How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?   Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

    New York Times BestsellerWhen Captain Abrashoff took over as commander of USS Benfold, it was like a business that had all the latest technology but only some of the productivity. Knowing that responsibility for improving performance rested with him, he realized he had to improve his own leadership skills before he could improve his ship. Within months, he created a crew of confident and inspired problem-solvers eager to take the initiative and responsibility for their actions. The slogan on board became "It's your ship," and Benfold was soon recognized far and wide as a model of naval efficiency. How did Abrashoff do it? Against the backdrop of today's United States Navy, Abrashoff shares his secrets of successful management including: See the ship through the eyes of the crew: By soliciting a sailor's suggestions, Abrashoff drastically reduced tedious chores that provided little additional value.Communicate, communicate, communicate: The more Abrashoff communicated the plan, the better the crew's performance. His crew eventually started calling him "Megaphone Mike," since they heard from him so often.Create discipline by focusing on purpose: Discipline skyrocketed when Abrashoff's crew believed that what they were doing was important.Listen aggressively: After learning that many sailors wanted to use the GI Bill, Abrashoff brought a test official aboard the ship-and held the SATs forty miles off the Iraqi coast. From achieving amazing cost savings to winning the highest gunnery score in the Pacific Fleet, Captain Abrashoff's extraordinary campaign sent shock waves through the U.S. Navy. It can help you change the course of your ship, no matter where your business battles are fought.

    No other country in the world matches America’s creative drive and its ability to turn innovative ideas into revolutionary products–from antilock brakes and steel-belted radial tires to sophisticated software and microprocessors. But as fast as we introduce new products, we lose the markets we establish to countries that know how to manufacture higher quality versions for less money. As Japanese and European firms win market share by concentrating on quality, America is continually forced to rely on innovation to stay ahead. In The Ice Cream Maker, Chowdhury uses a simple story to illustrate how businesses can instill quality into our culture and into every product we design, build, and market. The protagonist of the story is Peter Delvecchio, the manager of a regional ice cream company, who is determined to sell its ice cream to a flourishing national grocery chain, Natural Foods. In conversations with the Natural Foods manager, Peter learns how the extraordinarily successful retailer achieves its renowned high standard of excellence, both in the services it provides its customers and in the foods it manufactures and sells. Quality, he discovers, must be the mission of every employee; by learning to listen, enrich, and optimize, he can encourage and sustain the highest levels of quality in everything the company does.Like Fish! and Who Moved My Cheese? The Ice Cream Maker offers an essential and universal lesson about one of industry's foremost challenges in a thoroughly engaging style. For managers and executives, small business owners and entrepreneurs, The Ice Cream Maker is a compelling, eye-opening guide to the most effective ways to achieve excellence and become industry leaders on the global stage.

     New managers in creative fields got the job because they were good at being makers--and learned to strategize their time, relationships, and mindset to produce the best creative work possible on their own. But when they're put in charge, the rules change, and they must unlearn their hard-won working habits in favor of new ones, and navigate a minefield of complex relational dynamics with colleagues and bosses. Successful leaders of creative teams have mastered the difficult transition from doing the work to leading the work, and this book shows how. Todd Henry picks up where The Accidental Creative left off, and provides an indispensable handbook of on-the-ground, tactical advice for new managers of creatives. He draws from interviews with brilliant leaders and his experience consulting in creative organizations to share a wealth of practical advice, including: - Why conflict can be a good thing, and how to manage it in a healthy way. - How to build time and attention buffers to protect your team's ability to do its best work. - How to deal with the imbalance of power on your team, and manage inevitable struggles that arise. - How to create -hunting trails- that will keep your team inspired and motivated to deliver brilliant work. - Why you should still -get your hands dirty-, even as you strive to remove yourself from the work. - Why you should fight to measure value, not time, when evaluating your team's work.

    Now she uses those same talents and savoir faire to help readers pop their own corks and get the mostout of life. Drawing on her experiences at the front lines and highest echelons of the business world, she gives women (and a few men, peut-être) the practical advice they need to make the most of work without skimping on all the other good things in life.With lively lessons, stories, and helpful hints, Mireille teaches every reader how to identify her own passions and talents, improve her communication skills, balance work and life, cope with everyday stress, turn herself into a winning brand, and so much more. From acing a job interview or performance review to hosting a simple but elegant dinner party, Mireille tells it like it is as she shares her secrets for achieving happiness and success at any stage in business and life.Stylish, witty, and wise, Mireille segues easily from the small details to the big picture, never losing sight of what is most important: feeling good, facing challenges, getting ahead, and maximizing pleasure at every opportunity.

    By pursuing success in isolation - pushing others away as we push ourselves too hard - we are not just limiting our potential, we are becoming more stressed and disconnected than ever.In his highly anticipated follow-up to The Happiness Advantage, Achor reveals a better approach. Drawing on his work in 50 countries, he shows that success and happiness are not competitive sports. Rather, they depend almost entirely on how well we connect with, relate to, and learn from each other.Just as happiness is contagious, every dimension of human potential - performance, intelligence, creativity, leadership ability and health - is influenced by those around us. So when we help others become better, we reach new levels of potential, as well. Rather than fighting over scraps of the pie, we can expand the pie instead.Small Potential is the limited success we can attain alone. BIG Potential is what we can achieve together. Here, Achor offers five strategies - the SEEDS of Big Potential--for lifting the ceiling on what we can achieve while returning happiness and meaning to our lives.The dramatic shifts in how we approach work today demand an equally dramatic shift in our approach to success. Big Potential offers a new path to thriving in the modern world.

    This, he says, is "all that matters," and his latest book aims to demystify buying principles for salespeople. From the red cloth cover to the small trim size to the amusing (but not cloying) cartoons on almost every page, this is an appealing and accessible book. The author is obviously enthusiastic, if not manic, about sales, and though some of his mantras verge on hokey, much of his prose is straightforward and realistic. Each chapter includes a mini table of contents, pull quotes and takeaway sound bites, examples of typical whines from salespeople (e.g., "the client said they spent their whole budget") paired with a positive response (e.g., "Decision makers make the budget. Non-decision makers spend the budget"), and plenty of advice and ideas that can be taken in and studied as a whole or referred to at random for inspiration. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review This isn't just a red book; it's a Red Bull of high-energy sales tips & counsel. -- David Dorsey, The Wall Street Journal (May 3rd 2006) See all Editorial Reviews -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Product Details Hardcover: 220 pages Publisher: Bard Press; 1st edition (September 25, 2004) Language: English ISBN-10: 1885167601 ISBN-13: 978-1885167606 Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces

    New York Times bestselling author and sales-performancetrainer Rory Vaden brings his high-energy approachand can-do spirit to the most nagging problem in ourprofessional lives: stalled productivity. Millions areoverworked, organizationally challenged, or have amotivation issue that s holding them back. Vaden presents asimple yet powerful paradigm that will set readers free to dotheir best work on time and without stress and anxiety."

     During her multibook investigation into understanding human nature, Gretchen Rubin realized that by asking the seemingly dry question "How do I respond to expectations?" we gain explosive self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so using this framework allows us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively. More than 600,000 people have taken her online quiz, and managers, doctors, teachers, spouses, and parents already use the framework to help people make significant, lasting change. The Four Tendencies hold practical answers if you've ever thought...· People can rely on me, but I can't rely on myself.· How can I help someone to follow good advice?· People say I ask too many questions.· How do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask or who keeps telling me what to do?With sharp insight, compelling research, and hilarious examples, The Four Tendencies will help you get happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. It's far easier to succeed when you know what works for you.

    Why Not You? This is the guiding question of How to Be Rich. To answer it, this compact book gleans must-read passages, powerful meditations, and tantalizing wealth-building techniques from the collected work of the greatest motivational writers ever. Each chapter in How to Be Rich is short enough to read in a grocery store checkout line-yet powerful enough to challenge years of ingrained, self-limiting thinking. How to Be Rich boils down the cumulative insight of leading self-help and positive-thinking guides into one surprisingly concise rule book for releasing your hidden potential. Chapters include: -To Prosper, Let No One Control You by Christian Larson -What We Are Seeking Is Seeking Us: The Mind as Magnet by Julia Seton -The Immense, Secret Power of Gratitude by Wallace D. Wattles -Why Doing More Work Than We're Paid for Leads to Wealth by Napoleon Hill -In Order to Get, We Must Give by Ralph Waldo Trine -The Power of Meditation by James Allen -Fourteen Steps to Success by Joseph Murphy

    He knows precisely what makes the difference between those who are simply bosses and those who are superior leaders, and between those who continue to rise to the top levels and those who get stuck along the way.In this lively and remarkably empowering book, Peshawaria offers readers the opportunity to experience the highest level of leadership training available in the world. Introducing the three core principles he has observed are the foundation of the best leadership––that great leaders clearly define their purpose and values; that nobody can motivate another person because everyone comes premotivated; and that a leader’s job is not to directly produce results but to create the conditions that will harness the energy of others—he details his unique and proven program for achieving leadership excellence. Sharing a wealth of illuminating stories, from those of Mulally’s achievement at Ford and Mack’s at Morgan Stanley, to how Harvey Golub and Ken Chenault successfully restored American Express to long-term sustainable growth, how Neville Isdell turned the Coca-Cola Company around, and the continuing prowess of Jeff Bezos in growing Amazon.com, he first reveals how extraordinary leaders marshal and sustain the level of energy in themselves that is required and how they enlist a core group of proficient co-leaders. He then outlines how to harness the energy and talents of those at all levels of an organization, igniting their motivation by following his RED guidelines for addressing their core needs concerning their Role, their work Environment, and their career Development. Finally, he introduces his unique Brains, Bones, and Nerves framework for: developing a clear strategy for competitive advantage (the Brains); crafting an optimal organizational structure (the Bones); and fostering a highly cooperative and motivated company culture (the Nerves). Filled with specific tips about the vital questions to ask and simple but powerful steps to follow, Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders is a manager’s essential tool kit for long-term superior performance.

    In addition, the completely updated fifth edition shows you how to build trust and confidence, be an active listener, manage a diverse group of individuals, conduct performance appraisals, and address many other challenges that come with the manager's job.Written in an inviting and accessible style, this classic skill-building book is an essential tool for becoming an effective, confident new manager."

    But it doesn’t have to be that way. What if you could leverage your so-called vices and shortcomings and make them your super powers? — Rebellious. Audacious. Obsessed. Hot-Blooded. Weird. Hypnotic. Emotional —These seven vices are what acclaimed leadership and brand experts Sunny Bonnell and Ashleigh Hansberger identify as keys to becoming a Rare Breed—those standout leaders and achievers—in any career.Rare Breed is an unorthodox business book for the rebels, outsiders, and provocateurs — anyone with the ambition to lead, create, inspire and provoke change on your own terms by owning all of who you are, not just the pretty parts. But be careful, each virtue has a seductive and dualistic nature that can lead to success or sabotage.Unique stories. Unconventional advice. Practical tools. Bonnell and Hansberger lay it all out to help fellow Rare Breeds understand, unlock, and direct the potential that’s been slumbering in them to rise above the ordinary, own who they are, and push things forward.

    To reach your full potential in these situations, you need to master a new set of business and personal skills.Packed with step-by-step advice and wisdom from Harvard Business Review’s management archive, the HBR Manager’s Handbook provides best practices on topics from understanding key financial statements and the fundamentals of strategy to emotional intelligence and building your employees’ trust. The book’s brief sections allow you to home in quickly on the solutions you need right away—or take a deeper dive if you need more context.Keep this comprehensive guide with you throughout your career and be a more impactful leader in your organization.In the HBR Manager’s Handbook you’ll find:- Step-by-step guidance through common managerial tasks- Short sections and chapters that you can turn to quickly as a need arises- Self-assessments throughout- Exercises and templates to help you practice and apply the concepts in the book- Concise explanations of the latest research and thinking on important management skills from Harvard Business Review experts such as Dan Goleman, Clayton Christensen, John Kotter, and Michael Porter- Real-life stories from working managers- Recaps and action items at the end of each chapter that allow you to reinforce or review the ideas quicklyThe skills covered in the book include:- Transitioning into a leadership role- Building trust and credibility- Developing emotional intelligence- Becoming a person of influence- Developing yourself as a leader- Giving effective feedback- Leading teams- Fostering creativity- Mastering the basics of strategy- Learning to use financial tools- Developing a business case

    Technologies, products and economies constantly change. To get ahead and stay ahead, companies need agile, flexible, innovative leaders who can anticipate change and respond to new realities swiftly. Tichy explains that everyone has untapped leadership potential that can be developed winning leaders and winning organisations have figured out how to do this.In this acclaimed bestseller, Tichy offers colourful and insightful best-practice examples from dozens of leaders gathered from decades of research and practical experience.