From vast deserts to an Indonesian fishing boat, a slow train through Burma to an armed confrontation in Laos, lullabies from middle-aged Chinese businessmen to a cold night on the Great Wall, wolves and reindeer herders, thieves and nomads: this is a vivid illustration of Asia and the people who live there, and of one ancient, stubborn motorcycle travelling through the world's wild places.

    But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

    And The Diversity Bonus shows how and why.Scott Page, a leading thinker, writer, and speaker whose ideas and advice are sought after by corporations, nonprofits, universities, and governments around the world, makes a clear and compellingly pragmatic case for diversity and inclusion. He presents overwhelming evidence that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls "diversity bonuses." These bonuses include improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more accurate predictions-all of which lead to better performance and results.Page shows that various types of cognitive diversity-differences in how people perceive, encode, analyze, and organize the same information and experiences-are linked to better outcomes. He then describes how these cognitive differences are influenced by other kinds of diversity, including racial and gender differences-in other words, identity diversity. Identity diversity, therefore, can also produce bonuses.Drawing on research in economics, psychology, computer science, and many other fields, The Diversity Bonus also tells the stories of people and organizations that have tapped the power of diversity to solve complex problems. And the book includes a challenging response from Katherine Phillips of the Columbia Business School.The result changes the way we think about diversity in the workplace-and far beyond it.

    Based on Donald Miller’s bestselling book Building a StoryBrand, Claire Diaz-Ortiz applies the seven principles of the StoryBrand Framework to help you build an effective, long-lasting social media plan for your brand. Social Media Success for Every Brand teaches readers how to incorporate the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework into their social media channels to increase engagement and see better results. Readers will understand exactly what they need to do with their social media to drive growth to their organization through the practical guidance of the five-point SHARE model:STORYHOWAUDIENCEREACHEXCELLENCESocial Media Success for Every Brand does not require the reader to be familiar with Building a StoryBrand but provides enough foundation to prepare the reader for practical success with their social media content. Together with the StoryBrand Framework, Claire’s SHARE model will help boost customer engagement and grow the organization’s brand awareness and revenues.

    Marine Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter was posted atop a building in violent Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when an enemy grenade skittered toward Kyle and fellow Marine Nick Eufrazio. Without hesitation, Kyle chose a path of selfless heroism that few can imagine. He jumped on the grenade, saving Nick but sacrificing his own body.  Kyle Carpenter’s heart flatlined three times while being evacuated off the battlefield in Afghanistan. Yet his spirit was unbroken. Severely wounded from head to toe, Kyle lost his right eye as well as most of his jaw. It would take dozens of surgeries and almost three years in and out of the hospital  to reconstruct his body. From there, he began the process of rebuilding his life. What he has accomplished in the last nine years is extraordinary: he’s come back a stronger, better, wiser person.In 2014, Kyle was awarded the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his “singular act of courage” on that rooftop in Afghanistan, an action which had been reviewed exhaustively by the military. Kyle became the youngest living recipient of the award–and only the second living Marine so honored since Vietnam.Kyle’s remarkable memoir reveals a central truth that will inspire every reader: Life is worth everything we’ve got. It is the story of how one man became a so-called hero who willingly laid down his life for his brother-in-arms—and equally, it is a story of rebirth, of how Kyle battled back from the gravest challenge to forge a life of joyful purpose.You Are Worth It is a memoir about the war in Afghanistan and Kyle’s heroics, and it is also a manual for living. Organized around the credos that have guided Kyle’s life (from “Don’t Hide Your Scars” to “Call Your Mom”), the book encourages us to become our best selves in the time we’ve been given on earth. Above all, it’s about finding purpose, regardless of the hurdles that may block our way. Moving and unforgettable, You Are Worth It is an astonishing memoir from one of our most extraordinary young leaders.

    When it came time to select high schools, he thought it worth doing some investigation to assess the level of advantage his kids would enjoy if he spent the required $1.3 million to send them all to private schools.Shockingly, the answer was: none whatsoever.Intrigued, David continued his research, only to discover he was wrong on most counts - as are most parents - when it comes to working out what factors deliver a great education. He discovered that class size doesn't matter, your kids aren't any better off in co-ed than single-sex schools (and vice versa), composite classes are fine, fancy buildings are a waste of money, the old-tie network won't cut it in the new industries and NAPLAN is misread by everyone so is largely meaningless as a measure of quality.Taking on an ingrained and historical system of vested interests - the unions, the government, our own sense of worth, privilege and entitlement - this book is controversial and absolutely necessary. It is well researched, authoritative and accessible. It is a must-read for parents, as well as teachers and policy-makers.

    But the standard methods for tackling these challenges—meetings packed with data-drenched presentations or brainstorming sessions that circle back to nowhere—just don’t deliver. Great strategic conversations generate breakthrough insights by combining the best ideas of people with different backgrounds and perspectives. In this book, two experts “crack the code” on what it takes to design creative, collaborative problem-solving sessions that soar rather than sink. Drawing on decades of experience as innovation strategists—and supported by cutting-edge social science research, dozens of real-life examples, and interviews with well over 100 thought leaders, executives, and fellow practitioners— they unveil a simple, creative process that leaders and their teams can use to unlock solutions to their most vexing issues. The book also includes a “Starter Kit” full of tools and tips for putting the book’s core principles into practice.

    But there's good news: The ideas that will solve our problems are hiding in plain sight. While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the world's population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious.In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter don't see the light of day--for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls "two-pocket thinkers"--artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit.The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What's more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through "one-pocket thinking"--eliminating the blind spot that separates "what we do for a living" and "what we really care about."

    

    We are addicted to prediction, desperate for certainty about the future. But the complexity of modern life won’t provide that; experts in forecasting are reluctant to look more than 400 days out. History doesn’t repeat itself and even genetics won’t tell you everything you want to know. Ineradicable uncertainty is now a fact of life. In complex environments, efficiency is a hazard not a help; being robust is the better, safer option. Drawing on a wide array of people and places, Margaret Heffernan looks at long-term projects developed over generations that could never have been planned the way that they have been run. Experiments, led by individuals and nations, discover new possibilities and options. Radical exercises in forging new futures with wildly diverse participants allow everyone to create outcomes together that none could do alone. Existential crises reveal the vital social component in resilience. Death is certain, but how we approach it impacts the future of those we leave behind. And preparedness – doing everything today that you might need for tomorrow – provides the antidote to passivity and prediction. Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to friendships, this refreshing book challenges us to resist the false promises of technology and efficiency and instead to mine our own creativity and humanity for the capacity to create the futures we want and can believe in.

    It is the act of turning the flywheel, slowly gaining momentum and eventually reaching a breakthrough. Building upon the flywheel concept introduced in his groundbreaking classic Good to Great, Jim Collins teaches readers how to create their own flywheel, how to accelerate the flywheel’s momentum, and how to stay on the flywheel in shifting markets and during times of turbulence.Combining research from his Good to Great labs and case studies from organizations like Amazon, Vanguard, and the Cleveland Clinic which have turned their flywheels with outstanding results, Collins demonstrates that successful organizations can disrupt the world around them—and reach unprecedented success—by employing the flywheel concept.

    It shows you how you can unleash astonishing potential by building the trust, delivering the change, and inspiring the focus that underpins sustainable high performance.From extensive interviews with executives from all over the world, as well as from surveys with more than a thousand executives, the book reveals the nine characteristics that Secure Base Leaders display on a daily basis. The research shows that a primary difference between a successful leader and a failed leader is the presence or absence of secure bases in his or her life.Care to Dare will take you on a journey where you will discover your own secure bases, past and present, and determine how you can be a secure base for other people in your life at work and at home.

    We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems ... [This book] probes the psychological forces that push us downstream--including 'problem blindness,' which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored ... victories by switching to an upstream mindset.

    Managing for the first time is even harder.A new start-up comes on the scene filled with a team of talented people. The start-up grows, the team expands, and those early joiners all of a sudden are responsible for leading a team. Just a few years prior, these folks were barely able to figure out their own roles in their crazy, ever-changing company. Now, as managers, they are expected—often without any direction or role models—to know how to develop,coach, structure projects, review, and set expectations for a whole bunch of new, incredible people. First-timers want to quickly learn what it takes to be a successful manager—like they learned how to code, how to design, how to sell—and put those learnings into practice. But what does it mean tomanage, and how do you teach someone to be a good manager?Enter Rachel Pacheco, an expert at helping start-ups solve their management and culture challenges. Pacheco, a former chief people officer and founding team executive at multiple start-ups, conducts research on management and works with CEOs and their managers to build the skills necessary to navigate a rapidly scaling organization. In Bringing Up the Boss: Practical Lessons for New Managers, Pacheco shares these skills, along with cutting-edge research, data, anecdotes, how-to exercises, and more, to help overwhelmed employees become expert managers.

    McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.