Great Business

We've long been told our ability to succeed depends on our IQ, talent, education level, gender, job title, or when and where we were born. Great Work turns that conventional thinking on its head to reveal that innovation can come from anyone, anywhere.

Why are some people and organizations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others? And why are they able to repeat their success again and again? Because in business it doesn't matter what you do, it matters why you do it. Steve Jobs, the Wright brothers and Martin Luther King have one thing in common: they STARTED WITH WHY. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others, or to be inspired.

This book debunks the myth that leaders need to be creative like designers to apply design thinking. Applying design approaches and practices to organizational leadership is not just about its leaders becoming more creative. It is definitely not about the person at the top coming up with the grand answer. Design thinking starts with the 'pain point' related to the problem you are trying to solve. You get to the heart of the issue. It is a collaborative effort that neatly leads stakeholders and representatives affected by the problem to design novel leadership solutions that work.

Have you noticed how broken our culture of work is? For too long, leadership has been defined by the bottom line, at the outrageous expense of the humans leading and being led. Obviously, results matter. But, now more than ever, leaders need to be so much more than a boss wielding the authority of a title to produce results. The lovable leader knows that all people are capable of extraordinary things, that obstacles can empower you instead of limit you, and that your abilities combined with your choices give everyone you lead the opportunity to become a superhero.

The Darwinian struggle of business keeps getting more brutal as competitive advantage gaps get narrower and narrower. Anything you invent today will soon be copied by someone else - probably better and cheaper. Many companies thrive during the early stages of their life cycle, only to fall slack during periods of inertia and die out while others surge ahead. Geoffrey Moore shows, some notable companies have figured out how to deal with Darwin in their mature years - making changes on the fly while fending off challenges from every quarter.

Delivering a fresh perspective, Yohn's What Great Brands Do teaches an innovative brand-as-business strategy that enhances brand identity while boosting profit margins, improving company culture, and creating stronger stakeholder relationships. Drawing from 25 years of consulting work with such top brands as Frito-Lay, Sony, Nautica, and Burger King, Yohn explains key principles of her brand-as-business strategy.

In The Culture Solution, business consultant and The New York Times best-selling author of The Dream Manager and Off Balance presents the six enduring principles of a dynamic culture, designed in a way that is both intensely practical and inspiring. If you want to grow your business; attract, grow, and retain top talent; learn the key to hiring in the 21st century; teach every person in your organization that they have a role to play in making the culture better today than it was yesterday, this book is for you and every person on your team.

More than a decade ago, Gallup combed through its database of more than 1 million employee and manager interviews to identify the 12 elements most important for sustaining high performance. These were identified in the 1999 bestseller First, Break All the Rules. The Gallup study now includes 9 million employee and manager interviews spanning 114 countries and conducted in 41 languages.

Far away from Silicon Valley, in familiar, traditional, even unglamorous fields, ordinary people are unleashing extraordinary advances that amaze customers, energize employees, and create huge economic value. Their secret? They understand that the work of inventing the future doesn't belong just to geeks designing mobile apps and virtual-reality headsets or to social-media entrepreneurs hoping to launch the next Facebook. Some of today's most compelling organizations are doing brilliant things.

In How to Have Tough Conversations, we cut straight to the chase—because, let's face it, you don't have time for fluff. This book is your ultimate resource for transforming the dreaded tough talks into opportunities for growth and success. Whether it’s a conversation you’ve been avoiding or truths you’ve hesitated to address, here you'll find the keys to elevating those discussions and achieving the outcomes you need. With a blend of humor and down-to-earth practicality, we make it easier than ever to navigate those tricky talks.

This audiobook is filled with inspiring stories from the lives of great achievers past and present.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativity demystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical approach, grounded in reality.

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:

How to Be a Fierce Competitor is the definitive “how-to” guide for understanding how to spot opportunity and then capitalize on it. This practical resource for business leaders and managers shows exactly how the savvy few who rise to the top stay focused and alert.

The truth is, being a great leader doesn’t mean you need to have a fancy job title. You don’t have to be overly assertive, and you don’t need to rule with an “iron fist”. Following the simple framework in this book, you can quickly go from putting out fires at work to building a collaborative and cooperative team. A team that respects and follows you, not because you’re a manager, but because you are the boss. But the choice is yours. You can keep second-guessing every decision you make. Or you can bring out the strong leader within and inspire your team to success.

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?”

From the bestselling author of The Roaring 2000s and The Great Depression Ahead comes a work that looks forward, showing listeners how to weather the storm in this new economy that is going to get much worse in the years ahead.

In his most recent New York Times best-selling work, The Great Depression Ahead, Harry S. Dent predicted the debt crisis that would ensue in the wake of the government’s failed stimulus plan. Dent’s investment advice sees no place to hide....

From the best-selling author of Congratulations! Now Get Over Yourself, Ralph Peterson holds nothing back in his latest management manifesto.

Tons of people have great ideas for starting their own businesses but never carry them out because they don't know where to start or what steps to take. A business plan provides you with a road map to follow so you can go from having an idea to actually creating a successful business that makes money. The first part of this book covers the 10 recommended steps for starting your business by the SBA, along with my explanation of each in more detail. The second part of this book covers the most important part of any business.