What does it take to be a real leader—one who is confident in who she is and what she stands for, and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results?Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones argue that leaders don’t become great by aspiring to a list of universal character traits. Rather, effective leaders are authentic: they deploy individual strengths to engage followers’ hearts, minds, and souls. They are skillful at consistently being themselves, even as they alter their behaviors to respond effectively in changing contexts.In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one’s unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership: showing emotion and withholding it, getting close to followers while keeping distance, and maintaining individuality while “conforming enough.” Underscoring the social nature of leadership, the book also explores how leaders can remain attuned to the needs and expectations of followers.Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? will forever change how we view, develop, and practice the art of leadership, wherever we live and work.

    People can use economics and they can use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote The Undercover Economist, it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the books: they are always such fun to write. Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate? People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong. Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology? I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. The Undercover Economist was basically all the cool economics I could think of and The Logic of Life was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in The Logic of Life were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, Adapt, is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different way: I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it. What specific subjects do you tackle? To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they are being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are not being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error. Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees? I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar. The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success? I was working on a book before The Undercover Economist… it was going to be a sort of Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary-styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually funny. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you made a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did. That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK? I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in politics. What actually happens is politicians--and this is true of all political parties--have got some project and they’ll say, “Right, we are going to do this thing,” and it is quite likely that idea is a bad idea--because most ideas fail; the world is complicated and while I don’t have the numbers for this, most ideas are, as it turns out, not good ideas. But they never collect the data, or whatever it is they need to measure, to find out where their idea is failing. So they have this bad idea, roll this bad idea out and the bad idea sticks, costs the country hundreds, millions, or billions of pounds, and then the bad idea is finally reversed by the next party on purely ideological grounds and you never find out whether it really worked or not. So we have this very, very low willingness to collect the data that would be necessary to demonstrate failure, which is the bit we actually need. To give a brief example: Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, came along and introduced these long, bendy buses. Boris Johnson came along and said, “If you elect me, I am going to get rid of those big bendy buses and replace them with double-decker buses.” He was elected and he did it, so… which one of them is right? I don’t know. I mean, isn’t that crazy? I know democracy is a wonderful thing and we voted for Ken Livingstone and we voted for Boris Johnson, but it would be nice to actually have the data on passenger injury rates, how quickly people can get on and off these buses, whether disabled people are using these buses… the sort of basic evidence you would want to collect. Based on that, are you a supporter of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, which in a sense favours local experimentation over central government planning? Well, I have some sympathy for the idea of local experimentation, but what worries me is that we have to have some mechanism that is going to tell you what is working and what is not--and there is no proposal for that. Cameron’s Tories seem to have the view that ‘if it is local then it will work.’ In my book, I have all kinds of interesting case studies of situations where localism really would have worked incredibly well, as in, say, the US Army in Iraq. But I have also got examples of where localism did not work well at all--such as a corruption-fighting drive in Indonesia. Is the new book, Adapt, your movement away from economic rationalist to management guru? Are you going to cast your eye over bigger problems? The two changes in Adapt are that I have tried to start with the problem, rather than saying, “I have got a hammer--I’m going to look for a nail.” I started with a nail and said, “Ok, look, I need to get this hammered in.” So I have started with the problem and then looked anywhere for solutions. And the second thing is that I have tried to do is write with more of a narrative. This is not a Malcolm Gladwell book, but I really admire the way that people like Gladwell get quite complex ideas across because they get you interested in the story; that is something that I have tried to do more of here. I am not too worried about it, because I know that I am never going to turn into Malcolm Gladwell--I am always going to be Tim Harford--but it doesn’t hurt to nudge in a certain direction. On Amazon, we recommend new book ideas to people: “If you like Tim Harford you may like…”, but what does Tim Harford also like? I read a lot of books, mostly non-fiction and in two categories: people who I think write a lot better than I do, and people who think about economics more deeply than I do. In the first category I am reading people like Michael Lewis, Kathryn Schulz (I loved her first book, Being Wrong), Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton. In the second category, I read lots of technical economics books, but I enjoy Steven Landsburg, Edward Glaeser (who has a book out now which looks good), Bill Easterly… I don’t necessarily agree with all of these people! When I am not reading non-fiction, I am reading comic books or 1980s fantasy authors like Jack Vance.

    With an emphasis on self assessments, "Developing Management Skills" gets readers involved in the learning experience, helping them connect the theories to their own lives. Further, this text focuses on developing the ten essential skills needed for success and gives readers tangible goals to work towards. Based on suggestions from reviewers, instructors, and students, a number of changes including new skill-assessments and cases, and updated research have been incorporated in the eighth edition. "

    Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world.It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior? So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what all-too-often we forget, and what Dr. Keltner sets straight. This is the crux of the power paradox: by fundamentally misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We can't retain power because we've never understood it correctly, until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and itself a good a thing.Dr. Keltner lays out exactly--in twenty original "Power Principles"-- how to retain power, why power can be a demonstrably good thing, and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness.

    But that’s hard to do when you, your boss or your team are still trying to replicate the way you work at the office, enduring an endless series of video calls while pretending that yes, everyone is wearing pants.Remote, Inc. shows you a new approach, based on the mindset and habits of people who flourish while working outside the office some or all of the time.  These are the folks who manage to get even more done at home, even though you know they’ve got kids or dogs underfoot and somehow fit in a daily run at lunchtime. Their secret? They think like a “business of one.” That’s how productivity experts Robert C. Pozen and Alexandra Samuel describe the mindset that lets people thrive when they’re working remotely, whether working from home full-time or spending a few days each week in the office. You can follow their lead by embracing the work habits and independence of an entrepreneur – while also tapping into the benefits of collegiality and online collaboration.Remote, Inc. maps out the principles that drive this entrepreneurial approach, and translates them into the specific habits and tools that make remote work productive and enjoyable. It shows you how to:Focus on goals and results instead of the 9-to-5 scheduleWow your managers by treating them like valued clientsBeat information overload with a system that prioritizes the most important emails and messages   Make online meetings purposeful, focused and engaging Learn to love your colleagues again by building great relationships through online collaborationPlan for success in a world in which many professionals will work remotelyJust as important as making you a professional powerhouse, Remote Inc. will help you find a balance between work from home, and life at home.

    This innovation advantage will translate into a premium in your company’s stock price—an innovation premium—which is possible only by building the code for innovation right into your organization’s people, processes, and guiding philosophies.Practical and provocative, The Innovator’s DNA is an essential resource for individuals and teams who want to strengthen their innovative prowess.

    Addressing that gap, actionably and with attention to relevant research, is the focus of this book.In Aligning Strategy and Sales, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes equips you to link your go-to-market initiatives with strategic goals. Cespedes offers a road map to articulate strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and that will fuel the behaviors required for profitable growth. Without that alignment, leaders will press for better execution when they need a better strategy, or change strategic direction with great cost and turmoil when they should focus on the basics of sales execution.With thoughtful, clear, and engaging examples, Aligning Strategy and Sales provides a framework for diagnosing and managing the core levers available for effective selling in any organization. It will give you the know-how and tools to move from ideas to action and build a sales effort linked to your firm’s unique goals, not a generic selling formula.Cespedes shows how sales efforts affect all elements of value creation in a business, whether you’re a start-up seeking to scale or an established firm looking to jump-start new growth. The book provides key insights to optimize your firm’s customer management activities and so improve selling and strategy.

    It explains how to harness our unique perspectives, pool our collective intelligence and tackle the greatest challenges of our age - from climate change to terrorism. It draws on a dazzling range of case studies, including the catastrophic failings of the CIA before 9/11, a fatal communication breakdown on top of Mount Everest and a moving tale of de-radicalisation in America's Deep South. Rebel Ideas will strengthen any team or organisation, but has dozens of personal applications, too: from the art of personal reinvention to the remarkable benefits of personalised nutrition. It shows us how to become more creative, how to collaborate in a world becoming more interconnected, and how to break free of the echo chambers that surround us all.

    Refugee waves. An unfixable global economy. Surprising election results. New billion-dollar fortunes. Miracle medical advances. What if they were all connected? What if you could understand why? The Seventh Sense is the story of what all of today's successful figures see and feel: the forces that are invisible to most of us but explain everything from explosive technological change to uneasy political ripples. The secret to power now is understanding our new age of networks. Not merely the Internet, but also webs of trade, finance, and even DNA. Based on his years of advising generals, CEOs, and politicians, Ramo takes us into the opaque heart of our world's rapidly connected systems and teaches us what the losers are not yet seeing -- and what the victors of this age already know.

    In this myth-busting book, the authors reveal that great business ideas do not spring from innate creativity, or necessarily from the brilliant minds of people. Rather, great ideas come to those who are in the habit of looking for great ideas all around them, all the time. Too often, people fall into the trap of thinking that the only worthwhile idea is a thoroughly original one. Idea Hunters know better. They understand that valuable ideas are already out there, waiting to be found - and not just in the usual places.Shows how to expand your capacity to find and develop winning business ideas Explains why ideas are a critical asset for every manager and professional, not just for those who do creative Reveals how to seek out and select the ideas that best serve your purposes and goals and define who you are, as a professional Offers practical tips on how to master the everyday habits of an Idea Hunter, which include cultivating great conversations The book is filled with illustrative accounts of successful Idea Hunters and stories from thriving idea companies. Warren Buffet, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Mary Kay Ash, Twitter, and Pixar Animation Studios are among the many profiled.

    In so many workplaces, people feel they’re playing a high-stakes game of “blame or be blamed,” which can be disastrous for the individuals who get caught up in it and can sink teams and afflict whole companies. Dattner presents compelling evidence that whether we fall into the trap of playing the blame game or learn to avoid the pitfalls is a major determinant of how successful we will be. The problem is that so many workplaces foster a blaming culture. Maybe you have a constantly blaming boss, or a colleague who is always taking credit for others’ work. All too often, individuals are scapegoated, teams fall apart, projects get derailed, and people become disengaged because fear and resentment have taken root. And what’s worse, the more emotionally charged a workplace is—maybe our jobs are threatened or we’re facing a particularly difficult challenge—the more emphatically people play the game, just when trust and collaboration are most needed. What can we do? We can learn to understand the hidden dynamics of human psychology that lead to this bad behavior so that we can inoculate ourselves against it and defuse the tensions in our own workplace.In lively prose that is as engaging as it is illuminating, Dattner tells a host of true stories of those he has worked with—from the woman who was so scapegoated by her colleagues that she decided to quit, to the clueless boss who was too quick to blame his staff. He shares a wealth of insight from the study of human evolution and psychology to reveal the underlying reasons why people are so prone to blaming and credit-grabbing; it’s not only human nature, it’s found throughout the animal kingdom. Even bats do it. He shows how our family experiences, gender, and culture also all shape the way we cope with credit and blame issues, and introduces eleven personality types that are especially prone to causing difficulties and illustrates how we can best cope with them. He also profiles how a number of outstanding leaders, from General Dwight Eisenhower and President Harry Truman to highly respected business figures such as former Intel CEO Andy Grove and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, employed the power of taking blame and sharing credit to achieve great success.The only winning move in the blame game, Dattner shows, is not to play, and the insights and practical suggestions in this book will help readers, at any level of any organization and at any stage of their careers, learn to manage the crucial psychology of credit and blame for themselves and others.

    He identifies the four widespread myths that put companies at risk of obsolescence and explains how business leaders can shift their attention to customers' real needs instead.

    In Working Backwards, these two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts—a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels and reveal how the company’s culture has been defined by four characteristics: customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence. Bryar and Carr explain the set of ground-level practices that ensure these are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business.Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

    Two-time New York Times bestselling authors Roger Connors and Tom Smith show how leaders can achieve record-breaking results by quickly and effectively shaping their organizational culture to capitalize on their greatest asset-their people.Change the Culture, Change the Game joins their classic book, The Oz Principle, and their recent bestseller, How Did That Happen?, to complete the most comprehensive series ever written on workplace accountability. Based on an earlier book, Journey to the Emerald City, this fully revised installment captures what the authors have learned while working with the hundreds of thousands of people on using organizational culture as a strategic advantage.

    Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, PropagandaA seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.