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Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
Paul Babiak - 2006
Now, Dr. Paul Babiak and Dr. Robert D. Hare return with a revised and updated edition of their essential guide.All of us at some point have—or will—come into contact with psychopathic individuals. The danger they present may not be readily apparent because of their ability to charm, deceive, and manipulate. Although not necessarily criminal, their self-serving nature frequently is destructive to the organizations that employ them. So how can we protect ourselves and our organizations in a business climate that offers the perfect conditions for psychopaths to thrive?In Snakes in Suits, Hare, an expert on the scientific study of psychopathy, and Babiak, an industrial and organizational psychologist and a leading authority on the corporate psychopath, examine the role of psychopaths in modern corporations and provide the tools employers can use to avoid and deal with them. Together, they have developed the B-Scan 360, a research tool designed specifically for business professionals.Dr. Babiak and Dr. Hare reveal the secret lives of psychopaths, explain the ways in which they manipulate and deceive, and help you to see through their games. The rapid pace of today’s corporate environment provides the perfect breeding ground for these "snakes in suits" and this newly revised and updated classic gives you the insight, information, and power to protect yourself and your company before it’s too late.
Ten-ager: What your daughter needs you to know about the transition from child to teen
Madonna King - 2021
It raises the issues our girls might not be talking about publicly, and guides their parents on how experts believe we should deal with it.At ten, we know how girls are pigeonholing themselves into what they think they should be. Whether they see themselves as academic or not, whether they are interested in boys, puberty is a reality, friendship fights are underway, and the influence of social media is impacting.With heightened pressure from what they see in the media, in movies and on TV, our girls are leaving childhood behind well before they hit their teens. Not surprisingly, emotions can be heightened and relationships can be fraught. So many parents struggle to understand the pressures our girls are under and how to deal with their emotional volatility. Journalist and social commentator Madonna King has an extraordinary ability to connect with experts, schools and the girls themselves to deliver the answers parents need and the communication our girls want.TEN-AGER is the perfect guide to help parents understand how their daughter is feeling, what they need to know, what to say, and when to stay silent and listen., ,
High Growth Handbook
Elad Gil - 2018
Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has codified in High Growth Handbook. Covering key topics including the role of the CEO, managing your board, recruiting and managing an executive team, M&A, IPOs and late stage funding rounds, and interspersed with over a dozen interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups. In what Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Alliance and The Startup of You calls "a trenchant guide," High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn. "Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley's seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested players. If you want the chance to turn your startup into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies." - Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers "The Alliance" and "The Startup of You," and host of the podcast Masters of Scale "Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as possible, and everything in-between." - Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur "Elad first invested in Airbnb when we were less than 10 people and provided early advice on scaling the company. This book shares these learnings for the next generation of entrepreneurs." - Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder of Airbnb, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chairman of Airbnb China "Elad jam-packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies into a single, digestible book. My only gripe is that he didn't write this when we were in the early days of Box as it would have saved my ass countless times." -Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box "Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage to the next stage and beyond." - Max Levchin, cofounder and CEO of Affirm, cofounder and CTO of PayPal "Elad is one of the most experienced operators in Silicon Valley having seen numerous companies hit their inflection point. His advice has been key for Coinbase as we go through hypergrowth, from hiring executives to improving M&A." - Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase"Elad is one of the best connected and respected early stage investors in the Valley - he invested in Minted when we had fewer than 50 employees and his advice was critical to us in growing our business to where we are now, in the low hundreds of millions in sales. In his book, he crystallizes all of these learnings for the next generation of companies."-Mariam Naficy, cofounder and CEO of Minted
Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done
Jocelyn K. Glei - 2016
Even when we’re away from work, checking email is the most popular activity we engage in on our mobile devices, outranking even browsing the web or social networks.Email is an incredibly powerful and essential tool for doing our daily work, but it has become a near-constant source of frustration, anxiety, and distraction from our work. We have reached a tipping point where “email overload” is no longer a unique problem—it is everyone’s problem. So how can we solve it?With Unsubscribe, Jocelyn K. Glei, founding editor of Behance’s 99U and author of Manage Your Day-to-Day shows readers how to repair their relationship with email, transforming it from a constant source of distraction into a productive tool again. She explains how and why email is so overwhelming and addicting, and lays out strategies for limiting the energy you spend on email by setting meaningful work goals, clarifying which people and messages truly matter, and creating a daily work routine that aligns with your natural creative rhythms.Through her actionable, thoughtful advice, Glei will help you to:• Stop letting email dictate your mood, your focus, and your to-do list• Process your inbox efficiently based on what and who really matters to you• Dispatch excess email without guilt• Compose messages that get people to take action• Deliver criticism in an effective, considerate way• Establish boundaries that allow you to engage in more meaningful work.With illustrations, activities, and style checklists, Unsubscribe makes the task of learning how to manage email easy, approachable, and fun. What’s more, by completely transforming the way we relate to our inboxes, it helps us make room in our lives for more meaningful work and more creativity.
5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time
Jeremie Kubicek - 2015
This revolutionary text introduces you to the five different gears, or mindsets, that carry you through various facets of your day. These include:First gear--when you fully rest and recharge Second gear--when you connect with family or friends without the involvement of work Third gear--when you are socializing Fourth gear--when you are working and multi-tasking Fifth gear--when you are fully focused and 'in the zone, ' working without interruption Using these gears consistently allows you to bring a new level of relational intelligence to your life that offers a competitive advantage in our task-driven world.All too often people go through life without truly connecting--and can, as a result, miss out on experiences and relationships that have the power to bring them great joy. By understanding how the five gears presented in this engaging book work, you can improve your ability to connect with the world around you.Explore why some people stay disconnected from the people and events around them, and why others always seem to have a deep connection to their friends, family, and surroundings Learn how to set triggers and markers that help you shift into the right gears at the right time, which will increase your relational dynamics and make you more productive Create positive change in the dynamics of your relationships Improve your respect and influence--and learn a sign language that, when used, can change your perspective and your world. 5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time is the perfect resource for anyone who wants to live and lead connected.
Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
Paul Graham - 2004
Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls “an intellectual Wild West.”The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.
The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things: Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness
Larry Dossey - 2006
Drugs, transplants, and surgery don’t work for 90 percent of our aches and pains and, while we are grateful for life-saving developments, we know that most come with risks that we ignore at our peril.Long hailed as one of the founding fathers of mind-body medicine, Larry Dossey directs our attention to simple sources of healing that have been available for centuries—treasures often hidden in plain sight—from the power of optimism and of tears to speed recovery to the surprising usefulness of dirt and bugs in curing disease and infection to the benefits of doing nothing.Exploring the medical research that validates these simple remedies, Dossey encourages us to align ourselves with the wisdom of nature and allow true healing to take place. The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things can transform our view of what health is all about, whether our concern is cancer or the common cold.From the Hardcover edition.
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes
Alfie Kohn - 1993
We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way we train the family pet. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research, Alfie Kohn points the way to a more successful strategy based on working with people instead of doing things to them. "Do rewards motivate people?" asks Kohn. "Yes. They motivate people to get rewards." Seasoned with humor and familiar examples, Punished By Rewards presents an argument unsettling to hear but impossible to dismiss.
The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Astonishing Dialogue Taking Place in Our Bodies Impacts Health, Weight, and Mood
Emeran Mayer - 2015
While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the microbiome—the microorganisms that live inside us—communicate with one another. In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:• heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet• balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting, and cutting out sugar and processed foods• promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption• boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s andAlzheimer’s• generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and depression• prevent and heal GI disorders such as leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and allergies, and IBS, as well as digestive discomfort such as heartburn and bloating• and much more.
Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More
John Eliot - 2004
Set goals. Focus on the outcome. Lose yourself to the Zone. All reasonable, sensible advice when you are facing a big presentation at work, a crucial point in the game, or any kind of career-launching performance. And all utterly, hopelessly, wrong. According to John Eliot, Ph.D., “Such self-improvement balderdash will do nothing but relegate you to a career in mediocrity.” As Dr. Eliot has discovered through his cutting-edge research and real-world coaching, techniques such as goal-setting, relaxation, visualization, stress management, and flow just don’t work for most people. Relaxing when the pressure is on is the wrong way to go. Instead, to really ratchet up your performance, you’ll need to change the way you think about pressure—and learn how to welcome it, enjoy it, and make it work to your advantage. Mixing scientific insights with entertaining and inspiring stories, Overachievement will help you achieve spectacular success in any situation that demands you rise above and beyond what you ever thought possible. BACKCOVER: “The antithesis of every self-improvement guru.” —Jim Pawlak, Chicago Tribune “[Eliot’s] upfront conversational tone makes his advice not just palatable but convincing. Even if they don’t achieve superstar results right away, readers from all walks of life should find it easier to hone their concentration and work a little harder.” —Publishers Weekly
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Angela Duckworth - 2016
Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments.Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not genius, but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance. As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own character lab and set out to test her theory.Here, she takes readers into the field to visit teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she's learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers; from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference.
The Laws of Human Nature
Robert Greene - 2018
Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves.We are social animals. Our very lives depend on our relationships with people. Knowing why people do what they do is the most important tool we can possess, without which our other talents can only take us so far. Drawing from the ideas and examples of Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others, Greene teaches us how to detach ourselves from our own emotions and master self-control, how to develop the empathy that leads to insight, how to look behind people's masks, and how to resist conformity to develop your singular sense of purpose. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown - A 30-Minute Instaread Summary: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Instaread Summaries - 2014
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown - A 30-minute SummaryInside this Instaread Summary: - Overview of the entire book- Introduction to the important people in the book- Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book- Key Takeaways of the book- A Reader's PerspectivePreview of this summary: Chapter 1It is necessary to practice courage, compassion, and connection on a daily basis in order to develop worthiness. It is a mistake to try and win someone over, because it means trading in the sense of self in search of approval from another. By doing this, people stop believing in their own worth.The first step toward living wholeheartedly is for people to have the courage to reach out to others and to share their own stories of shame. When in need of compassion, people should reach out to the right person, someone who supports them whether they are feeling strong or whether they are struggling. When people are willing to reveal that they are imperfect and real, their relationships are strengthened. They make a connection. This is why courage, compassion, and connection are the gifts of imperfection.Courage is displayed when people are willing to speak honestly and openly about who they are, what they are feeling, and their experiences both good and bad. Courage is about being vulnerable. It takes courage for someone to ask for what he or she needs and to risk disappointment. When one person has courage, it can create a ripple effect, making others around that person a little braver.Compassion is a relationship between two equals. It occurs when people recognize they share humanity with others. The heart of compassion is acceptance by people of themselves and of others. In order for compassion to occur, people need to set boundaries and hold others accountable for their behavior. The key to compassion is being able to separate people from their behaviors. It is necessary to address what people do, not who they are.Connection exists as the energy between people who feel they have been seen, heard, and valued without judgment. People feel strengthened by this relationship and need connection to do well emotionally, physically, spiritually, and intellectually. Connections happen when people both give and receive with an open heart.Chapter 2Love and belonging are necessary in people's lives. In order for people to experience love and belonging, they must believe they are worthy. People who accept themselves for who they are and who stop worrying about what others think are worthy of love and belonging. At the heart of wholeheartedness is that people have to believe they are worthy now, as they are, not if or when they become or do something in the future....
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Ori Brafman - 2006
But if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.What’s the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, Craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women’s rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional “spiders,” which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary “starfish,” which rely on the power of peer relationships.The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the US government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. The book explores:* How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years* The power of a simple circle* The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together * How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations* How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leaderThe Starfish and the Spider is the rare book that will change how you understand the world around you.
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
Reed Hastings - 2020
It has led nothing short of a revolution in the entertainment industries, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue while capturing the imaginations of hundreds of millions of people in over 190 countries. But to reach these great heights, Netflix, which launched in 1998 as an online DVD rental service, has had to reinvent itself over and over again. This type of unprecedented flexibility would have been impossible without the counterintuitive and radical management principles that cofounder Reed Hastings established from the very beginning. Hastings rejected the conventional wisdom under which other companies operate and defied tradition to instead build a culture focused on freedom and responsibility, one that has allowed Netflix to adapt and innovate as the needs of its members and the world have simultaneously transformed.Hastings set new standards, valuing people over process, emphasizing innovation over efficiency, and giving employees context, not controls. At Netflix, there are no vacation or expense policies. At Netflix, adequate performance gets a generous severance, and hard work is irrel-evant. At Netflix, you don't try to please your boss, you give candid feedback instead. At Netflix, employees don't need approval, and the company pays top of market. When Hastings and his team first devised these unorthodox principles, the implications were unknown and untested. But in just a short period, their methods led to unparalleled speed and boldness, as Netflix quickly became one of the most loved brands in the world.Here for the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, bestselling author of The Culture Map and one of the world's most influential business thinkers, dive deep into the controversial ideologies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe and never-before-told stories of trial and error from Hastings's own career, No Rules Rules is the fascinating and untold account of the philosophy behind one of the world's most innovative, imaginative, and successful companies.