Book picks similar to
Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense: Why some organisations consistently outperform others by Jules Goddard
business
non-fiction
management
decision-making
Judgment in Managerial Decision Making
Max H. Bazerman - 1986
But, with Max Bazerman's Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, Sixth Edition, you can learn how to overcome those biases to make better managerial decisions. The text examines judgment in a variety of organizational contexts, and provides practical strategies for changing your decision-making processes and improving these processes so that they become part of your permanent behavior. Throughout, you'll findnumerous hands-on decision exercises and examples from the author's extensive executive training experience that will help you enhance the quality of your managerial judgment. Past editions have been used in top universities, in business schools, and in public policy, psychology, and economics classes. In addition, the text has been widely recognized by practitioners in the world of behavioral finance. Revised with two new chapters This Sixth Edition now adds chapters on bounded ethicality (Chapter 8) and bounded awareness (Chapter 11). Both of these chapters are based on Bazerman's recent writing with Dolly Chugh and Mahzarin Banaji. Max H. Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. In addition, Max is also formally affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, the Psychology Department, and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard. He is the author or co-author of over 150 research articles and chapters, and the author of numerous other books. Max was named one of the top 30 authors, speakers, and teachers of management by Executive Excellence in each of their two most recent rankings.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Michael E. Gerber - 1985
500 CEOs.An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business.Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.The E-Myth Revisited will help you grow your business in a productive, assured way.
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Donella H. Meadows - 2008
Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.
The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company
Don Soderquist - 2005
Don Soderquist, who was senior vice chairman during that time, played a crucial role in that success. Sam Walton said, "I tried for almost twenty years to hire Don Soderquist . . . But when we really needed him later on, he finally joined up and made a great chief operating officer." Responsible for overseeing many of Wal-Mart's key support divisions, including real estate, human resources, information systems, logistics, legal, corporate affairs, and loss prevention, Soderquist stayed true to his Christian values as well as Wal-Mart's distinct management style. "Probably no other Wal-Mart executive since the legendary Sam Walton has come to embody the principles of the company's culture-or to represent them within the industry-as has Don Soderquist," Discount Store News once reported. In The Wal-Mart Way, Soderquist shares his story of helping lead a global company from being a $43 billion company to one that would eventually exceed $200 billion. Several books have been written about Wal-Mart's success, but none by the ones who were the actual players. It was more than "Everyday Low Prices" and distribution that catapulted the company to the top. The core values based on Judeo-Christian principles-and maintained by leaders such as Soderquist-are the real reason for Wal-Mart's success.
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
Erik Brynjolfsson - 2014
Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.
The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action
Jeffrey Pfeffer - 1993
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place. The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.
To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design
Henry Petroski - 1985
More than a series of fascinating case studies, To Engineer Is Human is a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science and the chaotic realities of everyday life."Alert, inquisitive, unspecialized, wholly human...refreshingly eclectic." --The Spectator"Henry Petroski is an ardent engineer, and if he writes more good books like this, he might find himself nominated to become the meistersinger of the guild. [This is] a refreshing plunge into the dynamics of the engineering ethos...as straightforward as an I-beam."--Science
The Effective Executive
Peter Drucker - 2018
Usually this involves doing what other people have overlooked, as well as avoiding what is unproductive.He identifies five talents as essential to effectiveness, and these can be learned; in fact, they must be learned just as scales must be mastered by every piano student regardless of his natural gifts. Intelligence, imagination and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that convert these into results. One of the talents is the management of time. Another is choosing what to contribute to the particular organization. A third is knowing where and how to apply your strength to best effect. Fourth is setting up the right priorities. And all of them must be knitted together by effective decision-making. How these can be developed forms the main body of the book. The author ranges widely through the annals of business and government to demonstrate the distinctive skill of the executive. He turns familiar experience upside down to see it in new perspective. The book is full of surprises, with its fresh insights into old and seemingly trite situations.
Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
Derek Thompson - 2017
Each blockbuster has a secret history--of power, influence, dark broadcasters, and passionate cults that turn some new products into cultural phenomena. Even the most brilliant ideas wither in obscurity if they fail to connect with the right network, and the consumers that matter most aren't the early adopters, but rather their friends, followers, and imitators -- the audience of your audience.In his groundbreaking investigation, Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like and reveals the economics of cultural markets that invisibly shape our lives. Shattering the sentimental myths of hit-making that dominate pop culture and business, Thompson shows quality is insufficient for success, nobody has "good taste," and some of the most popular products in history were one bad break away from utter failure. It may be a new world, but there are some enduring truths to what audiences and consumers want. People love a familiar surprise: a product that is bold, yet sneakily recognizable.Every business, every artist, every person looking to promote themselves and their work wants to know what makes some works so successful while others disappear. Hit Makers is a magical mystery tour through the last century of pop culture blockbusters and the most valuable currency of the twenty-first century--people's attention.From the dawn of impressionist art to the future of Facebook, from small Etsy designers to the origin of Star Wars, Derek Thompson leaves no pet rock unturned to tell the fascinating story of how culture happens and why things become popular.In Hit Makers, Derek Thompson investigates: - The secret link between ESPN's sticky programming and the The Weeknd's catchy choruses - Why Facebook is the world's most important modern newspaper - How advertising critics predicted Donald Trump - The 5th grader who accidentally launched "Rock Around the Clock," the biggest hit in rock and roll history - How Barack Obama and his speechwriters think of themselves as songwriters - How Disney conquered the world--but the future of hits belongs to savvy amateurs and individuals - The French collector who accidentally created the Impressionist canon - Quantitative evidence that the biggest music hits aren't always the best - Why almost all Hollywood blockbusters are sequels, reboots, and adaptations - Why one year--1991--is responsible for the way pop music sounds today - Why another year --1932--created the business model of film - How data scientists proved that "going viral" is a myth - How 19th century immigration patterns explain the most heard song in the Western Hemisphere
Playing Big: Find Your Voice, Your Mission, Your Message
Tara Mohr - 2014
Mohr’s work helping women play bigger has earned acclaim from the likes of Maria Shriver and Jillian Michaels, and has been featured on the Today show, CNN, and a host of other media outlets. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In gave many women new awareness about what kinds of changes they need to make to become more successful; yet most women need help implementing them. In the tradition of Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, Playing Big provides real, practical tools to help women quiet self-doubt, identify their callings, “unhook” from praise and criticism, unlearn counterproductive good girl habits, and begin taking bold action. While not all women aspire to end up in the corner office, every woman aspires to something. Playing Big fills a major gap among women’s career books; it isn’t just for corporate women. The book offers tools to help every woman play bigger—whether she’s an executive, community volunteer, artist, or stay-at-home mom. Thousands of women across the country have been transformed by Mohr’s program, and now this book makes the ideas and practices available to everyone who is ready to play big.
Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity
Hugh MacLeod - 2009
Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog-gapingvoid.com-and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?Ignore Everybody expands on MacLeod's sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. For example:-Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.-If your plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.-Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.-The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.After learning MacLeod's forty keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.
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."
The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness
Tom Peters - 1997
More recently, through 400 seminars in 47 states and 22 countries, Peters reexamined, refined and reinvented his views on innovation--the #1 survival strategy, he asserts, for businesses of the next millennium.The Circle of Innovation brings these seminars--and Peters' contagious passion--to the reader in a landmark book. Through bold graphics, astounding facts and figures, and quotes whose sources range from Emile Zola to Steve Jobs, Peters blows the lid off accepted management styles. Here is a book that will open your eyes to new ways of envisioning the challenges of today's world. Here, too, is a practical guide that will teach you how to:- reverse the rising tide of product and service "commoditization" and foster uniqueness- capitalize on the skyrocketing purchasing power of women- convert sluggish staff into vital centers of intellectual capital accumulation- build systems of elegance and beauty- liberate your creativity and individual leadership styleWhether you manage a six-person department or a 60,000-body behemoth, The Circle of Innovation empowers you to transform your organization, your career, yourself. Inspiring, timely, this blueprint for success is pure Peters--a handbook as energetic as it is profound.
Making Breakthrough Innovations Happen
Porus Munshi - 2009
Indian companies took up products that came in from the West and either replicated it or re-engineered it. Indians, when they went to other countries, were part of creative teams that came up with, and implemented great ideas. But, when in their own country, Indians do not have a reputation for coming up with innovative ideas. So, what is it that stops them?The author laments this situation in his book Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible. He points out that even the Indian branches of MNCs do not see their Indian operations as centers of innovations. They just work on things that have already been conceived elsewhere.In this book, Munshi tells the true stories of 11 breakthrough ideas conceived and executed by Indians. These ground-breaking examples show that if someone dares to think out-of-the box and follows their dream, then seemingly impossible things can be achieved.The examples cover a wide range of industries. from public sector to private sector, and from MNCs and huge Indian companies to startup firms. The book talks about 11 ideas that had a deep impact, and achievements that were original and influential.The examples include the creation of the slimmest water proof watches by Titan, and the business model of Cavinkare - a small company that took on giants in the field of personal care products and succeeded. It includes the story of how Aravind Eye Hospital came up with an idea - assembly line surgery - to improve the productivity of its surgeons. Today, the hospital treats 70% of its patients free of charge and yet manages to make a good profit.Then, there is the case of the Hindi daily, Dainik Bhaskar, that combined intensive in-house marketing surveys and research with innovative marketing ideas to capture a large segment of the market in each new city they entered.The book throws light on the innovative strategies of Trichy police to turn around a city that was crime prone and known for communal clashes into one of the safest in the country. He further talks about the power backup company Su-kam that succeeded by creating its own niche, and Shantha Biotech that launched a low-cost Hepatitis B vaccine.The other success stories include Surat City’s transformation after the plague outbreak into one of the cleanest cities in the country, and Chic shampoo’s innovation of introducing sachet packs, which revolutionized the retail market. Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible further elaborates how Bosch India came up with a new cost-effective pump that meets the Euro standards, ITC’s e-Choupal marketing model, and Chola Vehicle Finance’s innovative business model.All these real-life examples in Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible give an insight into the ability of Indians to go beyond conventions and create innovative products and strategies that could turn their respective industries on their heads.About the AuthorPorus Munshi is a psychology graduate and has a passion for helping people realize their potential. He is also a partner consultant at Erehwon Innovation Consulting.He previously contributed a column to Hindu Busnessline called Work and You. His book, Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible, is already on its second reprint.Munshi works with clients and helps them release mental blocks and conventional restraints to help them achieve their goals and dreams. He helps facilitate innovative thinking and organizational transformations. Besides his passion for innovation and realizing the human potential, he has an avid interest in martial arts, from Karate to Tai Chi.
Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
Howard Schultz - 1997
The success of Starbucks Coffee Company is one of the most amazing business stories in decades. What started as a single store on Seattle's waterfront has grown into a company with over sixteen hundred stores worldwide and a new one opening every single business day. Just as remarkable as this incredible growth is the fact that Starbucks has managed to maintain its renowned commitment to product excellence and employee satisfaction. Marketers, managers, and aspiring entrepreneurs will discover how to turn passion into profit in this definitive chronicle of the company that "has changed everything... from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street" (Fortune).