Work Like Da Vinci: Gaining the Creative Advantage in Your Business and Career


Michael J. Gelb - 2006
    Gelb identified seven aspects of Da Vinci's genius that contemporary readers can emulate and apply in their own lives. Now, in WORK LIKE DA VINCI, Gelb adapts these principles to the specific demands of the workplace, sharing the innovative solutions to contemporary corporate and career challenges that have kept him in constant demand as a top-tier speaker and consultant to Fortune 500 clients. In Gelb's expert perspective, Da Vinci's genius can be distilled into seven principles for the business listener: Ask the right questions (Curiosit�) Put your answers to work (Dimostrazione) Develop your business senses (Sensazione) Turn uncertainty into opportunity (Sfumato) Strike a profitable balance (Arte/Scienza) Integrate for success (Corporalit�) Make the break-through connection (Connessione) These principles will help you tackle such timeless business challenges as: leadership; innovation; teamwork; strategic planning; decision-making; managing change and uncertainty; giving powerful presentations; giving and receiving feedback; and more.

EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches


Dave Ramsey - 2011
    These are the men and women doing battle daily beneath the banner that is your brand. Are they courageous or indecisive? Are they serving a motivated team or managing employees? Are they valued? Your team will never grow beyond you, so here’s another question to consider—are you growing? Whether you’re sitting at the CEO’s desk, the middle manager’s cubicle, or a card table in your living-room-based start-up, EntreLeadership provides the practical, step-by-step guidance to grow your business where you want it to go. Dave Ramsey opens up his championship playbook for business to show you how to: -Inspire your team to take ownership and love what they do -Unify your team and get rid of all gossip -Handle money to set your business up for success -Reach every goal you set -And much, much more! EntreLeadership is a one-stop guide filled with accessible advice for businesses and leaders to ensure success even through the toughest of times.

Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success


Napoleon Hill - 2011
    This powerful tale has never been published, considered too controversial by his family and friends.Using his legendary ability to get to the root of human potential, Napoleon Hill digs deep to identify the greatest obstacles we face in reaching personal goals: fear, procrastination, anger, and jealousy, as tools of the Devil. These hidden methods of control can lead us to ruin, and Hill reveals the seven principles of good that will allow us to triumph over them and succeed.Annotated and edited for a contemporary audience by Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Three Feet from Gold co-author Sharon Lechter, this book is profound, powerful, resonant, and rich with insight.

The New One Minute Manager


Kenneth H. Blanchard - 2015
    While the principles it lays out are timeless, our world has changed drastically since the book’s publication. The exponential rise of technology, global flattening of markets, instant communication, and pressures on corporate workforces to do more with less—including resources, funding, and staff—have all revolutionized the world in which we live and work.Now, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have written The New One Minute Manager to introduce the book’s powerful, important lessons to a new generation. In their concise, easy-to-read story, they teach readers three very practical secrets about leading others—and explain why these techniques continue to work so well.As compelling today as the original was thirty years ago, this classic parable of a young man looking for an effective manager is more relevant and useful than ever.

QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life


John G. Miller - 2004
    No organization—or individual—can successfully compete in the marketplace, achieve goals and objectives, provide outstanding service, engage in exceptional teamwork, or develop people without personal accountability.   John G. Miller believes that the troubles that plague organizations cannot be solved by pointing fingers and blaming others. Rather, the real solutions are found when each of us recognizes the power of personal accountability. In QBQ! The Question Behind the Question®, Miller explains how negative, ill-focused questions like “Why do we have to go through all this change?” and “Who dropped the ball?” represent a lack of personal accountability. Conversely, when we ask better questions—QBQs—such as “What can I do to contribute?” or “How can I help solve the problem?” our lives and our organizations are transformed.THE QBQ! PROMISEThis remarkable and timely book provides a practical method for putting personal accountability into daily actions, with astonishing results: problems are solved, internal barriers come down, service improves, teams thrive, and people adapt to change more quickly. QBQ! is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to learn, grow, and change. Using this tool, each of us can add tremendous worth to our organizations and to our lives by eliminating blame, victim-thinking, and procrastination.                                                                                                 QBQ! was written more than a decade ago and has helped countless readers practice personal accountability at work and at home. This version features a new foreword, revisions and new material throughout, and a section of  FAQs that the author has received over the years.

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine


Mike Michalowicz - 2014
    The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that:- Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances.- A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line.- Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth.With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of.

How to Improve Your Leadership and Management Skills - Effective Strategies for Business Managers


Meir Liraz - 2013
    It points out that you must be a leader that people follow, keep informed, make timely decisions and take effective action. In effect you must control the activities of your organization rather than being controlled by them. Here's what’s in the book: * How to lead and manage people; powerful tips and strategies to motivate and inspire your people to bring out the best in them. Be the boss people want to give 200 percent for. * How to Make a Good First Impression * How to Motivate Your Employees in the Workplace * How to Manage Change Effectively * How to Deal With Difficult Employees * Effective Business Negotiation Techniques * How To Set and Achieve Goals * Effective Delegating Strategies * How To Ensure the Profitability of Your Business * How to Create a Business Environment that Supports Growth * All these and much much more. My name is Meir Liraz and I'm the author of this book. According to Dun & Bradstreet, 90% of all business failures analyzed can be traced to poor management. This is backed up by my own experience. In my 31 years as a business coach and consultant to managers, I've seen practically dozens of managers fail and lose their job -- not because they weren't talented or smart enough -- but because they were trying to re-invent the wheel rather than rely on proven, tested methods that work. And that is where this book can help, it will teach you how to avoid the common traps and mistakes and do everything right the first time. Table of Contents 1. How to Lead and Manage People 2. How to Make a Good First Impression 3. How to Motivate Employees in the Workplace 4. How to Manage Change Effectively 5. How to Deal With Difficult Employees 6. Effective Business Negotiation Techniques 7. How To Set and Achieve Goals 8. Effective Delegating Strategies 9. How To Ensure the Profitability of Your Business 10. How to Create a Business Environment that Supports Growth Tags: leadership development, student leadership challenge, business leadership, leadership development program, leadership dynamics, management skills and application, developing management skills.

Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion


Gary Vaynerchuk - 2009
    In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business


Charles Duhigg - 2016
    A new book that explores the science of productivity, and why, in today’s world, managing how you think—rather than what you think—can transform your life.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be


Marshall Goldsmith - 2015
    Triggers shows us how to break that cycle and enact meaningful change.In Triggers, renown executive coach and psychologist Marshall Goldsmith discusses the emotional triggers that set off a reaction or a behavior in us that often works to our detriment. Do you find that at times you suddenly become defensive or enraged by an idle comment from a colleague? Or that your temper rises when another car cuts you off in traffic? Your reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are the result of emotional and psychological triggers that often happen only in specific settings—at meetings, or in competitive situations, or with a specific person who rubs you the wrong way, or when you feel under particular pressure. Being able to recognize those triggers and understand how the environment affects our behavior is key to controlling our responses and managing others at work and in life. Make no mistake—change is hard. And the starting point is the willingness to accept help, and the desire to change. This book will show you how.Over the course of this book, Marshall explores the power of active questions to get us to take responsibility for our actions—and our failure to act. Questions such as “Did I do my best to make progress toward my goal?” “Did I work hard at being fully engaged?” He discusses the importance of structure in effecting permanent change. Because, he points out, change is hard, and without a structure to keep us on track, we inevitably relapse and fall back.Filled with illuminating stories from Marshall’s work with some of the most accomplished executives and leaders in America, Triggers shows readers how to achieve meaningful and sustained change that will allow us to open our imaginations and escape the rigidity of binary thinking.

Fun Is Good: How to Create Joy and Passion in Your Workplace and Career


Mike Veeck - 2005
    That is maverick marketing whiz Mike Veeck's Fun Is Good philosophy in a nutshell. And in this book, he demonstrates how it has worked, not only to make an evening at one of his minor league ballparks—full of laughs, zany promotions, and free giveaways—enjoyable for everyone, but also how it can turn any organization into a thriving one.

Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck


Jon Acuff - 2015
    Now he offers his most important book yet, a guide to making big career changes—by choice or necessity—and escaping the horrible feeling of being trapped in the wrong job.Acuff finds it amazing that people spend more than eighteen years studying and preparing for college, but little or no time honing their careers between graduation and retirement. He offers an empowering tool he calls the Career Savings Account, which will change the way readers think about their skills, relationships, character, and work ethic. He also shows that if you’re on the wrong track, you already have what you need to change it—even if your family and mortgage mean you can’t simply pick up and move for a new opportunity.Throughout the book, Acuff features inspiring and funny true stories—not merely his own, but those of friends who restarted their careers after a layoff, an extended maternity leave, or simply the realization that they were suffering fifty weeks a year just to pay the bills and enjoy two weeks of vacation. Everyone can benefit from Do Over, from new graduates to fiftysomethings and beyond.

The One Minute Negotiator: Simple Steps to Reach Better Agreements


Don Hutson - 2010
    One essentially comes from the Harvard Business School camp, and it’s perhaps best described as “Thou Shalt Collaborate.” This approach teaches that negotiating parties should always work together toward common interests. The other school of thought, mostly pushed by author/consultant Roger Dawson, takes an opposite approach. Call it “Thou Shalt Compete,” this approach is always overtly or subtly adversarial. The One Minute Negotiator differs in that it doesn’t single-mindedly push one strategy over the other—in the real world every negotiation differs depending on the participants and the circumstances. The authors provide an easy-to-use tool that allows you to understand your own negotiation strategy and quickly match it to the negotiation strategy used by the other side and to the situation.   Too many people lose out in negotiations because of apprehension and misunderstanding about the process—what the authors call “negotiaphobia”. By providing a simple, straightforward process anyone can use The One Minute Negotiator to help conquer their fears and achieve the most beneficial outcome in all their dealings.

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts


Annie Duke - 2018
    The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck?Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes.By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.

The 4-Hour Workweek


Timothy Ferriss - 2007
    Depending on when you ask this controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer: "I race motorcycles in Europe." "I ski in the Andes." "I scuba dive in Panama." "I dance tango in Buenos Aires." He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the "deferred-life plan" and instead mastered the new currencies-time and mobility-to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now. Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world.Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:- How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want?- How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs?- How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist?- How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"?- What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income?- How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it's beyond repair?- What automated cash-flow "muses" are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks?- How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet?- What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are?- How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off?- How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office