Career Strategy

The global coronavirus pandemic has thrown into stark relief how "business as usual" is no longer serving us. The economic, business, and environmental models of the past do not reflect our current realities. And for our economy - for us - to survive, we need nothing less than a seismic shift in the way we do business.

Award-winning entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow reveals the counterintuitive reasons why so many partnerships and groups break down - and why some break through. The best teams are more than the sum of their parts, but why does collaboration so often fail to fulfill this promise? In Dream Teams, Snow takes us on an adventure through history, neuroscience, psychology, and business, exploring what separates groups that simply get by together from those that get better together.

The seminal book Blue Ocean Strategy has sold over four million copies globally and is in print in forty-six languages. But much of W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne's work on creating new market spaces was originally published in the pages of Harvard Business Review. This book brings the best of those articles together all in one place.

Compiled more than 2,000 years ago by a mysterious warrior-philosopher, The Art of War is still perhaps the most prestigious and influential book of strategy in the world. As a study of the anatomy of organizations in conflict, The Art of War applies to competition and conflict in general, on every level from the interpersonal to the international.

The supply chain is not a new concept for economists. The idea of the supply chain is a basic one that has permeated economic systems since the earliest days of trade and commerce. It is simply a term referring to the collection of businesses or individuals responsible for transforming raw materials into products and then getting those products into the hands of consumers.

Winners in business aren't the ones who do the most things; the winners are the ones who do the most important things. Be the Best at What Matters Most is about the one essential strategy for those who are or want to be business leaders, entrepreneurs, owners, or managers. Simplify, focus, and win by outperforming all your competition on those things that create real value for the customer. This is about substance, not flash, and the ultimate "wow" factors of high-quality performance, consistency, and relentless improvement.

Great leaders understand that their team is only as strong as its weakest link. And healthy, nurtured relationships are key in making your team operate as a well-oiled machine. In Relationships 101, John Maxwell offers time-tested principles for connecting with people and building positive working relationships within an organization. The unique, pocket-size format puts straightforward, practical information at your fingertips.

Whether you're starting a business from scratch or in an existing company facing new threats, this audiobook offers the direction you need. The HBR Guide to Setting Your Strategy provides practical tips and advice that break down the process of crafting strategy so you can identify the areas your company should build on and help it thrive long into the future.

Despite how much is written about strategy, and money spent on it, reports of chronic failures persist. Two causes dominate. Strategy is still not fully defined, and strategy practice is still largely based on a planned view of the world. Change and innovation, however, are not wholly planned but emerge from the myriad interactions of the players involved—some by design, many not. This science of complex adaptive systems must be the bedrock on which strategy is built.

This is legendary 17th century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s exposition of sword fighting, strategy, and Zen philosophy. Required listening for any martial artist, business person, or student of strategy, this audiobook includes the one hour Zen inspired soundtrack, The Mysterious Sound of Wind in the Bamboo, performed on authentic Japanese instruments.

The real-world, battle-tested concepts in this book focus heavily on influencing your buyer’s psyche (i.e. their “operating system”) so that you enjoy: Faster conversion of prospects.

When you think of success, what comes to mind? Career, public achievements, diplomas, degrees? We work hard to find a job, gain promotions, and develop skills to become a peak performer. We’re continually striving to win at work. But does winning at work mean we have to lose at home? In all our “winning,” are we neglecting what matters most? Unfortunately, too many leaders achieve career success, only to find they have critically damaged their relationships with the people closest to them. Winning Begins at Home will help you change all that.

Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap and other business best-sellers, has written an audiobook that leaps right into your pounding heart. One rainy night in December, young CEO David Stone is inexplicably called back to the office. The company’s chairman tells him that the board members have reached the end of their patience. If David can’t produce a viable turnaround plan in five weeks, he’s out of a job. The problem is, he’s already used every trick in the book and nothing has worked. His only hope is to try something new. But what?

A mediocre category designer will beat a world-class marketer every day of the week. The reason is because all marketing sits within a context. "He or she who frames the problem owns the solution." Without this context—without a category—your marketing becomes nothing but screaming, shouting, and pitching customers with deals, discounts, and other short-term tactics in the hopes of landing a sale.

In Victory, best-selling author Brian Tracy applies to business and personal success the same concepts that have helped great leaders triumph in military campaigns throughout history. Using military examples throughout, he provides ambitious, success-oriented listeners with a practical template for reaching their own potential for greatness. This is an indispensable strategic field guide from America's foremost expert on achievement.

An accessible, light-hearted exploration into game theory. Haim Shapira describes what it is, why it is important, and how it can help us in our daily lives. This audiobook provides many humorous anecdotes and insightful examples of how our daily lives are affected by game theory. Game theory is the mathematical formalization of interactive decision-making - it assumes that each player's goal is to maximize his/her benefit, whatever it may be. Players may be friends, foes, political parties, states, or any entity that behaves interactively, whether collectively or individually.

How much of innovation is inspiration, and how much is hard work? The answer lies somewhere in the middle, says management thinker Peter Drucker. In this HBR classic from 1985, he argues that innovation is real work that can and should be managed like any other corporate function. Success is more likely to result from the systematic pursuit of opportunities than from a flash of genius. Indeed, most innovative business ideas arise through the methodical analysis of seven areas of opportunity.

It's no secret that culture is the key to attracting and engaging top talent and seizing the competitive edge. But the vast majority of culture efforts fail as quickly as they started. Why? Because leaders are missing the big picture. They're creating and communicating values but failing to ensure the values are tied to the purpose and the strategy of the company while also being integrated into processes, operations, and behaviors.

In Game Changer, Jean-Manuel Izaret and Arnab Sinha simplify and clarify pricing strategy by integrating its many frameworks and concepts into seven distinct pricing games, each with its own proven tools, rules, forces, and structures. To help you pick the right game and play it well, Izaret and Sinha have developed the Strategic Pricing Hexagon, a tool refined through years of testing, iteration, and adaptation. The Hexagon is your portal to a business world where stronger growth and better financial performance come from a set of strategic pricing decisions.

Attitude can make or break you and the people you lead. Good attitudes on a team do not guarantee its success, but bad attitudes guarantee its ruin. So says New York Times best-selling author and leadership expert John C. Maxwell in this highly practical primer, Attitude 101.