Career Success Leadership

From the moment Jon Gordon heard about George Boiardi and the hard hat, he was intrigued and captivated. Over the years he visited George's coaches, attended several "21 Dinners" held in his honor, met his family, talked to his teammates, and observed how he inspired all who knew him.

Tilman Fertitta, also known as the Billion Dollar Buyer, started his hospitality empire 30 years ago with just one restaurant. So he knows the challenges that business owners face, as well as the common pitfalls that cause them to go under. Over the years, he’s stayed true to the principles that helped him scale his business to what is believed to be the largest single-shareholder company in America, with more than four billion dollars in revenue. He’s also sole owner of the Houston Rockets. In Shut Up and Listen!, he shares the key insights that made it all possible.

With The Essential Deming, Fordham University professor and Deming expert Joyce Orsini draws on a wealth of previously unavailable material to present the legendary thinker's most important management principles in one indispensable volume. The book is filled with articles, papers, lectures, and notes touching on a wide range of topics, but which focus on Deming's overriding message: Quality and operations are all about systems, not individual performance; the system has to be designed so that the worker can perform well.

Snipers are exceptional. The trained sniper is a complex fusion of hard skills such as weapons knowledge, situational awareness, knowledge of ballistics and physics, and soft skills such as emotional stability, empathy, and a stoic acceptance of the hardships associated with a particular set of circumstances. There are countless instances where a single sniper, embarking on a secret mission, would have to improvise, operate beyond any hope of support, and yet still manage to carry out the mission and get back home unharmed.

In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. You'll learn Cialdini's Universal Principles of Influence, including new research and new uses so you can become an even more skilled persuader—and just as importantly, you'll learn how to defend yourself against unethical influence attempts.

The benefits of mindfulness include better performance, heightened creativity, deeper self-awareness, and increased charisma - not to mention greater peace of mind. This collection of articles from HBR includes "Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity", an interview with Ellen Langer by Alison Beard; "Mindfulness Can Literally Change Your Brain", by Christina Congleton, Britta K. Hölzel, and Sara W. Lazar; "How to Practice Mindfulness Throughout Your Work Day", by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter; and much more.

"There is no 'i' in 'team'." "No man is an island." "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." You may roll your eyes at these age-old clichés, but you can’t afford to breeze over their point. Individual all-stars can take you only so far. Ultimately, success - whether in business, family, church, athletic teams, or any other organization - is entirely dependent on teamwork. But how does one build that team? Leadership expert and New York Times best-selling author John C. Maxwell knows that building and maintaining a successful team is no simple task.

Ray Dalio, one of the world's most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business - and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.

As CEO, most everything that Rich O'Connor did had something to do with at least one of the four disciplines on his famed "yellow sheet." Rich never suspected that it would become the blueprint of an employee's plan to destroy the firm. Best selling author Lencioni brings us a fable that focuses on a leader's crucial role in building a healthy organization.

For the first time ever, founder of Sprinkles Cupcakes, Candace Nelson, is sharing the recipe for success in her new book, Sweet Success. She will walk you through the steps she took to build a globally beloved brand, so you can do it too. Although she deals in frosting, there’s no sugarcoating here. Candace pushes back the kitchen door to reveal mistakes, misses, and lessons learned the hard way. Sweet Success dispels the myth that entrepreneurship is reserved for an elite few and is a must-have for anyone with a passion needing a place to start.

Inappropriate workplace conduct, lateness, sexually offensive behavior, productivity and communication issues...these are just a few of the uncomfortable topics bosses must sometimes discuss with their employees. 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees offers realistic sample dialogues managers can use to facilitate clear, direct interactions with their employees, helping to sidestep potential awkwardness and meet issues head-on.

One of the biggest myths that plagues the business world today is that our ability to network depends on having the “gift-of-gab”. You don’t have to be outgoing to be successful at networking. You don’t have to become a relentless self-promoter. In fact, you don’t have to act like an extrovert at all. Matthew Pollard, an introvert himself, draws on over a decade of research and real-world examples to provide an actionable blueprint for introverted networking.

Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel.

In his latest engrossing work of business fiction, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni provides a cure for the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings. And what he suggests is both simple and revolutionary.

Sun Tzu's Art of War for Women helps women find the peaceful path to success through strategies made famous in the ancient Chinese text, The Art of War. Female wisdom, or common sense, is about avoiding needless confrontation, conserving energy for the things that matter, and seeking an outcome in which everyone wins. And for women, as for Sun Tzu, success doesn't come simply from knowing what to do, but from knowing who you are.

There are four characters in every story: the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide. These four characters live inside us. If we play the victim, we’re doomed to fail. If we play the villain, we will not create genuine bonds. But if we play the hero or guide, our lives will flourish. The hard part is being self-aware enough to know which character we are playing. In this book, Donald will use his own experiences to help you recognize if the character you are currently surfacing is helping you experience a life of meaning.

Joe Navarro spent a quarter century with the FBI, pursuing spies and other dangerous criminals across the globe. In his line of work, successful leadership was quite literally a matter of life or death. Now he brings his hard-earned lessons to you. Be Exceptional distills a lifetime of experience into five principles that outstanding individuals live by.

People everywhere are proving leadership expert John C. Maxwell right - that talent is never enough. Read the headlines, watch the highlights, or just step out your front door. Some talented people reach their full potential, while others self-destruct or remain trapped in mediocrity. What makes the difference? Maxwell, the go-to guru for business professionals across the globe, insists that the choices people make - not merely the talent they inherit - propel them to greatness. It is what you add to your talent that makes the greatest difference.

Psychologist Cassandra Dunn believes that happiness is available to all of us - and not just in some picture-perfect ideal life. Cass has helped thousands of people get from Crappy to Happy with her hit podcast. In this book, Cass expands on those conversations and provides even more information and practical tools, helping you learn to let go, to find your people, to determine your direction and more.

Whether you're a chronic second-guesser or just eager for new ways to look at your world, Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler will teach you how to improve your understanding of the dilemmas you face and how to make better decisions every day. Taught in MBA courses and elsewhere, The Decision Book contains classics like the Swiss cheese model for reviewing mistakes and the personal performance model for testing whether or not to switch jobs. This revised edition includes a model for identifying cognitive biases and the expectation model to help you choose a life partner.