Small Business Leadership

In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth. In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company - the Exponential Organization - that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology.

This is a complete guide to how to create a plan for, open, operate, and market a new small business. This book intends to help you overcome fear and inspire you to own and operate your own small business.

What is the difference between a startup that makes it, and one that crashes and burns? Behind every story of success is an unfair advantage. But an Unfair Advantage is not just about your parents' wealth or who you know: Anyone can have one. An Unfair Advantage is the element that gives you an edge over your competition.

There can be no doubt about the credentials of Bill George, former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, who has been named one of Business Week's "Top 25 Managers". In Authentic Leadership, George lays out his plan for improving corporate America's flaws through responsible leadership.

We're in "wild west" times for business. Thanks to social media and new technologies, customer-brand relationships are suddenly wide open and up for grabs. Big players are getting taken down, while upstarts are starting up, gunning for market share, and outmaneuvering the Goliaths. So, just when a rethink might seem in order, why do so many act like it's 1982 all over again? Why do they believe product pushing still works?

We all know a visionary leader when we see one. They're bold and prophetic and at the same time pragmatic. They don't just promote change - they drive it, while inspiring and mobilizing others to do the same. Visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos possess a host of innate qualities that make them extraordinary, but what truly sets them apart is their ability to turn vision into action. Here, Innosight's Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz introduce a new way of thinking and managing, called "future-back", that enables any manager to become a practical visionary.

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:

The subject of “design thinking” is the rage at business schools, throughout corporations, and increasingly in the popular press - due in large part to work of IDEO, a leading design firm, and its celebrated CEO, Tim Brown, who uses this audiobook to reveal how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business. Change by Design is an audiobook for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

Every year, managers at companies large and small are finding it harder to compete with the likes of Google and Amazon, who are stealing their customers and cornering every conceivable market and service. There is, however, a way for companies to survive - and win - in this era of digital behemoths. Choose Your Customer is a powerful customer-targeted guide that can help managers level the playing field against their biggest competitors.

Whether you're imagining your new business to be the next big thing in Silicon Valley, a pivotal B2B provider, or an anchor in your local community, the Harvard Business Review Entrepreneur's Handbook is your essential resource for getting your company off the ground. Starting an independent new business is rife with both opportunity and risk. And as an entrepreneur, you're the one in charge: Your actions can make or break your business. You need to know the tried-and-true fundamentals - from writing a business plan to getting your first loan.

Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, reveals how traditional Silicon Valley "wisdom" leads far too many startups astray, with the transparency and humor that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: A young, brilliant entrepreneur has a cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions, and becomes the envy of the technology world. This is not that story. It's not that things went badly for Rand Fishkin; they just weren't quite so Zuckerberg-esque.

Creating something from nothing is an unpredictable journey. The first mile births a new idea into existence, and the final mile is all about letting go. We love talking about starts and finishes, even though the middle stretch is the most important and often the most ignored and misunderstood. Broken into three sections with 100-plus insights, this no-nonsense audiobook will help you find your way through the hardest parts of any bold project or new venture.

Our world's challenges are too great and too complex for any one organization or government to address on its own. But solutions to these challenges do exist - and will be found through new partnerships bringing together the public, private, and philanthropic sectors. In Social Value Investing, Howard W. Buffett and William B. Eimicke present a new management framework for developing and measuring the success of such partnerships and provide tools to help maximize collaborative efficiency and positive social impact.

Directed at managers on all rungs of the corporate ladder, this thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the best selling Managing Transitions provides practical, step-by-step strategies for reaching goals and minimizing the disruptions caused by workplace change. It is an invaluable managerial tool for navigating an inevitably tumultuous time.

This book triggers you to think and act strategically, shows what you can learn from business models inside and outside your industry, and urges you to apply those learnings to make your own shift.

Finding the right venture capitalist to back your start-up is a challenge. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some dictator who will undermine your vision and take control of your life's work. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone.

The exact qualities that bring an individual to found a start-up company (their brilliance and expertise) are what prevent them from achieving the success they are looking for - this is the paradox that is entrepreneurship. What starts out as freedom and financial independence turns into grueling hours and added stress and bills. But successful five-time entrepreneur Curtis Morley is here to help. He shares that every entrepreneur is typically doing the same 15 things wrong or just not doing them at all - regardless of industry or business type.

All too often, simple acts of human kindness are often overlooked and under utilized by people in leadership roles. Advising mutual respect and recognition of accomplishments, Encouraging the Heart shows us how true leaders encourage and motivate those they work with by helping them find their voice and making them feel like heroes.

In Small Business Revolution president and CEO of Deluxe Corp. Barry C. McCarthy delivers a stirring combination of uplifting narrative and small business instruction manual. Featuring inspiring stories from the company's 106-year history and anecdotes from its Emmy-nominated TV show Small Business Revolution, this book offers listeners the opportunity to learn how to grow and thrive in their business in any environment, from a booming economy to a post-pandemic marketplace.

The road to licensing a profitable, innovative product or technology is riddled with curves, holes, and rocky cliffs. The President of the United Inventors Association shows inventors, innovators, and makers a better path toward monetizing your creations and how to avoid the get-rich-quick scammers. Inventor Confidential will show them where to best spend their hard-earned money to maximize their odds for success.