Book picks similar to
The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good by Ryan Honeyman
business
non-fiction
social-entrepreneurship
business-career
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Geoff Smart - 2008
The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent.The silver lining is that "who" problems are easily preventable. Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street's A Method for Hiring. Refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken, the A Method stresses fundamental elements that anyone can implement-and it has a 90 percent success rate.Whether you're a member of a board of directors looking for a new CEO, the owner of a small business searching for the right people to make your company grow, or a parent in need of a new babysitter, it's all about Who. Inside you'll learn how to- avoid common "voodoo hiring" methods- define the outcomes you seek- generate a flow of A Players to your team-by implementing the #1 tactic used by successful businesspeople- ask the right interview questions to dramatically improve your ability to quickly distinguish an A Player from a B or C candidate- attract the person you want to hire, by emphasizing the points the candidate cares about mostIn business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps that will put the right people in place for optimal success.
Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change
William Bridges - 2003
When restructures, mergers, bankruptcies, and layoffs hit the workplace, employees and managers naturally find the resulting situational shifts to be challenging. But the psychological transitions that accompany them are even more stressful. Organizational transitions affect people; it is always people, rather than a company, who have to embrace a new situation and carry out the corresponding change. As veteran business consultant William Bridges explains, transition is successful when employees have a purpose, a plan, and a part to play. This indispensable guide is now updated to reflect the challenges of today's ever-changing, always-on, and globally connected workplaces. Directed at managers on all rungs of the corporate ladder, this expanded edition of the classic bestseller provides practical, step-by-step strategies for minimizing disruptions and navigating uncertain times.
Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends
Martin Lindstrom - 2016
You’ll learn…• How a noise reduction headset at 35,000 feet led to the creation of Pepsi’s new trademarked signature sound.• How a worn down sneaker discovered in the home of an 11-year-old German boy led to LEGO’s incredible turnaround.• How a magnet found on a fridge in Siberia resulted in a U.S. supermarket revolution.• How a toy stuffed bear in a girl’s bedroom helped revolutionize a fashion retailer’s 1,000 stores in 20 different countries.• How an ordinary bracelet helped Jenny Craig increase customer loyalty by 159% in less than a year.• How the ergonomic layout of a car dashboard led to the redesign of the Roomba vacuum.
The Ten-Day MBA : A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools
Steven Silbiger - 1993
Features chapters on finance, marketing, accounting, strategy, quantitative analysis, operations, economics, organisational behaviour, and ethics, all revised to reflect the contemporary corporate culture and economic climate.
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
Peter F. Drucker - 1966
Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results.Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned: Managing time Choosing what to contribute to the organization Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect Setting the right priorities Knitting all of them together with effective decision-makingRanging widely through the annals of business and government, Peter F. Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.
Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used
Peter Block - 1987
Using illustrative examples, case studies, and exercises, the author, one of the most important and well known in his field, offers his legendary warmth and insight throughout this much-awaited second edition. Anyone who must communicate in a professional context--and who doesn't?--will use the lessons taught in this book for years to come! "Who would have thought the 'consultant's bible' could be improved upon? Count on Peter Block--the consulting profession's very own revolutionary--to push us to confront and struggle with the paradoxes inherent in our work." --Candace Thompson, organization development consultant, First Chicago NBD--A Bank One Company "Block has distilled years of experience into a wise, down-to-earth, and eminently practical guide to excellence in consulting. If you are new to the practice, Flawless Consulting will chop years off your learning cycle. And even if you're an old pro, Block's insights will elevate you to new levels of effectiveness. Flawless Consulting is not simply about becoming a better consultant; it is about using consulting as a path toward becoming a better person." --Barry Oshry, president, Power & Systems, Inc.; author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems
Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
L. David Marquet - 2013
As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well.But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why the order wasn't challenged, the answer was "Because you told me to." Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. That's when Marquet took matters into his own hands and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! is the true story of how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy's traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control. Before long, each member of Marquet's crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became fully engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day, and the Santa Fe started winning awards and promoting a highly disproportionate number of officers to submarine command.No matter your business or position, you can apply Marquet's radical guidelines to turn your own ship around. The payoff: a workplace where everyone around you is taking responsibility for their actions, where people are healthier and happier, where everyone is a leader.
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility
Patty McCord - 2018
McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.
168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
Laura Vanderkam - 2010
This is your guide to getting the most out of them. It's an unquestioned truth of modern life: we are starved for time. We tell ourselves we'd like to read more, get to the gym regularly, try new hobbies, and accomplish all kinds of goals. But then we give up because there just aren't enough hours to do it all. Or if we don't make excuses, we make sacrifices- taking time out from other things in order to fit it all in. There has to be a better way...and Laura Vanderkam has found one. After interviewing dozens of successful, happy people, she realized that they allocate their time differently than most of us. Instead of letting the daily grind crowd out the important stuff, they start by making sure there's time for the important stuff. When plans go wrong and they run out of time, only their lesser priorities suffer. Vanderkam shows that with a little examination and prioritizing, you'll find it is possible to sleep eight hours a night, exercise five days a week, take piano lessons, and write a novel without giving up quality time for work, family, and other things that really matter.
24 Assets: Create a digital, scalable, valuable and fun business that will thrive in a fast changing world
Daniel Priestley - 2017
They effortlessly hire talented people, attract loyal customers, create cool products and make lots of money. These companies seem to stand out and scale up quickly with support from investors, partners and the media. Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way. Most entrepreneurs aren’t building anything of value. They work hard, make sacrifices, struggle, dream, plan and strive, but in the end, it doesn’t pay off. This book sets out a method for building a business that becomes a valuable asset. It focuses you on transforming your organisation into something scalable, digital, fun and capable of making an impact. It’s time to, stand out, scale up and build a business that has a life of its own. Start now by reading this book.
The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management
Jerry B. Harvey - 1988
Join Dr. Jerry B. Harvey as he clearly illustrates why no organization wants to find themselves goin' to Abilene. See how group dynamics can keep individuals from stating their true beliefs for fear of isolation and separation, and how that often leads to mismanaged agreement. You'll learn to recognize the warning signs of risky group dynamics and improve decision-making processes throughout your organization.
Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both
Adam Galinsky - 2014
Some have argued that humans are fundamentally competitive, and that pursuing self-interest is the best way to get ahead. Others claim that humans are born to cooperate and that we are most successful when we collaborate with others. In FRIEND AND FOE, researchers Galinsky and Schweitzer explain why this debate misses the mark. Rather than being hardwired to compete or cooperate, we have evolved to do both. In every relationship, from co-workers to friends to spouses to siblings we are both friends and foes. It is only by learning how to strike the right balance between these two forces that we can improve our long-term relationships and get more of what we want.Here, Galinsky and Schweitzer draw on original, cutting edge research from their own labs and from across the social sciences as well as vivid real-world examples to show how to maximize success in work and in life by deftly navigating the tension between cooperation and competition. They offer insights and advice ranging from: how to gain power and keep it, how to build trust and repair trust once it’s broken, how to diffuse workplace conflict and bias, how to find the right comparisons to motivate us and make us happier, and how to succeed in negotiations – ensuring that we achieve our own goals and satisfy those of our counterparts.Along the way, they pose and offer surprising answers to a number of perplexing puzzles: when does too much talent undermine success; why can acting less competently gain you status and authority, where do many gender differences in the workplace really come from, how can you use deception to build trust, and why do you want to go last on American Idol and in many interview situations, but make the first offer when negotiating the sale of a new car.We perform at our very best when we hold cooperation and competition in the right balance. This book is a guide for navigating our social and professional worlds by learning when to cooperate as a friend and when to compete as a foe—and how to be better at both.
Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind
Dan Charnas - 2016
In Work Clean, Dan Charnas reveals how to apply mise-en-place outside the kitchen, in any kind of work.Culled from dozens of interviews with culinary professionals and executives, including world-renowned chefs like Thomas Keller and Alfred Portale, this essential guide offers a simple system to focus your actions and accomplish your work. Charnas spells out the 10 major principles of mise-en-place for chefs and non chefs alike: (1) planning is prime; (2) arranging spaces and perfecting movements; (3) cleaning as you go; (4) making first moves; (5) finishing actions; (6) slowing down to speed up; (7) call and callback; (8) open ears and eyes; (9) inspect and correct; (10) total utilization.This journey into the world of chefs and cooks shows you how each principle works in the kitchen, office, home, and virtually any other setting.
High Growth Handbook
Elad Gil - 2018
Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has codified in High Growth Handbook. Covering key topics including the role of the CEO, managing your board, recruiting and managing an executive team, M&A, IPOs and late stage funding rounds, and interspersed with over a dozen interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups. In what Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Alliance and The Startup of You calls "a trenchant guide," High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn. "Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley's seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested players. If you want the chance to turn your startup into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies." - Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers "The Alliance" and "The Startup of You," and host of the podcast Masters of Scale "Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as possible, and everything in-between." - Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur "Elad first invested in Airbnb when we were less than 10 people and provided early advice on scaling the company. This book shares these learnings for the next generation of entrepreneurs." - Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder of Airbnb, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chairman of Airbnb China "Elad jam-packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies into a single, digestible book. My only gripe is that he didn't write this when we were in the early days of Box as it would have saved my ass countless times." -Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box "Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage to the next stage and beyond." - Max Levchin, cofounder and CEO of Affirm, cofounder and CTO of PayPal "Elad is one of the most experienced operators in Silicon Valley having seen numerous companies hit their inflection point. His advice has been key for Coinbase as we go through hypergrowth, from hiring executives to improving M&A." - Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase"Elad is one of the best connected and respected early stage investors in the Valley - he invested in Minted when we had fewer than 50 employees and his advice was critical to us in growing our business to where we are now, in the low hundreds of millions in sales. In his book, he crystallizes all of these learnings for the next generation of companies."-Mariam Naficy, cofounder and CEO of Minted
Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life
Francesca Gino - 2018
Rebels have a bad reputation. We think of them as troublemakers, outcasts,contrarians: those colleagues, friends, and family members who complicate seemingly straightforward decisions, create chaos, and disagree when everyone else is in agreement. But in truth, rebels are also those among us who change the world for the better with their unconventional outlooks. Instead of clinging to what is safe and familiar, rebels defy the status quo. They are masters of innovation and reinvention, and they have a lot to teach us. Gino has spent more than a decade studying rebels at organizations around the world,from high-end boutiques in Italy's fashion capital, to the world's best restaurant, to a thriving fast-food chain, to an award-winning computer animation studio. In her work, she has identified leaders and employees who personify "rebel talent," and whose examples we can all learn to embrace. Gino argues that the future belongs to the rebel—and that there's a rebel in each of us. We live in turbulent times. In this cutthroat environment, cultivating rebel talent is what allows businesses to evolve and to prosper. And rebellion has an added benefit beyond the workplace: it leads to a more vital, engaged,and fulfilling life. Whether you want to inspire others to action, grow a business, or build more meaningful relationships, Rebel Talent will show you how to succeed—by breaking all the rules.