Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose


Tony Hsieh - 2010
    You want to learn about the path I took that eventually led me to Zappos, and the lessons I learned along the way. You want to learn from all the mistakes we made at Zappos over the years so that your business can avoid making some of the same ones. You want to figure out the right balance of profits, passion, and purpose in business and in life. You want to build a long-term, enduring business and brand. You want to create a stronger company culture, which will make your employees and coworkers happier and create more employee engagement, leading to higher productivity. You want to deliver a better customer experience, which will make your customers happier and create more customer loyalty, leading to increased profits. You want to build something special. You want to find inspiration and happiness in work and in life. You ran out of firewood for your fireplace. This book makes an excellent fire-starter.

I am a Rockstar: An Expert Guide to Success


Uma Vanka - 2020
    Reviewers of the book have recommended this as one of the best self-help books on Success, a self-help book that works, a guide that provides very simple steps, avoiding confusing mantras and a success book with something for everyone. Instead of listing boring textbook analogies, the author shares stories and experiences, making this an exciting and easy read.I am a Rockstar is your simple and end to end guide to Success, helping you to•Adopt positive thinking and winning attitude to succeed•Boost your self-confidence and self-belief•Control your life through a more straightforward, efficient, and productive perspective to life•Develop essential winning skills:::oEssential tools such as communication skills, leadership skills, negotiation skills, branding skills & presentation skillsoCritical life skills such as appreciation, discovering unknowns, turning weaknesses in

The Extra One Per Cent: How Small Changes Make Exceptional People


Rob Yeung - 2010
    Discover what these successful people do differently and find out how you too can reach outstanding levels of success.

The Conversation Manager: The Power of the Modern Consumer/The End of the Traditional Advertiser


Steven Van Belleghem - 2010
    This book looks at how to deal with the changing consumer and the social media as a marketing specialist.

What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture


Ben Horowitz - 2019
    Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you’d expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want?To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday problems: should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake.What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building—the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture.Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case-studies, including how Louverture’s cultural techniques were applied (or should have been) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan’s vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and of Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then offers guidance to help any company understand its own strategy and build a successful culture.What You Do Is Who You Are is a journey through culture, from ancient to modern. Along the way, it answers a question fundamental to any organization: who are we? How do people talk about us when we’re not around? How do we treat our customers? Are we there for people in a pinch? Can we be trusted?Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. This book aims to help you do the things you need to become the kind of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action


Simon Sinek - 2009
    It was their natural ability to start with why that enabled them to inspire those around them and to achieve remarkable things.In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way—and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be lead, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit—those are always results. WHY does your organization exist? WHY does it do the things it does? WHY do customers really buy from one company or another? WHY are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics. Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And the people who follow them don't do so because they have to; they follow because they want to.Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.

How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work


Megan Hustad - 2008
    You've landed the job. Now you want to make a good impression, express yourself, excel. Unsure of how to proceed? Aspire to a class greater than the one you were born to? Time to put aside your objections to blatant cries for help. In "How to Be Useful", Megan Hustad dismantles the myths of getting ahead and helps you navigate the choppy waters of office life. Drawing on the experiences of twenty- and thirtysomethings (herself included) as well as fictional strivers from "The House of Mirth", "The Apprentice", and everywhere in between, she shows us where things tend to go wrong in our pursuit of the great american dream. Then she culls the best advice from a century's worth of success literature (the books you'd be too embarrassed to read yourself) to show how work and even the idea of professional climbing can be artfully reimagined. The result is both surprising and provocative. There's Andrew Carnegie on why just being yourself on the job is a terrible idea; Emily Post on the importance of asking questions; Napoleon Hill on why its okay to use people (and how to do it properly); Helen Gurley Brown on thriving in the midst of corporate dysfunction; and Stephen Covey on why you shouldn't always stand up for yourself. Proving once and for all that working hard and being smart arent nearly enough to get ahead these days, Hustad provides dozens of solutions for corporate indignities that have stood the test of time. Humorous yet wise, ironic yet indispensable, "How to Be Useful" overturns everything you thought you knew about moving up in the world.

The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change into Opportunity and Advantage


Daniel Burrus - 2017
    Accelerate innovation and actively shape the future—before someone else does it for you! Digital transformation has divided us all into two camps: the disruptor and the disrupted. The Anticipatory Organization gives you the tools you need to see disruption before it happens, allowing you to turn change into advantage. In The Anticipatory Organization, Burrus shows us that the future is far more certain than we realize, and finding certainty in an uncertain world provides a big advantage for those who know how and where to look for it. Inspired by the dramatic results that organizations are experiencing from his award-winning learning system, The Anticipatory Organization offers a comprehensive way to identify game-changing opportunities. Using the principles of this proven model, you will learn how to elevate planning, accelerate innovation, and transform results by pinpointing and acting upon enormous opportunities waiting to be discovered. Readers will learn how to: • Separate the Hard Trends that will happen from the Soft Trends that might happen • Anticipate disruptions, problems, and game-changing opportunities • Identify and pre-solve predictable problems  • Accelerate innovation (both everyday innovation and exponential innovation)  • Pinpoint and act upon enormous untapped opportunities  ​• Skip problems and barriers to succeed faster

How to Improve Your Leadership and Management Skills - Effective Strategies for Business Managers


Meir Liraz - 2013
    It points out that you must be a leader that people follow, keep informed, make timely decisions and take effective action. In effect you must control the activities of your organization rather than being controlled by them. Here's what’s in the book: * How to lead and manage people; powerful tips and strategies to motivate and inspire your people to bring out the best in them. Be the boss people want to give 200 percent for. * How to Make a Good First Impression * How to Motivate Your Employees in the Workplace * How to Manage Change Effectively * How to Deal With Difficult Employees * Effective Business Negotiation Techniques * How To Set and Achieve Goals * Effective Delegating Strategies * How To Ensure the Profitability of Your Business * How to Create a Business Environment that Supports Growth * All these and much much more. My name is Meir Liraz and I'm the author of this book. According to Dun & Bradstreet, 90% of all business failures analyzed can be traced to poor management. This is backed up by my own experience. In my 31 years as a business coach and consultant to managers, I've seen practically dozens of managers fail and lose their job -- not because they weren't talented or smart enough -- but because they were trying to re-invent the wheel rather than rely on proven, tested methods that work. And that is where this book can help, it will teach you how to avoid the common traps and mistakes and do everything right the first time. Table of Contents 1. How to Lead and Manage People 2. How to Make a Good First Impression 3. How to Motivate Employees in the Workplace 4. How to Manage Change Effectively 5. How to Deal With Difficult Employees 6. Effective Business Negotiation Techniques 7. How To Set and Achieve Goals 8. Effective Delegating Strategies 9. How To Ensure the Profitability of Your Business 10. How to Create a Business Environment that Supports Growth Tags: leadership development, student leadership challenge, business leadership, leadership development program, leadership dynamics, management skills and application, developing management skills.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant


W. Chan Kim - 1994
    They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet, as this influential and immensely popular book shows, these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.In the international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans"—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves, which the authors call “value innovation,” create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this bestselling business book charts a bold new path to winning the future.

Negotiate to Win!: Talking Your Way to What You Want


Patrick Collins - 2009
    Patrick Collins, an internationally recognized expert on the subject, offers an original, comprehensive guide to maximizing negotiation skills, whether in a one-on-one encounter or a larger, more formal negotiating session.Collins explains what negotiation is and isn’t (“negotiation is not confrontation”) and discusses ways to overcome the fear of negotiation, strategies for gaining the upper hand by manipulating the environment, and tactics tailored to negotiation type. What he offers is much more than just a guide to “magic words” or a collection of case studies; Collins provides a hard-working handbook on assessing situations and pinpointing the appropriate techniques for any given circumstance. There’s great real-life advice, including details on how to negotiate at restaurants and hotels. The tips are often surprisingly, almost shockingly simple and logical—such as the suggestion to get in line behind a belligerent customer to boost your own chances for success. Readers will come away with a set of “guerrilla negotiating” tactics, and a better understanding of:• when to continue talking and when to walk away• how to identify words that sabotage your best efforts• how to identify cultural customs that will smooth the process• how to bluff for maximum effectivenessEach chapter concludes with “key thoughts” that summarize the main lessons in the preceding pages.Viewing negotiation as both science and art, Collins will help executives, managers, and almost anyone master the skills to have the upper hand in any situation.

A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership


Brad Jackson - 2007
    With controversial ideas and funny stories, it covers topics that readers will recognize from their course and some new but equally important areas to challenge their thinking. Part of a highly popular new series this book will make you better able to question and understand this burgeoning field.

Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution


Lisa Bodell - 2012
    Stuck in the land of status quo, we’ve forgotten how to think. And the very structures put in place to help businesses grow are now holding them back. It’s time to Kill the Company.This book is a call to arms: to start a revolution in how we think and work. But instead of more one-size-fits-all change initiatives forced upon employees, we need to embrace smaller, positive behavioral changes that create ripple effects throughout the organization. Thinking can no longer be exclusive to the creative team or lead strategists. Rather, a culture of curiosity must be fostered among the ranks to shake up our standard practices, from unproductive meetings to go-nowhere strategic planning. This revolution can and will awaken our ability to think, and ultimately, to innovate and grow.In Kill the Company, innovation specialist Lisa Bodell urges companies to shift the mindset from business as usual to the company of the future, to move from what she calls “Zombies, Inc.” to “Think, Inc.” This involves both risk and trust: to allow all employees the opportunity and environment to be curious and inquisitive—even challenging and provocative when the situation calls for it. Too often, this type of behavior is seen as threatening, says Bodell, who has actually been told by CEOs that they discourage employees from thinking. In step with the call to Kill the Company, is a plea to kill fear, complacency, and the all-too-familiar answer from our leaders: “I can’t be bothered with your (perhaps brilliant) idea.”Bodell also looks at how we got to Zombies, Inc., exploring how our educational system contributes to the lack of inquiry and problem-solving skills, showing how conformity is rewarded early on. She also draws from the work of such education luminaries as Sir Ken Robinson and the groundbreaking Blue School (founded by members of the Blue Man Group).In the end, readers of Kill the Company will have a full sense of how much riskier it is to stay here in the status quo than to break out and think.

Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization


Dave Logan - 2008
    I learned about myself and learned lessons I will carry with me and reflect on for the rest of my life.”—John W. Fanning, Founding Chairman and CEO napster Inc.“An unusually nuanced view of high-performance cultures.” —Inc.Within each corporation are anywhere from a few to hundreds of separate tribes. In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright demonstrate how these tribes develop—and show you how to assess them and lead them to maximize productivity and growth. A business management book like no other, Tribal Leadership is an essential tool to help managers and business leaders take better control of their organizations by utilizing the unique characteristics of the tribes that exist within.

Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls That Every Project Faces


Kimberly Wiefling - 2007
    Unfortunately most of these are PREDICTABLE and AVOIDABLE. Tact and diplomacy can only get you so far in the wild and wacky world of project work. A combination of outrageous creativity, sheer bravado and nerves of steel will serve you far better than any fancy-schmancy Microsoft Project Gantt chart!'Scrappy Project Management' is about what REALLY happens in the project environment, how to survive it, and how to make sure that your team avoids the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces.