Yet, for the digital natives soon to enter the workforce, the technologies and principles behind crowdsourcing are perfectly intuitive. This generation collaborates, shares, remixes, and creates with a fluency and ease the rest of us can hardly understand. Crowdsourcing, just now starting to emerge, will in a short time simply be the way things are done.

    Based on more than 20 years in the derivatives arena, and having served time at Salomon Bros, Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs, she knows that of what and who she speaks. Should anyone ever display the slightest interest in criminalizing the criminals who led us down this path, a prosecutor could do worse than ordering up copies for the grand jury." – Seeking AlphaFrom the publisher (John Wiley & Sons): Janet Tavakoli takes you into the world of Warren Buffett by way of the recent mortgage meltdown. In correspondence and discussion with him over 2 years, they both saw the writing on the wall, made clear by the implosion of Bear Stearns. Tavakoli, in clear and engaging prose, explains how the credit mess happened beginning with the mortgage lending Ponzi schemes funded by investment banks, the Fed bailout and its impact on the dollar. Through her narrative, we hear from Warren Buffett and learn how his enduring principles caused him to see the mess that was coming well in advance and kept him and his investors well out of the way.

    Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success? Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets. Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there.

    Then, when the dot-com bubble burst and the economy cooled, many assumed the war for talent was over. It's not. Now the authors of the original study reveal that, because of enduring economic and social forces, the war for talent will persist for the next two decades. McKinsey & Company consultants Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod argue that winning the war for leadership talent is about much more than frenzied recruiting tactics. It's about the timeless principles of attracting, developing, and retaining highly talented managers - applied in bold new ways. And it's about recognizing the strategic importance of human capital because of the enormous value that better talent creates.Fortified by five years of in-depth research on how companies manage leadership talent - including surveys of 13,000 executives at more than 120 companies and case studies of 27 leading companies - the authors propose a fundamentally new approach to talent management. They describe how to: create a winning EVP (employee value proposition) that will make your company uniquely attractive to talent; move beyond recruiting hype to build a long-term recruiting strategy; use job experiences, coaching, and mentoring to cultivate the potential in managers; and, strengthen your talent pool by investing in A players, developing B players, and acting decisively on C players.Central to this approach is a pervasive talent mindset - a deep conviction shared by leaders throughout the company that competitive advantage comes from having better talent at all levels. Using practical examples from companies such as GE, The Home Depot, PerkinElmer, Amgen, and Enron, the authors outline five imperatives that every leader - from CEO to unit manager - must act on to build a stronger talent pool. Written by recognized authorities on the topic, this is the definitive strategic guide on how to win the war for talent.

    A distinguished businesswoman and writer, she examines the phenomenon and traces its imprint in our private and working lives, and within governments and organizations, and asks: What makes us prefer ignorance? What are we so afraid of? Why do some people see more than others? And how can we change?We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. Greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how--by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems--we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive.Covering everything from our choice of mates to the SEC, Bernard Madoff's investors, the embers of BP's refinery, the military in Afghanistan, and the dog-eat-dog world of subprime mortgage lenders, this provocative book demonstrates how failing to see--or admit to ourselves or our colleagues--the issues and problems in plain sight can ruin private lives and bring down corporations. Heffernan explains how willful blindness develops before exploring ways that institutions and individuals can combat it. In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan's Willful Blindness, is a tour de force on human behavior that will open your eyes.

    In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

    This memoir reveals the creative process, relationships, struggles and financial strategies that led to him becoming one of the 1000 wealthiest people in the world.

    Abraham Maslow was-and is-one of the world's most esteemed experts on human behavior and motivation. However, while perhaps most famous for his work in the area of humanistic psychology, his legacy of work encompasses much more, extending into the realms of business and management. Having explored and studied the relationship between human behavior and the work situation, Maslow translated the science of the mind into the art of management-an important interpretation first published in the far-sighted treatise, Eupsychian Management, and whose impact continues to be felt today. Now, this seminal work has been updated, primed to introduce new readers to-and reacquaint old admirers with-what some have called the renowned psychologist's best book. Bringing into perspective the lasting impact of Maslow's groundbreaking principles, Maslow on Management illustrates how they have withstood the test of time to become integral components of current management practices, such as continuous improvement, Theory X, and empowerment. Offering insight into using these and other tools to effectively tackle present-day business situations, from heightened competitiveness to globalization to emerging technologies, Maslow on Management covers a wealth of timeless topics, including:* Self-actualization-the freedom to effectuate one's own ideas, try things out, make decisions, and make mistakes* Synergy-what is beneficial for the individual is beneficial for everyone; individual success should not occur at the expense of others; align organizational goals with personal goals* Enlightened management policy-assume that all your people have the impulse to achieve; everyone prefers to be a prime mover rather than a passive helper; everyone wants to feel important, needed, useful, successful, and proud; there is no dominance-subordination hierarchyTo complement Dr. Maslow's original writings and to demonstrate how his forward-thinking ideas are being played out in today's business world, Maslow on Management features interviews with Perot Systems Chairman Mort Meyerson, NonLinear Systems founder Andrew Kay, Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy, and other prominent figures who provide incisive commentary on subjects ranging from creativity in business to leadership lessons for the digital age. Epitomizing the genius of its author and embodying his elegant ruminations, Maslow on Management is still as important as it was when it first appeared. A true classic, this is essential reading for all managers.

    It's a holistic approach to systems methodology. It deals with all dimensions of a system: structure, function and process. Peter Senge introduced Systems Thinking/practice. Interact clients asked the author to write a book to take them "further down the Senge trail". This book does that by taking the reader into "real world" stories. It is based on experiences in five real companies using systems practice.It is about a new mode of seeing, doing and being in the world; a way of thinking through chaos and complexity. It speaks to those thinkers and practitioners who have come to realize that learning "to be" is as much a necessary part of a successful professional life as is the learning "to do."Natural science has discovered "chaos". Social science has encountered "complexity." But chaos and complexity are features of our perceptions and understanding. We see the world as increasingly more complex and chaotic because we use inadequate concepts to explain it. When we understand something, we no longer see it as chaotic or complex. It seems that playing the new game requires learning a new language. A language of interaction and design that will allow us to see through chaos and understand complexity.In a nutshell, this book is about systems. However, it goes beyond the simple declaration of desirability of systems thinking. With a practical orientation and yet a profound theoretical depth, the book offers an operational handle on the whole by introducing an elaborate scheme called iterative design. The iterative design explicitly recognizes that choice is at the heart of human development. Development is the capacity to choose; design is a vehicle for enhancement of choice and holistic thinking. Designers, in this book, seek to choose rather than predict the future. They try to understand rational, emotional, and cultural dimensions of choice and to produce a design that satisfies a multitude of functions. They learn how to use what they already know and also about how to learn what they need to know.

    It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

    Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase.But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges:Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight.Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.To Sell Is Human offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in Drive and A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it's no longer "Always Be Closing"), explains why extraverts don't make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an "off-ramp" for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.Along the way, Pink describes the six successors to the elevator pitch, the three rules for understanding another's perspective, the five frames that can make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more. The result is a perceptive and practical book--one that will change how you see the world and transform what you do at work, at school, and at home.

     If you've been on social media lately, or turned on your TV, you may have noticed a lot of dumb ideas floating around."We know when history will repeat and when it won't.""We can tell the difference between evidence and coincidences.""The simplest explanation is usually true."Wrong, wrong, and dangerous!If we're not careful, loserthink would have us believe that every Trump supporter is a bigoted racist, addicts should be responsible for fixing the opioid epidemic, and that your relationship fell apart simply because you chewed with your mouth open.Even the smartest people can slip into loserthink's seductive grasp. This book will teach you how to spot and avoid it--and will give you scripts to respond when hollow arguments are being brandished against you, whether by well-intentioned friends, strangers on the internet, or political pundits. You'll also learn how to spot the underlying causes of loserthink, like the inability to get ego out of your decisions, thinking with words instead of reasons, failing to imagine alternative explanations, and making too much of coincidences.Your bubble of reality doesn't have to be a prison. This book will show you how to break free--and, what's more, to be among the most perceptive and respected thinkers in every conversation.

    This book shows how the collective purposes and meanings that had framed social debate became unhinged and uncertain. It offers a reinterpretation of the ways in which the decades surrounding the 1980s changed America.

    The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of forty-four nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization. The actual story surrounding the historic Bretton Woods accords, however, is full of startling drama, intrigue, and rivalry, which are vividly brought to life in Benn Steil's epic account.Upending the conventional wisdom that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, Steil shows that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Britain as an economic and political rival. At the heart of the drama were the antipodal characters of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned and revolutionary British economist, and Harry Dexter White, the dogged, self-made American technocrat. Bringing to bear new and striking archival evidence, Steil offers the most compelling portrait yet of the complex and controversial figure of White--the architect of the dollar's privileged place in the Bretton Woods monetary system, who also, very privately, admired Soviet economic planning and engaged in clandestine communications with Soviet intelligence officials and agents over many years.A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn, The Battle of Bretton Woods is destined to become a classic of economic and political history.

    It was to mobile phones was Kleenex is to facial tissues. Then iPhones and Androids appeared out of nowhere and pushed Nokia off the cliff. In just four years, the company lost over 90 percent of its value. Revenues were in freefall; massive layoffs became common. Pundits predicted that bankruptcy wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Then something equally shocking occurred. In record time, Nokia bounced back. With a vengeance. Nokia reinvented itself and is now the second-biggest player in the $100 billion-dollar global wireless market. In Transforming Nokia, the man who orchestrated and led Nokia’s comeback—Chairman of the Board Risto Siilasmaa—reveals the story of Nokia’s fall and resurrection. He reveals the inside story of the collapse and provides survival strategies and change-management methods any business leader can take to the bank. You’ll learn how to harness the power of what Siilasmaa calls “paranoid optimism” and apply his winning entrepreneurial leadership model to rise above any challenge and drive sustainable success. Whether you lead a team or a corporate division, head a start-up or a massive organization, and whether your business is on the rocks or running smoothly, Transforming Nokia provides everything you need to sharpen your foresight, expand your options, seize opportunities, and thrive, no matter what changes tomorrow brings.