Leadership Plays

In 1984, soon-to-be college dropout Michael Dell hid signs of his fledgling PC business in the bathroom of his University of Texas dorm room. Almost 30 years later, at the pinnacle of his success as founder and leader of Dell Technologies, he found himself embroiled in a battle for his company’s survival. What he’d do next could ensure its legacy — or destroy it completely.

The how-to playbook for start-ups and established companies on a groundbreaking discipline called category design. Winning today isn't about beating the competition at the old game. It's about inventing a whole new game - defining a new market category, developing it and dominating it over time. You can't build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, you're going to lose.

In Impact Players, New York Times best-selling author and researcher Liz Wiseman reveals the secrets of these stellar professionals who play the game at a higher level. Drawing on insights from leaders at top companies, Wiseman explains what the most influential players are doing differently, how small and seemingly insignificant differences in how we think and act can make an enormous impact, and why - with a little coaching - this mindset is available to everyone who wants to contribute at their highest level.

Self-awareness is key for new and seasoned leaders who want to avoid micro-managing, handle criticism with grace, and give others the credit they deserve. Maxwell also aims to help current and new managers looking to identify their strengths, become a better learner, and improve listening skills.

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR CAREER is a real playbook. It’s about how work really works and how you can get work to work for you. It’s about thank you notes and thankless tasks, the energy in meetings and energy vampires, how to pick a boss and how to get a boss to pick you. It’s about being all in (but not bringing your whole self to work—some of you is better left at home) and becoming valuable to your workplace. It’s about participating—with your brain, your skills, your experience, and your willingness to pitch in and offer yourself up for something you may not even know how to do yet.

Throughout her career in the super-competitive, male-dominated media industry, Gail Evans, one of the country's most powerful executives, has met innumerable women who tell her that they feel lost in the workplace, almost as if they were playing a game without knowing the directions. In this book, she reveals the secrets to the playbook of success and teaches women at all levels of the organization - from assistant to vice president - how to play the game of business to their advantage.

In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women’s rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this audiobook unpacks the ways in which the world has been - and continues to be - remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.

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.

The best bosses know this, and they know how to make it happen by thoughtfully designing people’s jobs around the skills they have today as well as the skills they'll need to be even more valuable tomorrow. That's how entire organizations stay competitive in an unpredictable, rapidly changing business environment. In this book, Johnson explains how to become one of those bosses and how to build your A-team.

After over four decades of leading from the middle of the pack, I want to make the case that second chair just may be the best seat in the house! Second-chair leadership matters. Who we are, what we do, and how we do it as second chair leaders may determine the success or failure of our team, our mission, or our longevity. I am inviting you to journey with me through a comprehensive tour of the multifaceted world of leadership from the second chair in the grand hope that you will thrive from wherever you sit in your organization.

The sigma personality type--the lone wolf--may comprise only one percent of the population, but that still accounts for 25 million people in the global workforce alone. There are sigmas in every major theater of life: professional, familial, and social. This audiobook is for them and for the other 99 percent.

Leadership coach Susan Drumm unveils a groundbreaking process that outlines how our childhood wounds influence our ability to lead others and how music can heal those wounds. Maybe you’re having a hard time retaining or engaging your people. Or perhaps you’re feeling burnout or that you can’t delegate or trust your team to deliver. These problems and other leadership challenges can be addressed by shifting how you show up as a leader, and music is the catalyst.

An inspiring memoir from the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods about building a multibillion-dollar business, coming to the defense of embattled youth sports programs, and taking a principled - and highly controversial - stand against the types of guns that are too often used in mass shootings and other tragedies.

Whether you are a CEO, senior executive, manager or an employee looking to raise his or her performance, The A Player is packed with proven strategies to get you to "A Player" status. Businesses filled with "A Players" are not only more profitable and able to share in that prosperity, but those "A Players" are happier and lead more purpose-filled lives as well. The A Player will teach everyone on your team the required steps to achieve and sustain "A Player" performance and lead the charge in creating remarkable steps both personally and professionally.

This audiobook offers insights from sports, health care, business and government to help leaders get better outcomes.

Organizations that provide opportunities for employees to playfully connect, bond, and build friendships see improvements in retention, engagement, and innovation. Intentional play at work creates a culture that benefits all employees’ physical and mental health and the company’s bottom line. It Pays to Play is a rich resource filled with ideas for play at work—whether in person, hybrid, or remote—and illustrates how the ROI from play is multifaceted and exponential. Learn the ways play can be easily and affordably implemented regardless of your industry.

No football fan will want to be without the book that delivers pure, unfiltered Rex Ryan - head coach of the New York Jets and one of the most popular, outspoken, well-liked, and widely respected personalities in the National Football League.

The multi-award-winning SmartPass study guide with and without commentary options. Full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Hear "A little touch of Harry" whenever you want to! Examine and appreciate the powerful language of leadership in this guided history play, considered to be Shakespeare's greatest creative statement about war.

The multi-award winning SmartPass full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play.

This transformative new era requires a radically different approach to leadership. The tactics put in place to reduce risk, drive success, and make us feel safe in the past are now the very things creating vulnerability today. In Leadering, Nancy Giordano provides clarity and urgency around what 21st century stewardship demands as exponential technologies and changing societal expectations converge to shape a better next. This audiobook challenges us to shift our outdated thinking and adopt the mindset we need to build the future we all want.