After a million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.There are millions of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation.

    Lavishly illustrated with Dilbert strips, these hilarious essays on incompetent bosses, management fads, bewildering technological changes and so much more, will make anyone who has ever worked in an office laugh out loud in recognition. The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage -- management.Since 1989, Scott Adams has been illustrating this principle each day, lampooning the corporate world through Dilbert, his enormously popular comic strip. In Dilbert, the potato-shaped, abuse-absorbing hero of the strip, Adams has given voice to the millions of Americans buffeted by the many adversities of the workplace.Now he takes the next step, attacking corporate culture head-on in this lighthearted series of essays. Packed with more than 100 hilarious cartoons, these 25 chapters explore the zeitgeist of ever-changing management trends, overbearing egos, management incompetence, bottomless bureaucracies, petrifying performance reviews, three-hour meetings, the confusion of the information superhighway and more. With sharp eyes, and an even sharper wit, Adams exposes -- and skewers -- the bizarre absurdities of everyday corporate life. Readers will be convinced that he must be spying on their bosses, The Dilbert Principle rings so true!

    Concerned that Starbucks had lost its way, Schultz was determined to help it return to its core values and restore not only its financial health, but also its soul. In Onward, he shares the remarkable story of his return and the company's ongoing transformation under his leadership, revealing how, during one of the most tumultuous economic times in history, Starbucks again achieved profitability and sustainability without sacrificing humanity. Offering readers a snapshot of a moment in history that left no company unscathed, the book zooms in to show, in riveting detail, how one company struggled and recreated itself in the midst of it all. The fastpaced narrative is driven by day-to-day tension as conflicts arise and lets readers into Schultz's psyche as he comes to terms with his limitations and evolving leadership style. Onward is a compelling, candid narrative documenting the maturing of a brand as well as a businessman.Onward represents Schultz's central leadership philosophy: It's not just about winning, but the right way to win. Ultimately, he gives readers what he strives to deliver every day - sense of hope that, no matter how tough times get, the future can be just as or more successful than the past, whatever one defines success to be.

    Porter). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you catalyze your organization's strategy development and execution.HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy will inspire you to:• Distinguish your company from rivals• Clarify what your company will and won't do• Craft a vision for an uncertain future• Create blue oceans of uncontested market space• Use the Balanced Scorecard to measure your strategy• Capture your strategy in a memorable phrase• Make priorities explicit• Allocate resources early• Clarify decision rights for faster decision making"This collection of best-selling articles includes: featured article "What Is Strategy?" by Michael E. Porter, "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy," "Building Your Company's Vision," "Reinventing Your Business Model," "Blue Ocean Strategy," "The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution," "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System," "Transforming Corner-Office Strategy into Frontline Action," "Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance," and "Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance."

    Unlike past recessions, today's crises have precipitated a need for businesses to develop a new mindset, one that takes into account intermittent periods of disturbance, allowing them to thrive while under the constant threat of chaos. Chaotics presents a revolutionary set of guidelines designed to help businesses: - detect sources of turbulence - prepare scenarios - predict resulting vulnerabilities and opportunities - develop responses to ensure long-term resilience and success - avoid risk while advancing the interests of the company - build flexibility into the balance sheet - price strategically - adjust products to meet new customer values - and more Complete with metrics and measurements, Chaotics outlines a powerful new system for managing waves of uncertainty affecting customers, employees, and other stakeholders. In this climate of increased turbulence, no organization can survive with less.

    Since its creation in 2010, Instagram’s fun and simple interface has captured our collective imagination, swiftly becoming a way of life. In No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, technology reporter Sarah Frier explains how Instagram’s founders married art and technology to overcome skeptics and to hook the public on visual storytelling. At first, Instagram initially attracted artisans, but then the platform exploded in popularity among the masses, creating an entire industry of digital influencers that’s now worth tens of billions of dollars. Eighteen months after Instagram’s launch and explosive growth, the founders—Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger—made the gut-wrenching decision to sell the company to Facebook. For most companies, that would be the end of the story; but for Instagram, it was only the beginning. Instagram borrowed some lessons from Facebook and rejected others, until eventually its success stirred tension with Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, just as Facebook became embroiled in a string of public crises. Frier unearths the details that led to the cofounders’ departure, bringing to light dramatic moments unknown to the public until now. At its heart, No Filter draws on unprecedented exclusive access—from the founders of Instagram, as well as employees, executives, and competitors; hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio; Anna Wintour of Vogue; Kris Jenner of the Kardashian-Jenner empire; and a plethora of influencers, from fashionistas with millions of followers to owners of famous dogs worldwide—to show how Instagram has fundamentally changed the way we communicate, shop, eat, and travel. The book brings readers inside users’ strategies to craft their personal image and fame, explaining how the company’s product decisions have affected the structure of our society. From teenagers to the pope, No Filter tells the captivating story of how Instagram not only created a new industry but also changed our lives.

    Now, in this hands-on guide, Denning explains how you can learn to tell the right story at the right time. Whoever you are in the organization CEO, middle management, or someone on the front lines you can lead by using stories to effect change. Filled with myriad examples, A Leader's Guide to Storytelling shows how storytelling is one of the few available ways to handle the principal and most difficult challenges of leadership: sparking action, getting people to work together, and leading people into the future. The right kind of story at the right time, can make an organization "stunningly vulnerable" to a new idea.

    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.

    In it, self-made multimillionaire and bestselling author Masterson shares the knowledge he has gained from creating and expanding numerous businesses and outlines a focused strategy for guiding a small business through the four stages of entrepreneurial growth. Along the way, Masterson teaches you the different skills needed in order to excel in this dynamic environment.

    Founded in 1926, McKinsey can lay claim to the following partial list of accomplishments: its consultants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological change to the nation’s best organizations; they remapped the power structure within the White House; they even revo­lutionized business schools. In The New York Times bestseller The Firm, star financial journalist Duff McDonald shows just how, in becoming an indispensable part of decision making at the highest levels, McKinsey has done nothing less than set the course of American capitalism. But he also answers the question that’s on the mind of anyone who has ever heard the word McKinsey: Are they worth it? After all, just as McKinsey can be shown to have helped invent most of the tools of modern management, the company was also involved with a number of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they were K-Mart’s advisers when the retailer tumbled into disarray. They played a critical role in building the bomb known as Enron. McDonald is one of the few journalists to have not only parsed the record but also penetrated the culture of McKinsey itself. His access puts him in a unique position to demonstrate when it is worth hiring these gurus—and when they’re full of smoke.

    “This is Steve Jobs. I saw your picture in a magazine a few years ago and thought we’d work together someday.” After Steve Jobs was unceremoniously dismissed from Apple, he bought a little-known graphics company called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and executive to whom he had never spoken before, to persuade Levy to help him get Pixar off the ground. What Levy found was a company on the verge of failure. To Pixar and Beyond is the story of what happened next: how, working closely with Jobs, Levy produced and implemented a highly improbable plan that transformed Pixar into one of Hollywood’s greatest success stories. Set in the worlds of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, the book takes readers inside Pixar, Disney, law firms, and investment banks. It provides an up-close, firsthand account of Pixar’s ascent, how it made creative choices, Levy’s enduring collaboration and friendship with Jobs, and how Levy came to see in Pixar deeper lessons that can apply to many aspects of our lives.

    Guide to Managerial Communication is a clear, concise and practical reference to effective written and oral communication in a managerial, business, government, or professional context.

    She uses a highly instructive and entertaining story to show how to quickly recognize any undermining questions that pop into your mind--or out of your mouth--and reframe them to achieve amazingly positive and practical results. The third edition includes a new introduction and epilogue and two powerful new tools that show how Question Thinking can dramatically improve coaching and leadership. Based on Adams's decades of research and experience, this book can make a life-transforming difference--as it already has for many thousands of people around the world.

    and eat smaller competitors for breakfast.Not anymore. These days It's Not the Big that Eat the Small... It's the FAST that Eat the Slow! Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton discovered what separates today's icons of speed from everybody else.They asked questions like:What is the difference between speed and haste?Where does business go to spot trends before the competition?How can leaders help people stop dreading high velocity and rediscover the thrill of deciding, acting and staying fast?And studied the world's fastest companies like:H&M Europe's fast fashion phenomenon now poised to threaten apparel stores in America.AOL who gulped down Netscape and Time Warner in record time.Charles Schwab the new dominant name in discount and on-line financial services.The results are in this sensational book... a national bestseller, translated all over the globe and universally praised.Would you like to make speed a competitive tool in your business? Here's your roadmap!

    . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Close Customer Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Customer Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Dependence on the Customer and Risk Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Achieving Closeness to Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Product and Service Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Chapter 6: Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 What Does Innovation Mean?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 High Level of Innovativeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Driving Forces of Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 The Origin of Innovations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Leadership and Organizational Aspects of Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 7: Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Competitive Structure and Conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 The Hidden Champions in the Light of Porter's "Five Forces" . . . . . 195 Competitive Advantages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Sustainability of Competitive Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Demonstration of Competitive Superiority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Competitive Edge and Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Sparring Partners for Competitive Fitness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Excessive Competitive Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Chapter 8: Financing, Organization, and Business Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Financing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Contents ix Organization of the Value Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Business Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Entrepreneurial Clusters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Chapter 9: Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Job Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Corporate Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 Quali?cations and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Creativity of Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Recruiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Chapter 10: The Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Structures of Ownership and Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 How Crucial Is Leadership? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Leadership Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Young to the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Powerful Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Internationalization of Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Personalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Leadership Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Management Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Chapter 11: Hidden Champions: Audit and Strategy Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 What Is Strategy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Hidden Champion Strategy: For Whom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Hidden Champions - Audits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 Strategy Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Strategies for Value Propositions and Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Organization and Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .