High Management

In Predicting the Turn, Dave Knox discusses the new high-stakes game of business between disruptive start-ups and blue-chip companies, teaching listeners how to foresee the future of their industry. As a brand marketer, venture investor, and start-up advisor, Knox provides a one-of-a-kind worldview into the changing relationship between start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. His insight-filled audiobook Predicting the Turn teaches the world's largest companies how to foresee the future of their industries.

Here's the hard truth about leadership: It either forces you to get stronger or it slowly destroys your life. There is no in-between. Kevin Lawrence has discovered 17 habits that allow any leader to transcend the perils of success and keep achieving - habits that have already helped hundreds of CEOs and executives become stronger and more resilient.

How do firms compete? How do firms earn above normal returns? What's needed to sustain superior performance long term? An increasingly powerful answer to these fundamental questions of business strategy lies in the concept of dynamic capabilities. These are the skills, processes, routines, organizational structures, and disciplines that enable firms to build, employ, and orchestrate intangible assets relevant to satisfying customer needs, and which cannot be readily replicated by competitors.

Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute provides practical and simple concepts that CEOs, COOs, and managers at all levels in organizations both public and private can apply to their particular situations. This program is written by Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager and a regular contributor to Executive Excellence.

The success of Starbucks is one of the most remarkable business stories in decades. Since 1987, the coffee merchant has grown from a single retail store on Seattle's waterfront to a company with more than 1,000 stores nationwide and a new one opening somewhere every business day. According to Fortune magazine, Starbucks "has changed everything...from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street."

Procrastination is one of the most well-known issues that humans have. For as long as humans have been around, they have been faced with the habit of delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating on different issues. During humans' more productive moments, when they figure out temporarily how to stop procrastinating, they feel satisfied and accomplished. But those moments don't last forever. You need to know that there exists a way to stop the procrastination problem--a cure that will help you have more productive moments than avoiding them.

Demand is exceeding our capacity. The ethic of "more, bigger, faster" exacts a series of silent but pernicious costs at work, undermining our energy, focus, creativity, and passion. Nearly 75 percent of employees around the world feel disengaged at work every day. The Way We're Working Isn't Working offers a groundbreaking approach to reenergizing our lives so were both more satisfied and more productive, on the job and off.

Getting your employees to do their best work has never been easy. But it is a particular challenge for knowledge workers, who must attend to many different tasks and whose to-do list is often ambiguous, requiring outside-the-box thinking. Lists of dos and don'ts are rarely effective. Instead, your best bet is to align their interests with your own - the heart of motivation - and set them free to use their own drive and creativity on their, and your, behalf.

Today's most successful businesses are storydoers. They create products and services that, from the very beginning, are manifestations of an authentic and meaningful story - one told primarily through action, not advertising. In True Story, creative executive Ty Montague argues that any business, regardless of size or industry, can embrace the principles of storydoing. Indeed, our best-run companie - from small start-ups to global conglomerates - organize around a coherent narrative that is then broadcast through every action they take (from product design to customer service to marketing).

In The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus, Charles Manz looks to the New Testament to see what it holds for today's leaders. What he finds are powerful leadership lessons that can enable both leaders and followers to maintain integrity, live on a higher plane, and ultimately, reach personal and professional goals through sound practical principles.

Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog! has helped millions around the world get more done in less time. Now this life-changing global best seller has been adapted to the specific needs of students. Tracy offers listeners tips, tools, and techniques for structuring time, setting goals, staying on task (even when you're not interested), dealing with stress, and developing the skills to achieve far more than you ever thought possible.

Do you feel like you’ve lost control of your life? You have big dreams but you never seem to be able to just stick to the plan? Taking responsibility for your life and being on your own, without a boss or a coach to give you specific instruction, can easily feel overwhelming. It’s easy to feel distracted and lose sight of your objectives when it feels like you have all the time in the world. Here’s the big secret: Motivation is not enough! It’s never too late to cast away blame and procrastination and take full ownership of the unstoppable power of personal choice.

Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it....

Daily observation of classroom teaching can significantly impact the quality of teaching and learning. Organized into 21 chapters designed to be read over a period of 21 school days, Now We're Talking! presents a results-driven approach that far surpasses traditional walkthrough models of feedback for teachers. School leaders will complete two cycles of teacher evaluations while reading the book and establish the necessary foundation for subsequent visits.

What makes some leaders so effective when the stakes are high, while others fall short? Why are some able to not only survive but to lead their organizations to new heights even in risky, fast-changing times? The answer is succinct but multi-layered: such leaders display courage, judgment, and fortitude. High-stakes leadership does not require unnatural powers, nor is it predicated on a dangerous situation. The three signature character traits can be cultivated by anyone at any level in any organization, big or small.

We’ve all worked with one - a smart and immensely talented individual who brings enormous value to the organization. The problem? He’s an awful teammate. So as a leader, do you consider this key player toxic or irreplaceable? There Is an I in Team explores the relationship between individual and team - asking the question: How can we harness the talent of individual performers into a cohesive, productive team that creates overall value? And why are so many of our assumptions about teams wrong? Business challenges like this one mimic many of the issues facing sports teams.

In Angry Kids, Angry Parents, you will learn how to respond to your child's anger in a sensitive and productive way that validates their feelings, addresses their needs, and teaches them to manage their own anger. It can be nerve-wracking to watch your child explode in rage. This book will teach you how to stay calm and protect your boundaries.

Projects require managers, but programs warrant maestros. Tasked with overseeing multiple project teams and thousands of activities, program managers have one of the most challenging jobs in the market. Too many overburdened managers are leaving otherwise great jobs, even the field entirely, because they haven’t equipped themselves with the right tools in hand to take on this complex but fulfilling job. How to Manage Complex Programs explains the ins and outs of program management and provides concrete and effective techniques for structuring deliverables, workflow, and staffing.

Sometimes managing a sales team feels like trying to manage chaos, and in a way it is—there are so many unpredictable influences at work in sales. In Nuts and Bolts of Sales Management, John Treace, mining decades of executive sales experience gained from successful business turnarounds, provides managers with proven strategies to build a high-performing sales team that will consistently produce desired results.

Being a great leader - one who drives massive passion, commitment and engagement - is within your reach. Follow the step-by-step plan in Employee Engagement 2.0 and prepare to be a great place to work.