If you listen to Jim analyze a business situation you get absolutely no baloney. And, frankly, finding someone like that is a rarity.” There is only one CEO in recent times who has faced—and succeeded at—the extraordinary challenges of leading three major companies—Gillette, Nabisco, and Kraft—into prosperous futures by doing what matters on the fundamentals. That CEO is Jim Kilts. In this vivid first-person account he reveals his system for success that is both cutting-edge and back-to-basics. Doing What Matters—the action plan for identifying and tackling what’s important and ignoring the rest—is the key to winning in a warp-speed world where the need for revolutionary speed and decisiveness increases by the day. Kilts illustrates his ideas with colorful stories, such as “that little red razor.” A new product idea he proposed early on at Gillette, it was initially shelved because “everyone knew you couldn’t sell a red razor,” but went on to become one of Gillette’s biggest marketing successes ever. Jim Kilts’s focus on both business fundamentals and personal attributes provides the “complete package,” showing how to get results that make a difference through:• Intellectual integrity: The ability to face the unvarnished truth about yourself and your business and using what you see as the basis for action.• Generating emotional engagement and enthusiasm: Using the force of your personality and ideas to infuse people and an entire organization with a sense of purpose and mission. • Action: Gillette, with just five product lines, had over 20,000 SKUs. After studying the issue for over two years, there were still 20,000. How Kilts got Gillette off the dime to pare down the number to 7,000 almost overnight is an astonishing example of getting the rubber to meet the road—with enormous benefits to the business. • Understanding the right things through an overarching concept to frame and filter issues: For Jim Kilts it was Total Brand Value, the framework he used in the consumer products industry for achieving better, faster, and more complete results than the competition.Whether you’re CEO of a multibillion-dollar global company, the brand manager for a product, an entrepreneur starting a small business, or just beginning a career, Doing What Matters provides the practical ideas that get results—ranging from a day one action plan for starting a new job to a chorus of cheers and support to a program of total innovation that involves everyone in changes from small to “big bang.”From the Hardcover edition.

    It’s helpful for learning Agile and Scrum, and also for a basic preparation for the PSM I exam (Professional Scrum Master level 1). It can also act as a simple reference for Scrum practitioners.

    Featuring the actual writings of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and more, this work also contains William Bennett's interpretation of the "myths" for which these men have become known as moral exemplars. From piety, justice, and industry, to patriotism, humility, and courage, "Sacred Honor" reminds listeners why we hold America's founders in such high regard. Simultaneous hardcover release from Simon & Schuster. National ads. 5-city author tour. (Nonfiction)

    Even small changes today can have an immediate, transformative impact on your life - and you are the vehicle for this change. Be Happy draws together timeless wisdom and compassionate insights into the mysteries of human nature. Full description

    She's lucky to be alive. But the murder isn't a one-off. It's part of a bigger, more violent attack planned on affluent families in the area - and now Nikki, as the only living witness, is a dangerous threat to the well-orchestrated scheme. As the net draws tighter around the killers, DI Rio Wray must do whatever it takes to keep Nikki alive. But when you're dealing with criminals, there's no line they won't cross... In a kill-or-be-killed-world, who will be first to pull the trigger?

    We are on the threshold, say authors Pine and Gilmore, of the Experience Economy, a new economic era in which all businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers. The Experience Economy offers a creative, highly original, and yet eminently practical strategy for companies to script and stage the experiences that will transform the value of what they produce. From America Online to Walt Disney, the authors draw from a rich and varied mix of examples that showcase businesses in the midst of creating personal experiences for both consumers and businesses. The authors urge managers to look beyond traditional pricing factors like time and cost, and consider charging for the value of the transformation that an experience offers. Goods and services, say Pine and Gilmore, are no longer enough. Experiences and transformations are the basis for future economic growth, and The Experience Economy is the script from which managers can begin to direct their own transformations.

    Why?They understand the power of His promises to comfort them, strengthen them, correct them, inspire them, and transform them into the person God wants them to be. Are you ready to be a Jesus Freak? Then you got to know God's Word. And here is one small place to start. Discover God's wisdom and promises for your life when you need strength to overcome temptation, the power to face persecution, the words to testify for Jesus, the faith to continue your walk with Jesus when others have fallen away. Jesus Freaks know that they can stake their lives on God's promises.

    Now he offers his most important book yet, a guide to making big career changes—by choice or necessity—and escaping the horrible feeling of being trapped in the wrong job.Acuff finds it amazing that people spend more than eighteen years studying and preparing for college, but little or no time honing their careers between graduation and retirement. He offers an empowering tool he calls the Career Savings Account, which will change the way readers think about their skills, relationships, character, and work ethic. He also shows that if you’re on the wrong track, you already have what you need to change it—even if your family and mortgage mean you can’t simply pick up and move for a new opportunity.Throughout the book, Acuff features inspiring and funny true stories—not merely his own, but those of friends who restarted their careers after a layoff, an extended maternity leave, or simply the realization that they were suffering fifty weeks a year just to pay the bills and enjoy two weeks of vacation. Everyone can benefit from Do Over, from new graduates to fiftysomethings and beyond.

    

    But often the efforts of individual units are not coordinated, resulting in conflicts, lost opportunities, and diminished performance.Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton argue that the responsibility for this critical alignment lies with corporate headquarters. In this book, the authors apply their revolutionary Balanced Scorecard management system to corporate-level strategy, revealing how highly successful enterprises achieve powerful synergies by explicitly defining corporate headquarters’ role in setting, coordinating, and overseeing organizational strategy.Based on extensive field research in organizations worldwide, Alignment shows how companies can build an enterprise-level Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard that clearly articulate the “enterprise value proposition”: how the enterprise creates value above that achieved by individual business units operating alone. The book provides case studies, actionable frameworks, and sample scorecards that show how to align business and support units, boards of directors, and external partners with the corporate strategy and create a governance process that will ensure that alignment is sustained.The next breakthrough in strategy execution from the field’s premier thinkers, Alignment shows how today’s companies can unlock unrealized value from enterprise synergies.

    Whether you are a pureplay cloud company or a traditional technology provider making the pivot to the cloud, this book will help guide your decision-making and execution around the “as-a-service” model to put your company on a path to profitable growth

    In fact, a million businesses start in the United States every year. Many of them fail, but enough succeed so that small businesses are now adding millions of jobs to the economy at the same time that the Fortune 500 companies are actually losing jobs. Paul Hawken—entrepreneur and bestselling author—wrote Growing a Business for those who set out to make their dream a reality. He knows what he's talking about; he is his own best example of success. In the early 1970s, while he was still in his twenties, he founded Erewhon, the largest distributor of natural foods. More recently, he founded and still runs Smith & Hawken, the premier mail-order garden tool company. And he wrote a critically acclaimed book called The Next Economy about the future of the economy. Using examples like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream, and University National Bank of Palo Alto, California, Hawken shows that the successful business is an expression of an individual person. The most successful business, your idea for a business, will grow from something that is deep within you, something that can't be stolen by anyone because it is so uniquely yours that anyone else who tried to execute your idea would fail. He dispels the myth of the risk-taking entrepreneur. The purpose of business, he points out, is not to take risks but rather to get something done.

    Simply being Dan’s employee is no longer enough.The realization that he might lose Amy has Dan romancing her, then proposing marriage. Amy is stunned and thrilled by the proposal until she realizes he didn’t mention love. Dan is an honorable man and won’t promise more than he can give.Not until Amy moves out does Dan realize she’s taken his heart with her. Now he has to find a way to show her his love is real…before it’s too late.

    The reason is simple: no matter what you think you're saying, your words, gestures, and tone of voice can actually communicate something entirely different.Too often, negative micromessages undermine morale, business opportunities, and ultimately your organization. Micromessaging examines the nuanced behaviors that we all blindly use and react to in our dealings with others. Yet as Young points out, these micromessages can reveal a lot about our own-and our superiors'-biases and preconceived notions. Learning how to constructively address these behaviors can bring about positive change.Young offers a common language for encouraging open discussion in the workplace, along with skills to identify and address familiar micromessages; tools for deploying microadvantages; and real-life workplace scenarios, self-assessments, and solutions that help readers interpret and alter ingrained behaviors and their effects. He delivers valuable information onCruicial leadership skills and how to acquire themUniversal workplace cultural issuesHow expectations affect the performance of othersWays to speak fairly, not falselyTechniques that eliminate group thinkHow to reset the filters you use to screen othersBased on research from MIT, Young's approach has already helped numerous Fortune 500 clients, including Merck, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Starbucks, IBM, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Cisco, and Raytheon to increase leadership effectiveness. With its proven wisdom, you can experience what so many business executives worldwide have discovered and make it a powerful part of your leadership skill set.

    isn't going exactly as planned. Now, in a bar near her hometown on the Jersey shore, her future is about to change forever.... "Your panic is your friend. It loves you and it's just trying to protect you. The man who spoke to her was gorgeous: long dusky hair, faded jeans and a black motorcycle jacket. And before Heather could brush him off, his arm touched hers and the result was electric: she felt her fear and anxiety drop away. Who was this guy? "I am who you think I am." Oh, God. "That's very good. It's about time we straightened out a few things in your life." His voice was like a sanctuary, a safe and lovely haven, and she felt enveloped by a cloud of serenity. So begins Heather's journey toward discovering her life as it was meant to be: filled with the true meaning of love and the magic of realizing her dreams. For every woman who longs to embrace her true self, heaven in high gear is proof that you can always find your way, as long as you trust your heart.