It’s about getting only the right things done.  It is not  a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.  By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything. A must-read for any leader, manager, or individual who wants to learn who to do less, but better, in every area of their lives, Essentialism  is a movement whose time has come.

    The findings will surprise many readers and, quite frankly, upset others.The ChallengeBuilt to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The StudyFor years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?The StandardsUsing tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The ComparisonsThe research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? The FindingsThe findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

    Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods is one example. Richard Feynman’s “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” is another. Now comes Youngme Moon’s Different, a book for “people who don’t read business books.” Actually, it’s more like a personal conversation with a friend who has thought deeply about how the world works … and who gets you to see that world in a completely new light.  If there is one strain of conventional wisdom pervading every company in every industry, it’s the absolute importance of “competing like crazy.” Youngme Moon’s message is simply “Get off this treadmill that’s taking you nowhere. Going tit for tat and adding features, augmentations, and gimmicks to beat the competition has the perverse result of making you like everyone else.” Different provides a highly original perspective on what it means to offer something that is meaningfully different—different in a manner that is both fundamental and comprehensive.  Youngme Moon identifies the outliers, the mavericks, the iconoclasts—the players who have thoughtfully rejected orthodoxy in favor of an approach that is more adventurous. Some are even “hostile,” almost daring you to buy what they are selling. The MINI Cooper was launched with fearless abandon: “Worried that this car is too small? Look here. It’s even smaller than you think.”  These are players that strike a genuine chord with even the most jaded consumers. In fact, almost every success story of the past two decades has been an exception to the rule. Simply go to your computer and compare AOL and Yahoo! with Google. The former pile on feature upon feature to their home pages, while Google is like an austere boutique, dominating a category filled with “extras.” Different shows how to succeed in a world where conformity reigns…but exceptions rule.

    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.

    Things a Little Bird Told Me From GQ's "Nerd of the Year" to one of Time's most influential people in the world, Biz Stone represents different things to different people. But he is known to all as the creative, effervescent, funny, charmingly positive and remarkably savvy co-founder of Twitter-the social media platform that singlehandedly changed the way the world works. Now, Biz tells fascinating, pivotal, and personal stories from his early life and his careers at Google and Twitter, sharing his knowledge about the nature and importance of ingenuity today. In Biz's world: Opportunity can be manufactured Great work comes from abandoning a linear way of thinking Creativity never runs out Asking questions is free Empathy is core to personal and global success In this book, Biz also addresses failure, the value of vulnerability, ambition, and corporate culture. Whether seeking behind-the-scenes stories, advice, or wisdom and principles from one of the most successful businessmen of the new century, Things a Little Bird Told Me will satisfy every reader.

    Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn't accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry's assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large.But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack.McKelvey's fascinating and humorous stories of Square's early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems--one crazy idea at a time.

    A Problem2. Peter Pigeonhole Prepared A Petition3. What's Your Problem?Part 2: What is The Problem?4. Billy Brighteyes Bests The Bidders5. Billy Bites His Tongue6. Billy Back To The BiddersPart 3: What is The Problem Really?7. The Endless Chain8. Missing The Misfit9. Landing On The Level10. Mind Your MeaningPart 4: Whose Problem Is It?11. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes12. The Campus That Was All Spaced Out13. The Lights At The End Of The TunnelPart 5: Where Does It Come From?14. Janet Jaworski Joggles A Jerk15. Mister Matczyszyn Mends The Matter16. Make-Works And Take-Credits17. Examinations And Other PuzzlesPart 6: Do We Really Want To Solve It?18. Tom Tireless Tinkers With Toys19. Patience Plays Politics20. A Priority Assignment

    It's Tuesday morning and on his drive into the office, Bill gets a call from the CEO. The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited. In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again.

    But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas? In this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking Thinkertoys, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. Michalko’s techniques show you how to look at the same information as everyone else and see something different.  With hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, Thinkertoys will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.

    It is emerging as a new professional currency at a time when the way we think, interact, and innovate is shifting. In the past, “market share” companies ruled by hierarchy and topdown leadership. Today, the new market leaders are “mind share” companies, where influence is more important than power, and success relies on collaboration and the ability to inspire.Collaborative Intelligence is the culmination of more than fifty years of original research that draws on Dawna Markova’s background in cognitive neuroscience and her most recent work, with Angie McArthur, as a “Professional Thinking Partner” to some of the world’s top CEOs and creative professionals. Markova and McArthur are experts at getting brilliant yet difficult people to think together. They have been brought in to troubleshoot for Fortune 500 leaders in crisis and managers struggling to inspire their teams.When asked about their biggest challenges at work, Markova and McArthur’s clients all cite a common problem: other people. This response reflects the way we have been taught to focus on the gulfs between us rather than valuing our intellectual diversity—that is, the ways in which each of us is uniquely gifted, how we process information and frame questions, what kind of things deplete us, and what engages and inspires us. Through a series of practices and strategies, the authors teach us how to recognize our own mind patterns and map the talents of our teams, with the goal of embarking together on an aligned course of action and influence.In Markova and McArthur’s experience, managers who appreciate intellectual diversity will lead their teams to innovation; employees who understand it will thrive because they are in touch with their strengths; and an entire team who understands it will come together to do their best work in a symphony of collaboration, their individual strengths working in harmony like an orchestra or a high-performing sports team.Praise for Collaborative Intelligence   “Rooted in the latest neuroscience on the nature of collaboration, Collaborative Intelligence celebrates the power of working and thinking together at the highest levels of business and politics, and in the smallest aspects of our everyday lives. Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur show us that our ability to collaborate is not only a measure of intelligence, but essential to solving the world’s problems and seeing the possibilities in ourselves and others.”—Arianna Huffington   “This inspiring book teaches you how to align your intention with the intention of others, and how, through shared strengths and talents, you have every right to expect greatness and set the highest goals and expectations.”—Deepak Chopra   “Everyone talks about collaboration today, but the rhetoric typically outweighs the reality. Collaborative Intelligence offers tangible tools for those serious about becoming ‘system leaders’ who can close the gap and make collaboration real.”—Peter M. Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline“I have worked with Markova and McArthur for several years, focusing on achieving better results through intellectual diversity. Their approach has encouraged more candid debate and collaborative behavior within the team. The team, not individuals, becomes the hero.”—Al Carey, CEO, PepsiCo

    By analyzing the lives of such past masters as Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Leonard da Vinci, as well as by interviewing nine contemporary masters, including tech guru Paul Graham and animal rights advocate Temple Grandin, Greene debunks our culture’s many myths about genius and distills the wisdom of the ages to reveal the secret to greatness. With this seminal text as a guide, readers will learn how to unlock the passion within and become masters.

    Every aircraft is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. When there is an accident, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and the reason for the accident excavated. This ensures that procedures are adapted so that the same mistake doesn’t happen again. With this method, the industry has created an astonishing safety record.For pilots working in a safety-critical industry, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. But most of us have a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our lives. We don’t acknowledge it or learn from it —though we often think we do.Moving from anthropology to psychology and from history to complexity theory, Matthew Syed explains why even when we think we have 20/20 hindsight, our vision’s still fuzzy. He offers a radical new idea: that the most important determinant of success in any field, whether sports, business, or life, is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. This is how we learn, progress and excel. This approach explains everything from biological evolution and the efficiency of markets to the success of the Mercedes F1 team and the mindset of David Beckham.Using a cornucopia of interviews, gripping stories, and sharp-edged science, Syed explores the intimate relationship between failure and success, and shows why we need to transport black box thinking into our own lives. If we wish to unleash our potential, we must diagnose and break free of our failures. Part manifesto for change, part intellectual adventure, this groundbreaking book reveals how to do both.

    It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes the skeptics and cynics into the believers and the undecided into the loyal. Enchantment can happen during a retail transaction, a high-level corporate negotiation, or a Facebook update. And when done right, it's more powerful than traditional persuasion, influence, or marketing techniques.Kawasaki argues that in business and personal interactions, your goal is not merely to get what you want but to bring about a voluntary, enduring, and delightful change in other people. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds, and actions. For instance, enchantment is what enabled . . .A Peace Corps volunteer to finesse a potentially violent confrontation with armed guerrillas.A small cable channel (E!) to win the TV broadcast rights to radio superstar Howard Stern.??A seemingly crazy new running shoe (Vibram Five Fingers) to methodically build a passionate customer base.??A Canadian crystal maker (Nova Scotian Crystal) to turn observers into buyers.This book explains all the tactics you need to prepare and launch an enchantment campaign; to get the most from both push and pull technologies; and to enchant your customers, your employees, and even your boss. It shows how enchantment can turn difficult decisions your way, at times when intangibles mean more than hard facts. It will help you overcome other people's entrenched habits and defy the not-always-wise "wisdom of the crowd."Kawasaki's lessons are drawn from his tenure at one of the most enchanting organizations of all time, Apple, as well as his decades of experience as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. There are few people in the world more qualified to teach you how to enchant people.As Kawasaki writes, "Want to change the world? Change caterpillars into butterflies? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to convince people to dream the same dream that you do." That's a big goal, but one that's possible for all of us.

    How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes readers inside Google headquarters—the Googleplex—to show how Google works.While they were still students at Stanford, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin revolutionized Internet search. They followed this brilliant innovation with another, as two of Google’s earliest employees found a way to do what no one else had: make billions of dollars from Internet advertising. With this cash cow, Google was able to expand dramatically and take on other transformative projects: more efficient data centers, open-source cell phones, free Internet video (YouTube), cloud computing, digitizing books, and much more.The key to Google’s success in all these businesses, Levy reveals, is its engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. After its unapologetically elitist approach to hiring, Google pampers its engineers—free food and dry cleaning, on-site doctors and masseuses—and gives them all the resources they need to succeed. Even today, with a workforce of more than 23,000, Larry Page signs off on every hire.But has Google lost its innovative edge? With its newest initiative, social networking, Google is chasing a successful competitor for the first time. Some employees are leaving the company for smaller, nimbler start-ups. Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete?No other book has ever turned Google inside out as Levy does with In the Plex.

    But that’s simply not true anymore. “Safe” jobs disappear daily, and the clamor of everyday life drowns out ordinary contributions. To make a name for yourself, to create true job security, and to make a difference in the world, you have to share your unique perspective and inspire others to take action. But in a noisy world where it seems everything’s been said—and shouted from the rooftops—how can your ideas stand out?Fortunately, you don’t have to be a genius or a worldwide superstar to make an impact. Drawing on interviews with more than fifty thought leaders in fields ranging from business to genomics to urban planning, Dorie Clark shows how these masters achieved success and how anyone—with hard work—can do the same. Whether it’s learning to ask the right questions, developing and building on an expert niche, or combining disparate fields to get a new perspective, Clark outlines ways to develop the ideas that set you apart.Of course, having a breakthrough insight is only half the battle. If you really want to share your ideas, you have to find a way to build an audience, communicate your message, and inspire others to embrace your vision. Starting small is fine; Clark provides a step-by-step guide to help you leverage your existing networks, attract new people to your cause, and, ultimately, build a community around your ideas.Featuring vivid examples based on interviews with influencers such as Seth Godin, David Allen, and Daniel Pink, Clark shows you how to break through and ensure that your ideas get noticed. Becoming a thought leader in your company or in your profession is the ultimate career insurance. But—even more important—it’s also a chance to change the world for the better. Whatever your cause, perspective, or point of view, the world can’t afford for the best ideas to remain buried inside you. Whether it’s how to improve the educational system or how to make your company more efficient, your ideas matter. The world needs your insights, and it’s time to be bold.