, Netflix and McDonald's to see how they flirt with extinction, create internal barriers to adaptation, and adapt to transcend their situation.Adaptability proves that innovation is important but not enough. Strategy, branding, marketing and operations are all useful, but insufficient. And highlights that the ability to adapt smarter and faster than the situation changes is what makes the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.

    A challenging customer, in his view, goes from being someone who poses an obstacle to quality work to someone with eye-opening ideas and concepts. Approached as an exercise in listening and learning, these conversations can become long-term lessons. Ambi has worked with some of the most respected brands and names in the Indian corporate world, and each of those assignments were for him masterclasses in leadership development. In this book, Ambi recounts conversations with some of the most iconic business leaders, such as Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, S. Ramadorai, Karsanbhai Patel, M. Damodaran, Dr V. Kurien and many others. He soaked up these conversations, in his own words, 'like a sponge’. This book is an attempt to walk us through some of those dialogues – both the illuminating and the difficult aspects of them – to help us understand how they were learning sessions. For anyone looking at turbocharging their business and career, the ‘Sponge Process’ that emphasises listening is a radical new way of engaging with clients and customers.

    We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more “truthy” than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler’s ambitions were partly fueled by a story.But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral—they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.

    Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel.For years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit--until it was too late. The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory.Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.

    -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to GreatnessPixar is one of the most creative organizations in the world. Read Innovate the Pixar Way and explore the true beauty in how they sustain the environment. Who knows, maybe a little Pixar dust will fall on you! -- John Christensen, coauthor of Fish! and playground director AKA: CEO, ChartHouse LearningCreativity makes it possible for our dreams to become real--my life is my proof. This book puts all those possibilities in the hands of the reader . . . for those who will be creating the future. -- Carol Lawrence, singer, dancer, actress, and national spokesperson for the Opening Minds Through the Arts student achievement programWith great and useful tips from beginning to end, this book will inspire workplaces to have more fun AND more success. I guarantee it! -- George Zimmer, founder and CEO, Men's WearhouseThis insightful work is a great primer for leaders who are looking to unleash creative potential and instill a sense of joy and playfulness in their organizations. -- Brian Walker, president and CEO, Herman Miller, Inc.Animate your team and unleash their creative power . . . The Pixar WayCreativity doesn't follow titles; it just comes from where it comes from. -- Ed Catmull, Pixar cofounder, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios presidentIn movies from Toy Story to The Incredibles to WALL-E to Up, Pixar Studios continues to set new standards for commercial and critical achievement. Pixar is a place where collaboration sets the tone for "artists and geeks to work side by side in a spirit of mutual respect and trust. The key lies not just in who--writers, animators, directors, tech wizards, and others--makes Pixar outstanding, but in how Pixar creates the ultimate haven where creativity overflows.In this eye-opening book, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, authors of The Disney Way, reveal how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit of Walt Disney. They explore how president Ed Catmull and chief creative officer John Lasseter and the rest of Pixar's brain trust have built an organization on the simple philosophy that quality is the best businessplan. It makes no difference if you are making a movie that takes four years or serving a customer that takes four minutes, you have only one chance to deliver that magical, magnetic, enchanting experience for your customer.In this concise, accessible book, Capodagli and Jackson offer examples of how it's done--and explain what it takes to get your people to achieve greatness by unleashing their power toDream like a child . . . Have a vision, and be able to clearly communicate your objectives and goals.Believe in your playmates . . . Hire creative people, trust in their skills and judgment, and inspire them to trust their colleagues.Dare to jump in the water and make waves . . . Challenge the status quo. Encourage risktaking, but permit your people to fail, get back up, and try again.Unleash your childlike potential . . . Focus on the details; make quality work your business's highest priority.Learn not only from Pixar but also from how other leading organizations--Google, Griffin Hospital, Men's Wearhouse, OMA (Opening Minds Through the Arts) student achievement program, Nike, Target, and the Internet shoe giant Zappos--unshackle their people's imaginations and do outrageously great things. And by motivating your team to Innovate the Pixar Way you, too, can discover the magic that will help your business stay ahead of the competition, attract the best talent, and fatten the bottom line.In 1993, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson cofounded Capodagli Jackson Consulting in West Olive, Michigan. They have helped scores of organizations revamp their customer service experiences and develop innovative products, and they also have developed performance strategies to impact organizational change using Walt Disney's Dream, Believe, Dare, Do success credo. Bill Capodagli is the most requested keynote speaker on the creative cultures of both Disney and Pixar.Visit the authors at capojac.com

    Even though relationships are fuzzy and intangible, they can be measured and managed-with powerful results.Measure What Matters explains simple, step-by-step procedures for measuring customers, social media reputation, influence and authority, the media, and other key constituencies.Based on hundreds of case studies about how organizations have used measurement to improve their reputations, strengthen their bottom lines, and improve efficiencies all around Learn how to collect the data that will help you better understand your competition, do strategic planning, understand key strengths and weaknesses, and better respond to customer preferences Author runs a successful blog and serves as a measurement consultant to companies such as Facebook, Southwest Airlines, Raytheon, and Allstate Don't draw conclusions or make key decisions based on guesswork. Instead, Measure What Matters and the difference will show in the most important measure: your bottom line.