Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries


Peter Sims - 2011
    Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.           Based on deep and extensive research, including more than 200 interviews with leading innovators, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers—from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—practice a key set of simple but ingenious experimental methods—such as failing quickly to learn fast, tapping into the genius of play, and engaging in highly immersed observation—that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of overly analytical thinking and linear problem solving that our education places so much emphasis on, as well as from the fear of failure, all of which thwart so many of us in trying to be more innovative.               Reporting on a fascinating range of research, from the psychology of creative blocks to the influential Silicon Valley–based field of design thinking, Sims offers engaging and wonderfully illuminating accounts of breakthrough innovators at work, including how Hewlett-Packard stumbled onto the breakaway success of the first hand-held calculator; the remarkable storyboarding process at Pixar films that has been the key to their unbroken streak of box office successes; the playful discovery process by which Frank Gehry arrived at his critically acclaimed design for Disney Hall; the aha revelation that led Amazon to pursue its wildly successful affiliates program; and the U.S. Army’s ingenious approach to counterinsurgency operations that led to the dramatic turnaround in Iraq.               Fast paced and as entertaining as it is illuminating, Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem solving we were all taught in school and unleash our untapped creative powers.

Why Sell Tacos in Africa?: 16 life-changing business strategies you can use anywhere, from the man who turned $400 into $200 million


Paul Oberschneider - 2016
    There is no A-to-Z path, and there are no magic beans that will carry you upward overnight. Have you ever wondered how to start, scale up, build teams, and flourish in an uncontested market? I can tell you. I did it. In 1992, I landed in Estonia with $400 in my pocket. There, I discovered a truth that changed my life and the way I conducted business: You can make a lot of money as an entrepreneur by moving decisively in blue-sky markets - markets where you face very little competition and the tide can carry you to riches.Over the next decade and a half, I built a portfolio of businesses worth $200 million. Now, I want to share the paths that led me to success, passing on my knowledge to you. In Why Sell Tacos in Africa? I explain sixteen principles that allowed me to drive such tremendous growth. May you, too, find a blue-market and watch your business soar.

Shoemaker: Reebok and the Untold Story of a Lancashire Family Who Changed the World


Joe Foster - 2020
    Since the late 19th century, the Foster family had been hand-making running shoes, supplying the likes of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams - later immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire - as well as providing boots to most Football League clubs. But a family feud between Foster's father and uncle about the direction of their business led to Joe and his brother Jeff setting up a new company, inspired by the success of Adidas and Puma, and so Reebok was born. At first, money was so short that Joe and his wife had to live in their rundown factory, while the machinery that made the shoes was placed around the edge of the floor, because it was so weak it could have collapsed if they'd been positioned in the middle. But, from this inauspicious start, a major new player in the sports equipment field began to emerge, inspired by Joe's marketing vision. By the 1980s, Reebok had become a global phenomenon, when they were the first to latch onto the potential of the aerobics craze inspired by Jane Fonda. Soon, Reeboks were being seen on Hollywood red carpets and even in the film Aliens , where Sigourney Weaver wore a pair of Reebok Alien Stompers.  Like the international bestseller Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight, Shoemaker is a powerful tale of triumph against all the odds, revealing the challenges and sacrifices that go into creating a world-beating brand; it is also the story of how a small local business can transform itself, with the right products and the right vision, into something much, much bigger.

Time is not infinite: 12 principles to make the best use of your time


Paolo Ruggeri - 2019
    I saw them spending more and more time with their team in the office until their week became highly laborious. They would only leave the office to eat and sleep. I don’t mean to say that we should only work from 9 to 5, 5 days a week and then completely ignore our work on weekends. I know that sometimes we have to put in the extra hours to meet our deadlines and achieve our targets; however, when this becomes the norm, it means that we need to consider alternatives such as working smarter rather than harder. This is the reason why I am writing this book Dedicated to all Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, CEOs, Managing Directors and Company Managers who think that every working day should be 48 hours, during which the need to eat, sleep and socialize is nonexistent.  To all those who wait for the weekend just to rest...I, too, was one of them so many years back!

Technology-as-a-Service Playbook: How to Grow a Profitable Subscription Business


Thomas Lah - 2016
    Whether you are a pureplay cloud company or a traditional technology provider making the pivot to the cloud, this book will help guide your decision-making and execution around the “as-a-service” model to put your company on a path to profitable growth

PHR/SPHR: Professional in Human Resources Certification Study Guide


Anne M. Bogardus - 2003
    This comprehensive new edition of the top-selling PHR/SPHR Study Guide provides you expert preparation and review for these challenging exams as well as comprehensive coverage on labor relations, workforce planning, compensation, OSHA regulations.

Stock Smarts: Stock Investing Made Easy


Marvin Germo - 2013
    The heart of Stock Smarts is to break it down to its simplest form and inspire employees, professionals and business people to participate and make money in the market.This book is to encourage every Filipino to profit from stocks and forge their way to financial freedom.

Kellogg on Marketing


Alice M. Tybout - 2000
    This is a must-have marketing reference.

How to Build a Business Warren Buffett Would Buy: The R.C. Willey Story


Jeff Benedict - 2009
    Any entrepreneur will love and appreciate this

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.

Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control In The Age Of Temporary Advantage


Charles H. Fine - 1998
    In order to survive-let alone thrive-companies must be able to anticipate and adapt to change, or face rapid, brutal extinction. In Clockspeed, Charles Fine draws on a decade’s worth of research at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management to introduce a new vocabulary for understanding the forces of competition and making strategic decisions that will determine the destiny of your company, as well as your industry.Taking inspiration from the world of biology, Fine argues that each industry has its own evolutionary life cycle (or “clockspeed”), measured by the rate at which it introduces new products, processes, and organizational structures. Just as geneticists study the fruit fly to gain insight into the evolutionary paths of all animals, managers in any industry can learn from the industrial fruit flies-such as Internet services, personal computers, and multimedia entertainment-which evolve through new generations at breakneck speed. Applying the lessons of the fruit flies to industries as diverse as bicycles, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors, Fine illustrates how competitive advantage is lost or gained by how well a company manages dynamic web of relationships that run throughout its chain of suppliers, distributors, and alliance partners.Packed with revolutionary concepts and tools to help managers make key strategic decisions that affect current and future performance, Clockspeed shows, as no other book before it, how the ultimate core competency is mastering the art of supply chain design, carefully choosing which components and capabilities to keep in-house and which to purchase from outside.The consequences of faulty of visionary decisions can be enormous and dramatic. Witness the case of IBM in the early 1980s, when it outsourced key PC components to Microsoft and Intel, unleashing the “Intel Inside” phenomenon and a complete restructuring of the computer industry. Going further, Fine sees the personal computer as merely a component in the vast information-entertainment industry, which evolves at speeds unimagined a few years ago. He uses this “fruit fly” as well to peer into the future of industrial evolution and find practical advice for players in all industries, from automobiles to health care information systems.Clockspeed not only serves up some new “laws” of value chain dynamics, but it also offers recommendations for achieving industry leadership through simultaneous product, process, and supply chain design. In challenging managers to think like corporate geneticists Clockspeed contributes the next creative leap in business strategy.

Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top--And How to Manage Them


David L. Dotlich - 2003
    Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo describe the most common characteristics of derailed top executives and how you can avoid them:Arrogance--you think that you're right, and everyone else is wrong.Melodrama--you need to be the center of attention.Volatility--you're subject to mood swings.Excessive Caution--you're afraid to make decisions.Habitual Distrust--you focus on the negatives.Aloofness --you're disengaged and disconnected. Mischievousness--you believe that rules are made to be broken.Eccentricity--you try to be different just for the sake of it.Passive Resistance--what you say is not what you really believe.Perfectionism--you get the little things right and the big things wrong.Eagerness to Please--you try to win the popularity contest.

How to Start a Business


Jason Nazar - 2012
    This colorful and engaging eBook will break down how to develop your business idea, pitch to investors, hire your first employees, court mentors, attract excellent board members, monetize your product, track your revenue, market on a budget, get customers and keep them!

HYPERGROWTH: How the Customer-Driven Model Is Revolutionizing the Way Businesses Build Products, Teams, & Brands


David Cancel - 2017
    The key to achieving HYPERGROWTH is being customer-driven. So if you’re ready to start putting your customers first, keep reading... What You’ll Learn: A New Approach to Product Management and Developing SaaS Products People Love Today, there’s no excuse for not communicating with customers on a daily basis. Messaging has exploded, new generations are focused on 1:1 communication by default, and artificial intelligence is finally coming so we can deliver 1:1 at scale. So why would you build a product, or a company, without leaning into the advantages of that ecosystem? In his new book, HYPERGROWTH, serial entrepreneur and Drift co-founder/CEO David Cancel shares a modern approach for building products and structuring teams that makes customer communication a central priority. The book tells the story of how Cancel’s customer-driven approach started out as a test with a product team (Performable), transformed an entire organization (HubSpot), and sparked a new movement (Drift). What’s Inside: Practical Advice and Frameworks for Becoming Customer-Driven and Growing Your Business Responsive Development (RD): a new approach to building products that adds the customer back into the equation The Burndown Framework: a framework for implementing Responsive Development that’s faster and more flexible than Agile. The Three-Person Team: the customer-driven way to structure engineering teams. Each team consists of a tech lead who manages two other engineers. Getting Rid of Roadmaps: through building a culture of transparency and accountability and working closely with internal customers, you can release product updates more rapidly and iteratively. The Spotlight Framework: a framework for helping you focus on the right parts of customer feedback so you can take the appropriate next steps. The framework breaks feedback down into three main categories: user experience issues, product marketing issues, and positioning issues. Who This Book Is For: Entrepreneurs, Startup Founders, Product Managers, Product Teams, Marketing Teams … Entire Companies! Every part of your business can benefit from being customer-driven. With the rise of SaaS and the on-demand economy, customer expectations have changed. Customers expect their voices to be heard. They find value in being part of a community, and being part of that journey of creating the product. So stop running your business like we’re still living in the 2000s. It’s time to take a customer-driven approach. Here’s what people are saying about the book: “David Cancel is one of the best when it comes to building products that customers love. And now he’s sharing his wisdom and writing the book explaining how he does it. This is a must read for any entrepreneur or business owner.” -MARK ROBERGE Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School, Former SVP of Sale and Services at HubSpot ”When it comes to building business software, there’s no one better than David Cancel, and I saw fi

Before The Exit: Thought Experiments For Entrepreneurs


Dan Andrews - 2018
    The best you can do is learn from others.In 2015, Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen sold their product business, which they built over the course of 7 years and employed 15 people, for multi-seven figures. While they don't regret selling the business – there are many mistakes they made that were avoidable.Whether you are still in the early stages of building a business or thinking of selling, this book is designed to help you build with the future in mind.This book presents a series of 5 thought experiments including: - The Lifestyle Ladder- The Mock Tax Rebate featuring the Mediocre CEO Test- The Hidden Upsides- The Cash Conundrum- The Dirty SecretIt turns out there are patterns and predictable challenges coming your way when you prepare to exit your business. Knowing about them in advance is fun and potentially very profitable.The five thought experiments that you’ll read about in this book are designed to give you clarity and confidence as you think through what it might mean to sell your business.