Eat Sleep Work Repeat: 30 Hacks for Bringing Joy to Your Job


Bruce Daisley - 2020
    Great results will follow.”—Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square“With just 30 changes, you can transform your work experience from bland and boring (or worse) to fulfilling, fun, and even joyful.”—Daniel Pink, author of When and DriveThe vice president of Twitter Europe and host of the top business podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat offers thirty smart, research-based hacks for bringing joy and fun back into our burned out, uninspired work lives.How does a lunch break spark a burst of productivity? Can a team’s performance be improved simply by moving the location of the coffee maker? Why are meetings so often a waste of time, and how can a walking meeting actually get decisions made?As an executive with decades of management experience at top Silicon Valley companies including YouTube, Google, and Twitter, Bruce Daisley has given a lot of thought to what makes a workforce productive and what factors can improve the workplace to benefit a company’s employees, customers, and bottom line. In his debut book, he shares what he’s discovered, offering practical, often counterintuitive, insights and solutions for reinvigorating work to give us more meaning, productivity, and joy at the office.A Gallup survey of global workers revealed shocking news: only 13% of employees are engaged in their jobs. This means that burn out and unhappiness at work are a reality for the vast majority of workers. Managers—and employees themselves—can make work better. Eat Sleep Work Repeat shows them how, offering more than two dozen research-backed, user-friendly strategies, including:Go to Lunch (it makes you less tired over the weekend)Suggest a Tea Break (it increases team cohesiveness and productivity)Conduct a Pre-Mortem (foreseeing possible issues can prevent problems and creates a spirit of curiosity and inquisitiveness)“Let’s start enjoying our jobs again,” Daisley insists. “It’s time to rediscover the joy of work.”

Speaker, Leader, Champion: Succeed at Work Through the Power of Public Speaking, Featuring the Prize-Winning Speeches of Toastmasters World Champions


Jeremey Donovan - 2014
    They also include a special section of insights and advice for readers who aspire to become serious public speaking competitors."Speaker, Leader, Champion demystifies what makes a presentation extraordinary. This engaging, actionable book will teach you how to go from appreciating a powerful speech to delivering one yourself."--Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take"Whether you present in the boardroom, classroom, or lunchroom, the guidance will help you become a more confident, authentic, and engaging speaker."--Matt Abrahams, strategic communication lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and author of Speaking Up Without Freaking Out"To change the world, you need to lead. To lead, you need to communicate. To communicate, you need this book."--Presiyan Vasilev, 2013 World Champion of Public Speaking"This book translates the secret sauce of public speaking into easy-to-use tips."--Zoe Chance, assistant professor of marketing at the Yale University School of Management

Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation


Steven Johnson - 2010
    But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that seem to appear at moments of originality.

The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business


Clayton M. Christensen - 1997
    Christensen says outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership -- or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

The Attacker's Advantage: Turning Uncertainty into Breakthrough Opportunities


Ram Charan - 2014
    But exponential change also offers exponential opportunities. How do you leverage change to go on the offense? The Attacker's Advantage is the game plan for winning in an era of ambiguity, volatility, and complexity, when every leader and every business is being challenged in new and unexpected ways. Ram Charan, harnessing an unequalled depth and breadth of experience working with leaders and companies around the globe, provides tested, practical tools to help you: Build the perceptual acuity to see around corners and detect, ahead of others, those forces -- especially people, who are the catalysts of change -- that could radically reshape a company or industry Have the mindset to see opportunity in uncertainty Commit to a new path forward despite the unknowns, positioning your business to make the next move ahead of competitors Break the blockages that can hold your company back Know when to accelerate and when to shift the short-term and long-term balance Make your organization agile and steerable by aligning people, priorities, decision-making power, budgeting and capital allocation, and key performance indicators to the new realities of the marketplaceThe Attacker's Advantage provides a stark and simple challenge: stay in a legacy world of incremental gains or defensiveness, or be an attacker by creating a new world, scaling it up quickly, ahead of the traditional players.

Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business


Paul Jarvis - 2019
    Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth.   In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big


Bo Burlingham - 2005
    It has long been a business article of faith that great companies, by definition, constantly focus on maximizing their revenues year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a growing number of undeniably great compabnies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen of these remarkable comapnies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. He shows the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create and made the choice to pursue greateness by placing other goals ahead of getting as big as possible as fast as possible. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the conventional definitions of business success."

SPIN Selling: Situation Problem Implication Need-payoff


Neil Rackham - 1988
    Unquestionably the best-documented account of sales success ever collected and the result of the Huthwaite corporation's massive 12-year, $1-million dollar research into effective sales performance, this groundbreaking resource details the revolutionary SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff) strategy.In SPIN Selling, Rackham, who has advised leading companies such as IBM and Honeywell delivers the first book to specifically examine selling high-value product and services. By following the simple, practical, and easy-to-apply techniques of SPIN, readers will be able to dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts. Rackham answers key questions such as "What makes success in major sales" and "Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones?"You will learn why traditional sales methods which were developed for small consumer sales, just won't work for large sales and why conventional selling methods are doomed to fail in major sales. Packed with real-world examples, illuminating graphics, and informative case studies - and backed by hard research data - SPIN Selling is the million-dollar key to understanding and producing record-breaking high-end sales performance.

The Plant-Based Athlete: A Game-Changing Approach to Peak Performance


Matt Frazier - 2021
    Research has shown that a plant-based diet offers athletes the greatest possible recovery times, cell oxidation, injury prevention, and restorative sleep, and allows them to train more effectively, with better results. No longer a fad, the plant-based lifestyle is being adopted by a wide-ranging group of athletes of every age. The proof it works? Championship rings, first place trophies, and careers that extend well into the 30s, 40s, and beyond. In this outstanding guide that is sure to become a touchstone, Matt Frazier, the founder of the popular No Meat Athlete community, and Robert Cheeke, one of the most connected plant-based athletes in the world of strength training, introduce the benefits of the plant-based diet, to help anyone bolster health and gain an edge on the competition. The Plant-Based Athlete offers powerful proof that the human body doesn’t need meat, eggs, or dairy to be strong, and shows how a consciously calibrated plant-based diet is the secret to attaining physical goals you might have once thought were out of reach. Here are just a few athletes who have discovered the power of plants:ALEX MORGAN, who catapulted the US women’s soccer team to a World Cup championship, credited a plant-based diet for her strength and endurance.NOVAK DJOKOVIC, the world’s number-one ranked men’s tennis player, who outlasted Roger Federer in epic fashion to capture his fifth Wimbledon title, praised his plant-based diet which boosted his energy, stamina, and overall performance.VENUS WILLIAMS, who turned to plant-based eating to alleviate a chronic condition, and in less than a year went from pain to winning a Wimbledon title and an Olympic Gold Medal, and reclaimed her #1 world ranking.The Plant-Based Athlete is the definitive guide to adopting a plant-based lifestyle and using its power to help you achieve your goals. Featuring more than 60 recipes, insights from famous plant-based athletes, and scientific research, it is the ultimate guide for the growing community of vegans and the workouts that power them every day.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers


Ben Horowitz - 2014
    His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, includingdemoting (or firing) a loyal friend;whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company;how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you;what to do when smart people are bad employees;why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one;whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.

Elevate: An Essential Guide to Life


Joseph Deitch - 2018
    Joseph Deitch shares his lifelong pursuit of wisdom and growth in an accessible, practical, down-to-earth gift to his readers. Elevate is a celebration of life and the potential that exists for all of us. It provides both answers and insights as it links awareness and action, East and West, ancient and modern, spiritual and scientific. It offers a formula for turning frustration into fascination and provides a universal framework for what works and why, what to do . . . and why we don’t.

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround


Louis V. Gerstner Jr. - 2002
    By 1993, the computer industry had changed so rapidly the company was on its way to losing $16 billion and IBM was on a watch list for extinction -- victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.Then Lou Gerstner was brought in to run IBM. Almost everyone watching the rapid demise of this American icon presumed Gerstner had joined IBM to preside over its continued dissolution into a confederation of autonomous business units. This strategy, well underway when he arrived, would have effectively eliminated the corporation that had invented many of the industry's most important technologies.Instead, Gerstner took hold of the company and demanded the managers work together to re-establish IBM's mission as a customer-focused provider of computing solutions. Moving ahead of his critics, Gerstner made the hold decision to keep the company together, slash prices on his core product to keep the company competitive, and almost defiantly announced, "The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision."Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? tells the story of IBM's competitive and cultural transformation. In his own words, Gerstner offers a blow-by-blow account of his arrival at the company and his campaign to rebuild the leadership team and give the workforce a renewed sense of purpose. In the process, Gerstner defined a strategy for the computing giant and remade the ossified culture bred by the company's own success.The first-hand story of an extraordinary turnaround, a unique case study in managing a crisis, and a thoughtful reflection on the computer industry and the principles of leadership, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement. Taking readers deep into the world of IBM's CEO, Gerstner recounts the high-level meetings and explains the pressure-filled, no-turning-back decisions that had to be made. He also offers his hard-won conclusions about the essence of what makes a great company run.In the history of modern business, many companies have gone from being industry leaders to the verge of extinction. Through the heroic efforts of a new management team, some of those companies have even succeeded in resuscitating themselves and living on in the shadow of their former stature. But only one company has been at the pinnacle of an industry, fallen to near collapse, and then, beyond anyone's expectations, returned to set the agenda. That company is IBM.Lou Gerstener, Jr., served as chairman and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 to March 2002, when he retired as CEO. He remained chairman of the board through the end of 2002. Before joining IBM, Mr. Gerstner served for four years as chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco, Inc. This was preceded by an eleven-year career at the American Express Company, where he was president of the parent company and chairman and CEO of its largest subsidiary. Prior to that, Mr. Gerstner was a director of the management consulting firm of McKinsey & Co., Inc. He received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving


Scott M. O'Neil - 2021
    But it comes for all of us. The sudden loss of a much beloved friend, the excruciatingly long departure of a parent with Alzheimer's. We grasp for lessons, for meaning, for learnings. Even when an extrovert is faced with the four walls of their own home for months upon months--they're determined to find peace and appreciation in the pause. They try to reenergize without the energy from the bright lights of the court, the hush of the ice, the roar of the crowd; the adrenaline-laced metronome of 20,000 hearts beating together.The human spirit craves connection. Authenticity. Belonging. Touch. Gratitude. Purpose. We need to make our interactions count. If we are truly present, the world shares its hardest, most beautiful lessons with us.In Be Where Your Feet Are, CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils Scott O'Neil offers his own story of grief and healing, and shares his most valuable lessons in what keeps him grounded and able to thrive as a father, husband, coach, mentor, and leader. O'Neil also interviews some of sports and entertainment's most renowned athletes and performers and the world's most dynamic business leaders, conversations in which they reveal their most impactful moments of learning. Each story provides us with an opportunity to learn, and--if we choose--to change our lives, and the world, for the better.

The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us about Innovation


Frans Johansson - 2004
    And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs.Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity


Douglas Rushkoff - 2016
    Social networks surrender their original missions to more immediately profitable data mining, while brokerage houses abandon value investing for algorithms that drain markets and our 401ks alike--all tactics driven by the need to stoke growth by any means necessary. Instead of taking this opportunity to reprogram our economy for sustainability, we have doubled down on growth as its core command. We have reached the limits of this approach. We must escape the growth trap, once and for all. Media scholar and technology author Douglas Rushkoff--one of today's most original and influential thinkers--argues for a new economic program that utilizes the unique distributive power of the internet while breaking free of the winner-take-all system the growth trap leaves in its wake. Drawing on sources both contemporary and historical, Rushkoff pioneers a new understanding of the old economic paradigm, from central currency to debt to corporations and labor.Most importantly, he offers a series of practical steps for businesses, consumers, investors, and policymakers to remake the economic operating system from the inside out--and prosper along the way. Instead of boycotting Wal-Mart or overtaxing the wealthy, we simply implement strategies that foster the creation of value by stakeholders other than just ourselves. From our currency to our labor to the corporation, every aspect of the economy can be reprogrammed with minimal disruption to create a more equitably distributed prosperity for all.Inspiring and challenging, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus provides a pragmatic, optimistic, and human-centered model for economic progress in the digital age.