Diffusion of Innovations


Everett M. Rogers - 1982
    It has sold 30,000 copies in each edition and will continue to reach a huge academic audience.In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances--a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss


David Cottrell - 2001
    This book is one of those stories - about a manager and his mentor. It offers unique encouragement and direction that will help you become a better manager, employee, and person.

Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness


Robert K. Greenleaf - 1977
    This highly influential book has been embraced by cutting edge management everywhere. Yet in these days of Enron and what VISA CEO Dee Hock calls our era of massive institutional failure, Greenleaf's seminal work must reach the mainstream now more than ever. Servant Leadership-- - helps leaders find their true power and moral authority to lead. - helps those served become healthier, wiser, freer, and more autonomous. - encourages collaboration, trust, listening, and empowerment. - offers long-lasting change, not a temporary fix. - extends beyond business for leaders of all types of groups.

The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking


Mikael Krogerus - 2011
    

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking


Chris J. Anderson - 2016
      Since taking over TED in the early 2000s, Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience’s worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form.         This book explains how the miracle of powerful public speaking is achieved, and equips you to give it your best shot. There is no set formula; no two talks should be the same. The goal is for you to give the talk that only you can give. But don’t be intimidated. You may find it more natural than you think.         Chris Anderson has worked behind the scenes with all the TED speakers who have inspired us the most, and here he shares insights from such favorites as Sir Ken Robinson, Amy Cuddy, Bill Gates, Elizabeth Gilbert, Salman Khan, Dan Gilbert, Mary Roach, Matt Ridley, and dozens more — everything from how to craft your talk’s content to how you can be most effective on stage. This is the 21st-century’s new manual for truly effective communication and it is a must-read for anyone who is ready to create impact with their ideas.

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions


Gary Klein - 1998
    How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced. It documents human strengths and capabilities that so far have been downplayed or ignored.Since 1985, Klein has conducted fieldwork to find out how people tackle challenges in difficult, nonroutine situations. Sources of Power is based on observations of humans acting under such real-life constraints as time pressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions. The professionals studied include firefighters, critical care nurses, pilots, nuclear power plant operators, battle planners, and chess masters. Each chapter builds on key incidents and examples to make the description of the methodology and phenomena more vivid. In addition to providing information that can be used by professionals in management, psychology, engineering, and other fields, the book presents an overview of the research approach of naturalistic decision making and expands our knowledge of the strengths people bring to difficult tasks.

The Wisdom of Crowds


James Surowiecki - 2004
    With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture


Ben Horowitz - 2019
    Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you’d expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want?To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday problems: should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake.What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building—the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture.Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case-studies, including how Louverture’s cultural techniques were applied (or should have been) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan’s vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and of Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then offers guidance to help any company understand its own strategy and build a successful culture.What You Do Is Who You Are is a journey through culture, from ancient to modern. Along the way, it answers a question fundamental to any organization: who are we? How do people talk about us when we’re not around? How do we treat our customers? Are we there for people in a pinch? Can we be trusted?Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. This book aims to help you do the things you need to become the kind of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.

Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else


Geoff Colvin - 2008
    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.

The First-Time Manager


Loren B. Belker - 1978
    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."

Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want


Linda Babcock - 2008
    Now they've developed the action plan that women all over the country requested - a guide to negotiation that starts before you get to the bargaining table.Ask for It explains why it's essential to ask (men do it all the time) and teaches you how to ask effectively, in ways that feel comfortable to you as a woman. Whether you currently avoid negotiating like the plague or consider yourself hard-charging and fearless, Babcock and Laschever's compelling stories of real women will help you recognize how much more you deserve whether it's a raise, that overdue promotion, an exciting new assignment, or even extra help around the house. Their four-phase program, backed by years of research, will show you how to identify what you're really worth, maximize your bargaining power, develop the best strategy for your situation, and manage the reactions and emotions that may arise on both sides. Guided step-by-step, you'll learn how to draw on the special strengths you bring to the negotiating table to reach agreements that benefit everyone involved.This collaborative, problem-solving approach will propel you to new places both professionally and personally and open doors you thought were closed. Because if you never hear no, you're not asking enough.

The Rules of Management: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success


Richard Templar - 2005
    This book will do for managerial success what the best selling Rules of Work has done for personal success.

The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts


Shane Parrish - 2018
     The more tools you have at your disposal, the more likely you'll use the right tool for the job — and get it done right. The same is true when it comes to your thinking. The quality of your outcomes depends on the mental models in your head. And most people are going through life with little more than a hammer. Until now. The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand. This volume details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making, productivity, and how clearly you see the world. You will discover what forces govern the universe and how to focus your efforts so you can harness them to your advantage, rather than fight with them or worse yet— ignore them. Upgrade your mental toolbox and get the first volume today!

The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves


The Arbinger Institute - 2016
    Their newest book, The Outward Mindset, reflects their latest research and experience and offers a new and intuitive way to teach people how to implement mindset change in themselves and scale it across organizations, with incredible effect. One's mindset governs how one views the world, what one does, and how one does it. One's mindset can be self-focused, which Arbinger calls an inward mindset, or it can be inclusive of others, which Arbinger calls an outward mindset. It turns out that our own actions, and others responses to those actions, end up being dramatically different depending on which mindset we are operating from. The Outward Mindset teaches readers how to shift more fully to an outward mindset and how to help others, even whole organizations, to make that shift a shift that sparks innovation, increases accountability, and transforms collaboration, engagement, and fulfillment."

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence


Daniel Goleman - 2002
    Looks at the role of emotional intelligence in leadership, discussing the characteristics of a good leader and leadership styles, and outlines the steps to becoming an effective leader.