Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees, and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. Companies didn't need to see any further than Europe and the United States to do well. Printed money was legal tender for all debts, public and private. We grew up learning how to "play the game," and we expected the rules to remain the same as we took our first job, started a family, saw our children grow up, and went into retirement with our finances secure.That world—and those rules—are over.By 2030, a new reality will take hold, and before you know it:- There will be more grandparents than grandchildren- The middle-class in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will outnumber the US and Europe combined- The global economy will be driven by the non-Western consumer for the first time in modern history- There will be more global wealth owned by women than men- There will be more robots than workers- There will be more computers than human brains- There will be more currencies than countriesAll these trends, currently underway, will converge in the year 2030 and change everything you know about culture, the economy, and the world.According to Mauro F. Guillen, the only way to truly understand the global transformations underway—and their impacts—is to think laterally. That is, using “peripheral vision,” or approaching problems creatively and from unorthodox points of view. Rather than focusing on a single trend—climate-change or the rise of illiberal regimes, for example—Guillen encourages us to consider the dynamic inter-play between a range of forces that will converge on a single tipping point—2030—that will be, for better or worse, the point of no return.2030 is both a remarkable guide to the coming changes and an exercise in the power of “lateral thinking,” thereby revolutionizing the way you think about cataclysmic change and its consequences.

    It is a unique collection of controversial but highly effective tactics for middle managers and aspiring executives who want to learn the real secrets for moving up the corporate ladder. Unlike virtually all other business books--which are based on the assumption that corporations are logical and fair--Stealing the Corner Office explores the unconventional tactics people less competent than you use to get ahead and stay ahead. It is your proven playbook to thrive and win in an imperfect corporate world.Stealing the Corner Office will teach you:How incompetent people so often get ahead, and what you can learn from them.How to make universally flawed corporate policies work in your favor.Why showing too much passion for your ideas can be career suicide.Why delivering results should never be your highest priority.These and many more controversial tactics will change the way you look at your career and how you manage projects, people, and priorities. Apply the 10 principles in Stealing the Corner Office and watch your career take off!

    The book provides a practical road map, step-by-step, to plan, execute, and sustain a winning scorecard campaign. Easy to read . . . tells a powerful story with lessons learned/best practices from global customer implementations. Must-read for anyone interested in BSC or grappling with how to create a strategically aligned organization. --Vik Torpunuri, President and CEO, e2e AnalytixIn Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step, Second Edition, Paul Niven provides an intuitive and incredibly effective blueprint for transitioning strategic ambition to execution. Paul's pragmatic approach provides leaders with a tool for managing a company's journey from strategic ideas to world-class performance. The Balanced Scorecard is a masterful tool for guiding companies through transformation, and I speak from personal experience when I say Paul's blueprint works! It is the most effective guide I have seen. Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step will serve any leader well if their ambition is to efficiently engage their teams in achieving a set of strategic goals. --Allan A. MacDonald, Vice President, Sales and Customer Solutions Bell Canada National MarketsPaul Niven has done it again!!! With this book, he has further operationalized the enlightened Balanced Scorecard concept into a fully functional system that optimizes business execution and performance! --Barton Johnson, President, Financial Freedom Senior Funding Corporation, The Reverse Mortgage Specialist

    He didn't know how to  "manage" a company, but he did know about the  principal, of athletic competition and democracy:  keeping score, having fun, playing fair, providing  choice, and having a voice. With these principals  he created his own style of management --  open-book management. The key is to let everyone in on  financial decisions. At SRC, everyone learns how to  read a P&L -- even those without a high school  education know how much the toilet paper they use  cuts into profits. SRC people have a piece of the  action and a vote in company matters. Imagine  having a vote on your bonus and on what businesses the  company should be in. SRC restored the dignity of  economic freedom to its people. Stack's  "open-book management" is the key -- a system  which, as he describes it here, is literally  a game, and one so simple anyone can use  it. As part of the Currency paperback line, the  book includes a "User's Guide" -- an  introduction and discussion guide created for the  paperback by the author -- to help readers make  practical use of the book's ideas. Jack Stack is the  president and CEO of the Springfield Remanufacturing  Corporation, in Springfield, Missouri. The recipient  of the 1993 Business Enterprise Trust Award, Jack  speaks throughout the country on The  Great Game Of Business and Open  Book Management.

    Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?

    The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works.Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more.True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.

    But do you know enough about these new consumers to convert them into customers?Do you know that:• There will be nearly one billion middle-class consumers in China and India within the next ten years?• More than 135 million Chinese and Indians will graduate from college in this timeframe, compared to just 30 million in the United States?• By 2020, 68 percent of Chinese households and 57 percent of Indian households will be in the middle and upper classes?• The number of billionaires in China has grown from 1 to 115 in the past decade alone?In The $10 Trillion Prize, bestselling author Michael J. Silverstein and his The Boston Consulting Group colleagues in China and India provide the first comprehensive profile of the emerging middle class, primed to transform the global marketplace. Already the world’s biggest buyers of cars, mobile phones, appliances, and more, these consumers are eager for more products and services. In fact, it’s estimated that by 2020, consumers in China and India will generate more than $10 trillion of total annual revenue for companies selling to them.This book explains who these consumers are—what they buy and why, how they think and shop, and how their needs and tastes are changing. It takes you into their lives so you can better understand what they want and what they’re looking for.Only by fully comprehending the forces driving this new generation of consumers will your company be able to capitalize on the opportunities their buying power represents. Insightful and backed by rigorous research, this book takes you inside the hearts and minds of today’s emerging Chinese and Indian consumers—both urban and rural, and across all income levels—positioning your company to win as the next wave of global affluence reaches the marketplace.

    Discarding overwhelming statistics, buzzwords and acronyms, Levinson and Gibson provide a step-by-step social media attack plan. Following their take-no-prisoners guerilla approach, you’ll learn how to identify unconventional social media opportunities, engage customers, motivate action, and capture profits away from your competitors. Includes: • 19 secrets every guerrilla social media marketer needs to know • The Guerrilla Social Media Toolkit • The Seven-Sentence Social Media Attack Plan • 22-point social site and blog checklist • 20 types of ROI • Free guerrilla intelligence tools • Future social media weapons that are worth knowing about • And more! This is THE social media guerrilla’s go-to guide—learn how to employ a social media plan that earns attention—and profits!

    An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date twenty years after the famed deal. The Los Angeles Times calls Barbarians at the Gate, “Superlative.” The Chicago Tribune raves, “It’s hard to imagine a better story...and it’s hard to imagine a better account.” And in an era of spectacular business crashes and federal bailouts, it still stands as a valuable cautionary tale that must be heeded.

    As Buf­fett’s fortune and reputation grew over time, Loomis used her unique insight into Buffett’s thinking to chronicle his work for Fortune, writ­ing and proposing scores of stories that tracked his many accomplishments—and also his occa­sional mistakes. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major arti­cle that supplies context and her own informed point of view. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett’s investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting. Some of the highlights include:The 1966 A. W. Jones story in which Fortune first mentioned Buffett. The first piece Buffett wrote for the magazine, 1977’s “How Inf lation Swindles the Equity Investor.” Andrew Tobias’s 1983 article “Letters from Chairman Buffett,” the first review of his Berk­shire Hathaway shareholder letters. Buffett’s stunningly prescient 2003 piece about derivatives, “Avoiding a Mega-Catastrophe.” His unconventional thoughts on inheritance and philanthropy, including his intention to leave his kids “enough money so they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” Bill Gates’s 1996 article describing his early impressions of Buffett as they struck up their close friendship. Scores of Buffett books have been written, but none can claim this work’s combination of trust between two friends, the writer’s deep under­standing of Buffett’s world, and a very long-term perspective.

    . . luxury yachts circling the globe awaiting their owner’s arrival . . . fully staffed but rarely visited vacation homes throughout the world. The rich live trouble free lives of graceful ease.  Or do they?In Fables of Fortune, author Richard Watts pulls back the brocade curtain to reveal the precarious path of wanting more.  As the advisor to the super rich, Watts reflects on the reality of wealth and a difficult and heartbreaking lesson:   “The wealthiest person is not who has the most, but who needs the least.” Fables of Fortune convincingly persuades readers that wealth may be overrated.  Through vignettes based on true stories, Watts reveals the challenges the super-wealthy face, including marriages based on net worth, interfamily inheritance battles, faux friends, entitled children, alienation, and spiritual depletion.  The successes and failures of life inspire the heartbeat of passion and self-actualization. Watts will challenge readers to reconsider key life questions of personal value and discover surprising new answers. Fables of Fortune reveals an honest, comparative, eye-opening analysis for any reader who believes wealth is a rose without thorns.  Read on and gain perspective and appreciation for your own real fortune in life.

    System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.

    Comprehensive and easy to understand, it provides brokers, operations personnel, and individual investors with definitive and up-to-the-minute explanations of each step in the trading process—from the moment a customer decides to buy or sell a security through the final requirements of record keeping.Written for both securities professionals and individual investors, whether domestic or in other countries, this new edition clearly explains the core of underwritings, new and established trading markets, transaction processing, margin, and more—while providing critical insights into the most recent wave of industry changes.David M. Weiss, a veteran securities professional, traces the entire process of buying or selling a security, from order management to transaction processing to the final posting on the firm’s books and records. He covers the specialized attributes of each function in a typical brokerage firm, as well as their relationships with commercial banks, transfer agents, clearing corporations, and depositories.After the Trade Is Made is the definitive resource for anyone eager to understand and confidently navigate the vast and often surprising world of securities.

    We all sense that, but Mervyn King knows it firsthand; his ten years at the helm of the Bank of England, including at the height of the financial crisis, revealed profound truths about the mechanisms of our capitalist society. In The End of Alchemy he offers us an essential work about the history and future of money and banking, the keys to modern finance.The Industrial Revolution built the foundation of our modern capitalist age. Yet the flowering of technological innovations during that dynamic period relied on the widespread adoption of two much older ideas: the creation of paper money and the invention of banks that issued credit. We take these systems for granted today, yet at their core both ideas were revolutionary and almost magical. Common paper became as precious as gold, and risky long-term loans were transformed into safe short-term bank deposits. As King argues, this is financial alchemy—the creation of extraordinary financial powers that defy reality and common sense. Faith in these powers has led to huge benefits; the liquidity they create has fueled economic growth for two centuries now. However, they have also produced an unending string of economic disasters, from hyperinflations to banking collapses to the recent global recession and current stagnation.How do we reconcile the potent strengths of these ideas with their inherent weaknesses? King draws on his unique experience to present fresh interpretations of these economic forces and to point the way forward for the global economy. His bold solutions cut through current overstuffed and needlessly complex legislation to provide a clear path to durable prosperity and the end of overreliance on the alchemy of our financial ancestors.

    With the auto industry careening toward ruin, Congress offered all three Detroit automakers a bailout. General Motors and Chrysler grabbed the taxpayer lifeline, but Ford decided to save itself. Under the leadership of charismatic CEO Alan Mulally, Ford had already put together a bold plan to unify its divided global operations, transform its lackluster product lineup, and overcome a dys­functional culture of infighting, backstabbing, and excuses. It was an extraordinary risk, but it was the only way the Ford family—America’s last great industrial dynasty—could hold on to their company. Mulally and his team pulled off one of the great­est comebacks in business history. As the rest of Detroit collapsed, Ford went from the brink of bankruptcy to being the most profitable automaker in the world. American Icon is the compelling, behind-the-scenes account of that epic turnaround. On the verge of collapse, Ford went outside the auto industry and recruited Mulally—the man who had already saved Boeing from the deathblow of 9/11—to lead a sweeping restructuring of a company that had been unable to overcome decades of mismanage­ment and denial. Mulally applied the principles he developed at Boeing to streamline Ford’s inefficient operations, force its fractious executives to work together as a team, and spark a product renaissance in Dearborn. He also convinced the United Auto Workers to join his fight for the soul of American manufacturing. Bryce Hoffman reveals the untold story of the covert meetings with UAW leaders that led to a game-changing contract, Bill Ford’s battle to hold the Ford family together when many were ready to cash in their stock and write off the company, and the secret alliance with Toyota and Honda that helped prop up the Amer­ican automotive supply base. In one of the great management narratives of our time, Hoffman puts the reader inside the boardroom as Mulally uses his celebrated Business Plan Review meet­ings to drive change and force Ford to deal with the painful realities of the American auto industry.  Hoffman was granted unprecedented access to Ford’s top executives and top-secret company documents. He spent countless hours with Alan Mulally, Bill Ford, the Ford family, former executives, labor leaders, and company directors. In the bestselling tradition of Too Big to Fail and The Big Short, American Icon is narrative nonfiction at its vivid and colorful best.