Small Leadership

Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and ride-sharing apps do the same for drivers and riders.

Addressing diverse issues depends on improving your soft skills - such as time management, team-building, communication and listening, creative-thinking, and problem-solving. But this isn’t as easy as it may seem. Sue Ashford has the solution. In this timely book, she introduces Flexing - a technique individuals, teams, and entire organizations can use to learn, grow, and develop their skills and knowledge with every new project, work assignment, and problem. Flexing empowers you to embrace any challenge and adapt to any change, yielding valuable takeaways that ensure growth.

At the turn of the last century, the Guggenheim family ran the most powerful mining conglomerate on earth. Decades later came the Guggenheim museum, which became the hub of the world’s most powerful art brand. In between, the Guggenheim name was uttered in every field from aviation to politics, from journalism to rocketry.

How do you develop products that people will actually use and buy? This practical guide shows you how to validate product and company ideas through customer development research - before you waste months and millions on a product or service that no one needs or wants. With a combination of open-ended interviewing and fast and flexible research techniques, you’ll learn how your prospective customers behave, the problems they need to solve, and what frustrates and delights them

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.

Our work-driven culture encourages us to take the entrepreneurial bait, but how can you know whether being an entrepreneur will end as a dream come true or a nightmare from which you cannot awake? Building on Bedrock will help answer that question. This book focuses on when you should take the leap and whether entrepreneurship is even the right thing for you. Based upon research, but told through the stories of American businessman and entrepreneur Sam Walton and others, this book discusses the who, what, when, where, how, how much, and why of successful entrepreneurs.

Start a successful business mid-life When you think of someone launching a start-up, the image of a twenty-something techie probably springs to mind. However, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are just as likely to start businesses and reinvent themselves later in life. Never Too Old to Get Rich is an exciting road map for anyone age 50-plus looking to be their own boss and launch their dream business.

The iconic Sydney to Hobart Race, a 723-mile deepwater challenge - often called the “Everest” of offshore ocean racing - is considered one of the toughest in the world. Unpredictable weather and seas make each race demanding, but in 1998, an unexpected “weather bomb” hit the fleet, creating 80-foot waves and 100-mile-per-hour winds. Many bigger, better-equipped boats tried to maneuver around the storm, but the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler chose to head directly into its path.

The comprehensive guide to starting and growing your dream business. In this groundbreaking audiobook, best-selling author Jim Stovall shares the practical wisdom gained from his 40-year career as an award-winning entrepreneur alongside the time-tested strategies compiled by Dr. Kevin Schneider through his experience as the director of the Stovall Center for Entrepreneurship at Oral Roberts University. Few books have offered both pragmatic, real-world examples and proven academic principles, as listeners will find in The Art of Entrepreneurship.

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization's products or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

Written for the practitioner by a practitioner, it delivers a comprehensive insider's view of Lean management. The author helps listeners grasp the system as a whole, as well as the factors that animate it, by organizing the book around an image of a house of Lean production.

Throughout history, there are some events that stand out as so groundbreaking that they completely change life as we know it. The Apollo moon landing of 1969 was one of those events - the invention of the Apple personal computer was another. In this book, John Sculley - former CEO of both Pepsi and Apple - claims we are in an era that is giving birth to numerous groundbreaking events and inventions - moonshots - that will change the way we live and work for generations to come.

Entrepreneur’s Guide to Consumer Packaged Goods: The Winning Growth Strategy for a Food & Beverage CPG Startup is a high-level resource for getting started in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. The book analyzes the strategies needed to scale and grow a CPG business. It covers the strategic blunders to avoid and all other relevant topics needed to launch a CPG company.

Not all heroes wear capes. You might not think of yourself as a hero, but every time you create value for others, you're benefiting people and making life easier or better for them in some way. The question is, "Who do you want to be a hero to?" By identifying the key audience you want to create value for, you focus yourself on the most crucial people in your life, helping them to grow their capabilities - and growing your own as well.

This amazing book is jam-packed with the best, most profitable business ideas and ways to earn extra cash. Every one of these businesses is generating profits for other ambitious people. Now it's your turn to start your own business and prosper in the years to come. Whether you'd like an opportunity to earn a little extra money or you are looking for a way to make a full-time income, you'll achieve your own success with one of the 235 profitable businesses described in this book.

In Selling Without Selling Out, Sunny Vanderbeck offers practical advice for selling your business or taking on a capital partner without compromising on what matters to you. Using lessons learned from his own hard-won experiences as well as insights from a variety of experts, he outlines what to look for and what to avoid to feel good on the day after the transaction closes.

In 1965, John Brink left the Netherlands for Canada equipped with only a single suitcase and $25.47 in cash. He had no connections, he didn’t speak the language, and he’d never finished elementary school, yet he was convinced he could make his dream to build his own sawmill come true. With a tenacity bordering on obsession, John achieved his dreams...and then some. In this lively autobiography, John distills a half-century’s hard work to share 10 simple takeaways.

In this new book, Frederick Chavalit Tsao and Chris Laszlo argue that current approaches to leadership fail to produce positive outcomes for either businesses or the communities they serve. Employee disengagement and customer fickleness remain high, resulting in a lack of creativity and collaboration at all levels of entrepreneurial activity. Investor demand for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) continues to be poorly integrated into profit strategies.

Who’s going to write the next chapter in the saga of American business? Who’s going to chronicle the best way to compete, the new way to win? That’s the mission of Mavericks at Work, a book that profiles a network of rebels who are creating a new business model that makes use of fresh principles and captures what it means to be a state-of-the-art organization. Including such pioneering companies as ING Direct, Southwest Airlines, Pixar, HBO, Anthropologie, Craigslist, Netflix, and Commerce Bank, this book is nothing short of a lively new intellectual agenda for business.

Yet what training has prepared you to run a business? E-Myth Real Insurance Store fills this knowledge gap, giving you a complete toolkit for either starting a successful business from scratch or maximizing an existing business’ performance. Loaded with practical, powerful advice you can easily use, this one-stop guide helps you realize all the benefits that come with a thriving insurance business.