Science Business

What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety; these notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.

No data is completely safe. Cyberattacks on companies and individuals are on the rise and growing not only in number but also in ferocity. And while you may think your company has taken all the precautionary steps to prevent an attack, no individual, company, or country is safe. Cybersecurity can no longer be left exclusively to IT specialists. Improving and increasing data security practices and identifying suspicious activity is everyone's responsibility, from the boardroom to the break room.

Published in more than two dozen countries, How to Change the World has become a bible for the field of social entrepreneurship. It tells the stories of people building innovative and pattern-changing solutions to social and economic problems.

In the early 80s, Mark Fleischman reopened Studio 54, the world's most glamorous and notorious nightclub, after it was closed down by the State of New York. Ten thousand people showed up that night, ready to restart the party that abruptly ended after the raid in 1978 landed its former owners in jail. Inside Studio 54 invites you to revisit the happening scenes of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, the post-Pill, pre-AIDS era of free love, consequence-free sex, and seemingly endless partying. Following Fleischman as he built connections that lead him to Studio 54.

Leaders already know that the classic approach to strategy - analyze, plan, execute - is losing relevance. But they don't yet know what replaces it. As everyone and everything becomes more interconnected and digitized, how do you operate, compete, and win? Ming Zeng, the former chief of staff and strategy adviser to Alibaba Group's founder, Jack Ma, explains how the latest technological developments, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the mobile internet, and cloud computing, are redefining how value is created.

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits.

Our increasingly interconnected, digitized, and globalized world presents immense opportunities and unique challenges. Modern businesses and schools interact with individuals and organizations from a diverse range of cultural and national backgrounds - increasing the likelihood for miscommunication, errors in strategy, and unintended consequences in the process. Use Your Difference to Make a Difference provides listeners with a skills-based, actionable plan that transforms differences into agents of inclusiveness, connection, and mutual understanding.

Culture change expert and diversity speaker Michelle Silverthorn explains how to transform diversity and inclusion from mere lip service into the very heart of leadership. Following the journey of a Black woman in the workplace, leaders learn the old rules of diversity that keep failing her and millions like her again and again, and the new rules they must put in place to make success a reality for everyone.

Scott Page, a leading thinker, writer, and speaker whose ideas and advice are sought after by corporations, nonprofits, universities, and governments around the world, makes a clear and compellingly pragmatic case for diversity and inclusion. He presents overwhelming evidence that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls "diversity bonuses".

Author Harvey Reese, a successful new-product developer, consultant, and licensing agent, reveals his proven step-by-step process for formulating an idea that manufacturers are willing to pay for. He gives you the nuts and bolts information on patents, negotiating the deal, and the licensing process. Filled with examples of successful, well-known licensing ventures, How to License your Million Dollar Idea has all the information and motivation you need to grow your idea into a fortune.

Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation itself that explains them and that will itself shape the 21st century for good and ill. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen, hard to summon into existence to order, yet inevitable and inexorable when it does happen.

Without a strong grasp of performance metrics, a company can have no clear, quantitative indication of its performance improvement. Six Sigma Business Scorecard offers a unique approach to measuring performance. Listeners will learn how to track their improvements in operations and financials - and make critical adjustments if such improvements are not up to expectations - using Six Sigma. This much-needed second edition of Six Sigma Business Scorecard delivers an innovative Execution Map allowing you to implement, reap, and quantify the many advantages of Six Sigma.

Today, organizations are grappling with ambiguity, volatility, and paradox surrounding the challenges they face. This is complexity. But too many leaders approach complexity the wrong way - they push their people harder and harder and tackle problems one at a time over months, sometimes even years and nearly always in a linear fashion. It’s like setting a pot of water on “low” and waiting for it to boil. In this book, the authors share their proven formula for dramatically shortening the process and solving an organization’s toughest challenges in mere days.

Since 1946, Henry Hazlitt's best-selling Economics in One Lesson has popularized the belief that economics can be boiled down to one simple lesson: market prices represent the true cost of everything. But one-lesson economics tells only half the story. It can explain why markets often work so well, but it can't explain why they often fail so badly - or what we should do when they stumble. In Economics in Two Lessons, John Quiggin teaches both lessons, offering a masterful introduction to the key ideas behind the successes - and failures - of free markets.

Learn to conquer every challenge like a pro with the clear, candid advice in The First-Time Manager. For nearly four decades, this trusted guide has brought newcomers up to speed on the nitty gritty realities of managing people. The updated seventh edition delivers new information that helps you manage across generations, use online performance appraisal tools, persuade with stories, oversee remote employees, build a team dynamic, match a boss’ style, and more.

From the best-selling authors of The Daily Stoic comes an inspiring guide to the lives of the Stoics, and what the ancients can teach us about happiness, success, resilience, and virtue. In Lives of the Stoics, Holiday and Hanselman present the fascinating lives of the men and women who strove to live by the timeless Stoic virtues of Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. Organized in digestible, mini-biographies of all the well-known - and not so well-known - Stoics, this book vividly brings home what Stoicism was like for the people who loved it and lived it.

Around the world, a new generation is looking beyond greater profits, for meaningful purpose. But, unlike business, few social interventions have achieved significant impact at scale. Inspired by the modern innovation practices popularized by best seller The Lean Startup that have fueled technology breakthroughs touching every aspect of our lives, Lean Impact turns our attention to a new goal-achieving radically greater social good.

Regardless of what you want to accomplish, from growing your business, creating a great company culture, championing a social cause, or affecting your habits, you can’t do it alone. The people around you define your success (whatever that means for you) and they have the potential to change the course of your life.

Sometimes designed objects reject their users: a computer mouse that doesn't work for left-handed people, for example, or a touchscreen payment system that only works for people who read English phrases, have 20/20 vision, and use a credit card. These mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion. In Mismatch, Kat Holmes describes how design can lead to exclusion, and how design can also remedy exclusion.

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.