Business Leadership Management

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

The number of people who will become first-time supervisors will likely grow in the next 10 years, as Baby Boomers retire. Perhaps the most challenging leadership experience anyone will face isn't one at the top, but their first promotion to leadership. They must deal with the change and uncertainty that comes with a new job, requiring new skills, and they've been promoted from peer to leader.

For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to contribute, and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than feeling empowered, we are often left feeling overwhelmed by this constant influx of information. The very knowledge that was supposed to set us free has instead led to the paralyzing stress of believing we’ll never know or remember enough. Now, this eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain.

A young, untested team of problem solvers challenged with saving their company moves from board room to classroom in search of answers - and finds them through lively, open discourse with their innovative professor. This gripping, fast-paced business novel does for project management what Eliyahu M. Goldratt's other novels have done for production and marketing.

In a world of unrelenting change and unprecedented challenges, we need organizations that are resilient and daring. Unfortunately, most organizations, overburdened by bureaucracy, are sluggish and timid. In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better. Drawing on more than a decade of research and packed with practical examples, Humanocracy lays out a detailed blueprint for creating organizations that are as inspired and ingenious as the human beings inside them.

Bruce Greenwald, one of the nation's leading business professors, presents a new and simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject. Based on his hugely popular course at Columbia Business School, Greenwald and his co-author, Judd Kahn, offer an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position.

In today's fast-paced world of competitive workplaces and turbulent economic conditions, each of us is searching for effective tools that can help us to manage, adapt, and strike out ahead of the pack. By now, emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction - it’s no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things.

Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips. You'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.

Dealing with People You Can't Stand has been helping good people deal with bad behavior in a positive, professional way for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, as the world becomes smaller and time more compressed, new difficult people are being made all the time. So Kirschner and Brinkman have updated their global best seller to help you wring positive results from even the most twisted interactions you're likely to experience today.

Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue for the inherent good of both business and capitalism. Featuring some of today's best-known and most-successful companies, they illustrate how these two forces can - and do - work most powerfully to create value for all stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment.

From two pioneers in business analytics, an update of the classic book on how analytics and business intelligence are transforming competition and how leading organizations build and compete on an analytical capability. Leading companies are doing more than just collecting and storing data in large quantities - they're now driving their competitive strategies based on data-driven insights. In Competing on Analytics, Davenport and Harris explain how analytics are transforming the basis of competition in industry after industry.

Although it was first published more than 35 years ago, Up the Organization continues to top the lists of best business books by groups as diverse as the American Management Association, Strategy + Business (Booz Allen Hamilton), and The Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management. 1-800-CEO-READ ranks Townsend's best seller first among 80 books that "every manager must read".

By providing extremely detailed and accurate descriptions of nine recognizable personalities, The 9 Types of Leadership is an unmatched tool for business people to use to decode the mysteries involved in understanding why people do what they do, why we have conflicts with some people but not others, and how we can become aware of our blind spots. Most importantly, it can help leaders know themselves in a deeper way so they can more effectively lead others.

The success of Starbucks is one of the most remarkable business stories in decades. Since 1987, the coffee merchant has grown from a single retail store on Seattle's waterfront to a company with more than 1,000 stores nationwide and a new one opening somewhere every business day. According to Fortune magazine, Starbucks "has changed everything...from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street."

Discover how developing your emotional intelligence can further your relationships with others, in the workplace and at home. Emotional awareness is also a critical skill for career success, and Dr. Stein provides practical exercises for developing this skill and achieving your professional and personal goals. He also provides valuable insights into how emotional intelligence can be applied to raising children and teenagers and realizing personal happiness.

In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee provides executives with a simple tool to cut through technological complexity and market uncertainties. The Value Stick, based on proven economic mechanics, is an extraordinarily powerful tool that helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen their firm's competitive advantage.

Make your move into, or improve your position in, the powerful world of professional speaking. If you think you have what it takes to speak professionally, or you've already been doing so with insufficient reward, now is the time to make your move. Weiss has packed the guide with tips, resources, helpful examples, and checklists that make it easy for you to keep a record of your progress. Whether you're a trainer, workshop leader, or consultant, Million Dollar Speaking has what you need to get on the paid public-speaking circuit in no time.

Whether you are moving up, moving on, or just starting out, America's top career coach, Robin Ryan, offers proven, easy-to-learn techniques for mastering the job interview and landing the job of your dreams. This brief, compact book, newly updated in 2008, is packed with useful tips such as: how to establish a career identity or personal brand in the opening minutes of an interview using the 60 Second Sell¿, answers to more than 100 of the toughest interview questions.

The Art of War is a renowned ancient Chinese military treatise written by Sun Tzu, a military strategist and philosopher. Composed around the fifth century BC, it provides valuable insights into warfare and strategy. The book emphasizes the importance of careful planning, understanding the enemy, exploiting weaknesses, and employing tactics to achieve victory.

Ever since he wrote The Art of the Deal, Trump has been the world's most famous negotiator - even though he didn't reveal his actual deal-making secrets. Now, George Ross explains the tactics that took Trump to the top and how you can use those same tactics and strategies in your daily negotiations. A practical, real-world negotiation playbook, this is the ultimate guide for anyone who wants to negotiate like a proven winner.