Great Business

John Jacob Astor was the best-known and most important American businessman for more than a half-century. His career encompassed the country's formative economic years from the precarious days following the American Revolution to the emergence of an urban-centered manufacturing economy in the late 1840s.

When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, England was the laughing stock of Europe. Economic, political, and religious calamities were numerous, and Elizabeth endured constant criticism. But by the end of her 45-year reign, England was one of the world's mightiest nations. Axelrod uses the legendary Queen's life as a model for modern leadership, and a powerful example of how one person can make an extraordinary difference. Elizabeth I CEO is an indispensable guide for today's business managers and leaders. It is also an inspiring listen for those taking their first steps up the corporate ladder, or those who simply love history. Nelson Runger's narration gives a renewed energy to Elizabeth's lessons, which are as relevant today as they were four centuries ago.

When the athletic shoe graduated from the beaches and croquet courts of the wealthy elite to streetwear ubiquity, its journey through the heart of American life was just getting started. In this rollicking narrative, Nicholas K. Smith carries us through the long 20th century as sneakers became the totem of subcultures from California skateboarders to New York rappers, the cause of gang violence and riots, the heart of a global economic controversy, the lynchpin in a quest to turn big sports into big business, and the muse of high fashion.

From Plato to Plutarch, Shakespeare to Churchill, Machiavelli to Melville, Jane Austen to Carl Jung, Pericles to Peter Drucker and many more - here are the best leadership ideas of the past 25 centuries. You don't need a big title or a business degree in order to lead with impact. What you need is practical wisdom: the insight, judgment and strength of character that all great leaders have but that most business schools and corporate workshops don't teach.

Bestselling author and futurist Mark Schaefer explains why community is a vastly overlooked marketing opportunity for most organizations. He explains how three major trends are colliding in a way that makes brand communities the future of marketing strategy.

Wallace Delois Wattles (1860-1911) was a New Thought author who researched the writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and recommended the study of their books to those who wished to understand the monistic theory of the cosmos. Wattles’ "The Science of" Trilogy comprises books on attaining and maintaining good health, creating wealth and being the best that you can be.

The definitive guide to 21st-century business leadership, The New Extraordinary Leader shook the foundations of leadership as we knew it when it was published in 2002. Since then, we have seen tectonic shifts in the world of business - and this revised and updated edition provides the data and insights you need to address them all. Jack Zenger and Jim Folkman's proprietary 360 feedback assessment of leaders in the real world - how they lead, what works, and what doesn't - provides the data that makes The Extraordinary Leader unique in a crowded field of such books.

In Amplifiers, entrepreneur and expert management and technology consultant Tom Finegan delivers an insightful new way to think about human behavior in the execution of corporate transformations. Through an exploration of the career journeys of several leaders and analyses of "True Amplifiers" in action, the book demonstrates how to deliver strategic and transformative change by relying on the efforts of key, exemplary followers. This important book:

How to Deliver a Great TED Talk is a complete public speaking system for delivering highly effective presentations and speeches. If you’ve watched TED videos before, you’ve no doubt been inspired and electrified by speeches by figures such as Sir Ken Robinson, Jill Bolte Taylor, Simon Sinek and Dan Pink. If you follow the guidelines and tools in this audiobook, I guarantee that your audience will have no choice but to be wrapped up in your speeches and presentations.

In The Miracle Manager, Kevin G. Armstrong argues that placing true leaders in management positions has become an epidemic that is destroying businesses. Armstrong, a successful speaker, business owner, advisor, disruptor, and best-selling author, knows first-hand the consequences of mistaking great leadership for effective management. With knowledge gained from 20-plus years of exclusively advising CEOs, business owners, and their management teams, the author presents a revolutionary approach to organizational management.

Most people are blown off-course by unexpected events. Top performers, by contrast, know how to navigate our unpredictable world. Not just that: they know how to thrive in it. You can acquire this essential skill, too. In Mastering Uncertainty, investor and serial entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly and award-winning business author Matt Watkinson reveal the shortcomings of conventional business thinking and the advantages of developing a "probabilistic" mindset that turns uncertainty from a source of fear into an incredible and exciting advantage.

Comprehensive in its scope and depth, Entrepreneurs Who Changed History profiles leaders of industry across the world and throughout the ages - from the enterprising bankers of the medieval world and the merchants of empire, to the titans of industry and the geniuses of Silicon Valley. The towering personalities behind some of history's most recognizable brands and companies - their ruthlessness, tenacity, creativity, and sheer grit - are all brought to vivid life.

As nations careen from one crisis to the next, there is a growing cry for fresh leadership. Those in charge have relatedly fallen short, and trust in institutions have plummeted. So, what does great leadership look like? And how are great leaders made? David Gergen, a leader in the public arena for more than half a century, draws from his experiences as a White House adviser to four presidents, his decades as a trusted voice on national issues, and years of teaching and mentoring young people to offer a stirring playbook for the next generation of change-makers.

A generation of people around the world, from Boston to Bangkok, from New York to New Delhi, are making everyday choices in ways that defy traditional logic. They are judging where and how their clothes were made, not just how they fit. They are thinking global but buying local. They are spending their money and their time, forming loyalties, casting votes, and even enjoying entertainment based increasingly upon their desire to make a positive impact on others and the world around them.

If you have ever been part of a great team, you will know it is exponentially better than being part of a mediocre team. Teams are at the heart of working in complex domains and are essential to the success of agile approaches yet relatively few teams achieve greatness. Agile and leadership coach Geoff Watts has pulled together his many years of experience with all sorts of teams from software to product development, from medical teams to sports teams and has identified five common characteristics of great teams:

Recent studies show that only 7 percent of employees have trust and confidence in their senior leaders. How can we ever get our organizations to succeed if so few employees believe in their senior leaders? The Leadership Contract explains why leadership, and specifically leadership culture, is the only real differentiator between the organizations that thrive and those that fall behind. This book explains how to establish a leadership contract that is fully understood and agreed upon by business leaders to ensure the success of their companies.

You could decide to have G.R.E.A.T. processes. When you have those, these kind of problems perhaps don’t go away completely, but they can be dramatically reduced. Everyone can have an easier life, with less stress, wasted effort and better outcomes for employees, the business and its customers. So the big question you probably have is “well, how do we make that happen?”

Let America's foremost authority on management prepare you for the 21st century. Peter F. Drucker's wide-ranging guide explores such topics as the new cost savings revolution in retailing, the urgent requirement for each company to have a "theory of the business," and the need for executives to seek new kinds of information through new technology.

There are hundreds of ways to keep your life organized, but this book has made all the extra effort to point out the 25 ways to improve the organization of your stuff, work, time management, and your outlook. Perhaps you have noticed that there is too little space for everything you own. There is also too little time for everything that you need to do. Likewise, you find your life too short to fulfill all the dreams and desires of your heart. The primary key to doing the most with the limited resources you have is organization.

Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley deliver a guidebook for leaders navigating the uncertainty of a post pandemic world in this sequel to The Adaptation Advantage. Leaders today must acknowledge and respond to the fundamental shifts that lay the foundation for effective leadership: From managing people to enabling success, from viewing peers as competitors to seeing them as collaborators, from applying extrinsic pressure on workers to unlocking intrinsic motivation, and from driving productivity with unquestioned authority to inspiring value creation by leading with empathy.