Game Management

In an era of digital transformation, disruptive innovation, transient competitive advantage, and industry convergence, mergers and acquisitions have become more complex than ever. Winning at the Acquisition Game presents the best materials, insights, and tools which comprise the comprehensive, cross-disciplinary Mergers and Acquisitions course taught in the MBA and Executive MBA programs at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don't demand a more mindful approach. It's when we're faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.

Women on corporate boards is strictly a business issue. Independent research studies demonstrate that public companies with women on their boards are more profitable, more productive, and their workforce is better engaged. Even more compelling, shareholders large and small have the best chance for positive returns on their investments when women are on the boards.

The Board Game presents the undeniable case for having more women corporate directors at the decision-making tables of America's public companies. Fifty-eight women directors tell how they won their first board seats. From her executive-search perspective, author Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire gives valuable advice to women at all career stages - so YOU, your sisters, your mothers, and your daughters will have a chance to win The Board Game.

Though technology has evolved at hyper-speed over the past 100 years, management styles have mostly stayed the same. The higher-ups make the decisions, and the employees grind it out, often without knowing the endgame. In 1983, Jack Stack created a new game: the great game of business. Get in the Game further explains the rules of this game: To win, you must get everyone, at all levels of the business, as informed, involved, and engaged as the owner.

Companies are fighting the wrong battle. The consensus has been to learn the best practices from Big Tech and imitate them. But new paths for growth aren't created by imitation; they're forged by radical differentiation. In Smart Rivals, Harvard Business School professor Feng Zhu and former Bloomberg journalist Bonnie Cao show business leaders how to create new competitive advantages by offering product features and benefits that tech giants and other competitors cannot match.

Rookie Smarts addresses the questions every experienced professional faces: Will my knowledge and skills become obsolete and irrelevant? Will a young, inexperienced newcomer upend my company or me? How can I keep up? The answer is to stay fresh, keep learning, and know when to think like a rookie.

In Beyond the Game, Komori provides a toolbox for those who aspire to lead successful teams. Coaches, he says, strive to improve themselves first, to provide a foundation for instilling greatness in others. Smart coaches pay attention to what Komori calls the Three Cs of Leadership: Choices, Communication, and Culture. Komori also teaches the Six Keys for Peak Performance and how to focus on and apply these areas to achieve the most and excel in life. He offers advice in direct, straightforward terms and draws examples from his decades as a championship-winning tennis coach.

In the decade since their blockbuster international best seller Winning was published, Jack and Suzy Welch have dug deeper into business, traveling the world; consulting to organizations of every size and in every industry; speaking before hundreds of audiences; working closely with entrepreneurs from Mumbai to Silicon Valley; and, in 2010, starting their own fully accredited online MBA program, which now has approximately 1,000 students enrolled.

Stuck in a "win-win versus win-lose" mind-set, most negotiators focus on the face-to-face process at the table. David Lax and James Sebenius urge bargainers to look beyond tactics at the table. Persuasive tactics are only the "first dimension" of the authors' path-breaking approach, developed from their decades of doing deals and analyzing great dealmakers.

The questions we ask ourselves determine our lives. Our thoughts are nothing more than a continuous question-and-answer session we have with ourselves. Our lives - material, emotional, spiritual, and financial - are a direct reflection of our thoughts. Eighty-five percent of these thoughts are both habitual and unconscious. Meaning, we are asking and answering the exact same questions every day, usually in the same way over and over again.

Moneyball is a quest for something that money can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected by a brotherhood of baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, and physics professors. These numbers prove that the traditional measure of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. This information has been around for years, and nobody paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's.

In You Can Change Other People, the world's number-one executive coach, Peter Bregman, and Howie Jacobson, PhD, share the Four Steps to help the people around you make positive change - even if they've been stuck for years. No one wants to be changed, but change and personal growth are critical to success, and more importantly, to a fulfilled life. You Can Change Other People is a must-listen for those who want to improve their impact with coworkers, family members, and everyone in between.

From the arenas of professional sports to the boardrooms of major businesses, a thin slice of peak performers dominate every field. What is their secret to success? Few people know what drives these world-leaders like sports agent Molly Fletcher. Not only has Fletcher herself risen to the top of a tough, male-dominated field - CNN dubbed her "the female Jerry Maguire" - but she has also represented hundreds of successful athletes, coaches, and broadcasters in baseball, golf, basketball, and football. Her experience reveals exactly what it takes to play like "the best".

In his latest business fable, top leadership author Mark Miller tells the story of newly appointed CEO Blake Brown, who takes over a company distressed by poor performance and low morale. Nothing Blake learned from his previous job seems to help him deal with the bigger, more complex problems he now faces. The game has changed. As his new mentor points out, Blake is playing a simple game of checkers when he should be playing chess.

Win the mental game before you ever step out on the field! Commonsense Leadership is the playbook for leaders who want to win. From rallying the team to hitting it out of the park, every leader needs to understand the mental game. It's what separates winners from survivors and champions from second place - it's what gives your team the edge and the strength to forge ahead through adversity. This audiobook shows you how to boost performance with tips and advice gathered over 45 years of working with major corporations and world-class athletes.

The way we do business is changing. Every day, we see new evidence that we've got to move away from the status quo that is burning out workers, enabling greed, and endangering our planet. Yet how do you develop the skills and practical tools to prioritize people, planet, and prosperity? With Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World, Carley Hauck distills the research-based methods and game-changing skills she's brought to corporate settings such as LinkedIn, Pixar, Genentech, Clif Bar, and more.

Business the NHL Way draws on hockey-inspired stories to show how brands, institutions, and individuals associated with the NHL have consistently survived a variety of challenges and thrived as a result of its decisions. This revised and expanded edition explores business-related scenarios from the sport of hockey and links each lesson back to business, leadership, diversity, management, and sport outcomes.

What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokemon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment?

Every day you're presented with opportunities and challenges, and must decide which roads to follow, which risks to confront, when to deny an opportunity and when to pursue the call to adventure. And you won't know whether you'll profit or fail while you're in the thick of it. In Win or Die: Leadership Secrets from Game of Thrones, Bruce Craven brilliantly analyzes the journeys of the best and worst leaders in Westeros, so that leaders can create their own narratives of success.