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The Swordless Samurai Leadership Wisd...
Brief Summary
It was the Age of Wars, a time of endless chaos and bloodshed, when the only law was the law of the sword, and a peasant boy named Hideyoshi dreamed of becoming a samurai. He lacked size and strength and well as social status. To realize his ambition, he had to rely on wits alone.
A keen student of human nature, he learned to outthink and outmaneuver every foe. Not only did he become a samurai, be he also commanded vast armies, and finally, became ruler of an entire nation. Hideyoshi far surpassed his childhood ambition---this son of a penniless farmer became one of the greatest military and civic leaders the world has ever known.
What enabled an unschooled peasant to usurp, outnegotiate, and conquer ruthless samurai generals? How did he recruit and retain thousands of devoted followers?
The timeless leadership secrets that Hideyoshi used to reach the pinnacle of power are now available in English for the first time. Destined to take its place beside such classics as The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, The Swordless Samurai is required reading for all who seek effective strategies for succeeding in business, conflict, and life.
ISBN:9781466848986
Author:Kitami Masao and Tim Clark
Heads You Win How the Best Companies ...
Brief Summary
Heads, You Win!: How the Best Companies Think--and How You Can Use Their Examples to Develop Critical Thinking Within Your Own Organization
New Coke. The Walt Disney Company's aborted theme park near the Manassas battlefield. AT&T's acquisition of NCR Corp. Were these merely the gaffes of individual decision makers, or do they represent larger, organizational deficiencies in critical thinking?
How confident are you in the collective brainpower of your organization?
The most crucial task facing any business leader in today's brutally competitive economy is to sharpen his or her organization's ability to effectively solve problems, make decisions, and cut through the information clutter.
In Heads, You Win!, Kepner-Tregoe's CEO, Quinn Spitzer, and executive Ron Evans cite the experiences and share the advice of the presidents and CEOs of some of the world's most innovative companies -- organizations like Johnson & Johnson, Chrysler Corporation, British Airways, and Harley-Davidson, Inc. -- that are successful because they capitalize on the brainpower of every employee.
Filled with practical tips and techniques, and lightened with amusing, real-life anecdotes, Heads, You Win! is an indispensable tool for sorting through the complexities of running a business today and identifying the essential skills that determine a company's success.
ISBN:9780684838755
Author:Quinn Spitzer and Ron Evans
Big Business Poor Peoples How Transna...
Brief Summary
This new and updated edition of Big Business, Poor Peoples exposes how many of the natural resources of developing countries are being ceded to transnational corporations answerable to no one but their shareholders.
The author argues that transnational corporations have used their money, size and power to influence international negotiations and that they have taken full advantage of the move towards privatization to influence the policies of governments.
Sovereignty, he concludes, is passing into corporate hands and the poor are paying the price. But people are fighting back. Citizens, workers, communities, are exposing the corporations and looking for alternatives.
ISBN:9781848130333
Author:John Madeley
Marketing As Strategy Understanding t...
Brief Summary
CEOs are more than frustrated by marketing's inability to deliver results. Has the profession lost its relevance? Nirmalya Kumar argues that, although the function of marketing has lost ground, the importance of marketing as a mind-set--geared toward customer focus and market orientation--has gained momentum across the entire organization.
This book challenges marketers to change their role from implementers of traditional marketing functions to strategic coordinators of organization-wide initiatives aimed at profitably delivering value to customers.
Kumar outlines seven cross-functional and bottom-line-oriented initiatives that can put marketing back on the CEO's agenda--and elevate its role in shaping the destiny of the firm.
ISBN:9781591392101
Author:Nirmalya Kumar
Global Trade Past Mistakes Future Cho...
Brief Summary
This details what is happening in global trade politics and how development NGOs, think-tanks and others critical of globalization are responding to it. The author argues that trade is the main policy area where there is least agreement among the critics of the WTO and the Western interests it protects.
Yet by not articulating consistent or credible alternatives to that dominant agenda, they are missing a great opportunity. Buckman argues for three broad campaigning demands that can be agreed on: fairer trade policies and practices; more trade cooperation among poor countries; and greater localization of production in all countries.
ISBN:9781842775790
Author:Greg Buckman
The Carrot Principle How the Best Man...
Brief Summary
The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance
Stick Management is out. Carrot management is in! The Carrot Principle offers proven strategies to help recognize and motivate your valued employees.
Since its original publication in 2007, the New York Times bestseller The Carrot Principle has received rave reviews in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and The New York Times, and has helped a host of managers to energize their teams, and companies to dramatically boost their business results. The book was even adopted by the prestigious Franklin Covey International training and consulting group for its leadership training. This updated edition couldn't come at a better time, as the economic downturn requires us all to come up with creative and cost-effective ways to stimulate growth and productivity.
Revealing the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, The Carrot Principle shows definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. With independent results from Health Stream Research, and analysis by bestselling leadership experts Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, this breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel. These managers lead with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so achieve higher:
• Productivity
• Engagement
• Retention
In a new chapter, Gostick and Elton report on the results of an extensive study, conducted by leading research authority Towers Perrin that confirms the extraordinary effectiveness of the Carrot Principle approach all around the globe.
Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group, Gostick and Elton show how the key to recognition done right is combining it with four other core traits of effective leadership. Gostick and Elton walk readers through exactly how to use the simple but powerful methods they have discovered all great managers use to provide their employees with this effective recognition, which can be learned easily and will produce immediate results.
Great recognition can be done in a matter of moments -- and it doesn't take budget-busting amounts of money. Following these simple steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.
ISBN:9781439149171
Author:Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
Confucius on Leadership by John Adair
Brief Summary
A path to effective leadership using the wisdom of the ancient philosopher
Few things are more important than the quality and credibility of leaders, as they play a vital role in every aspect of our lives, yet strong leadership is a difficult skill to master. Good leaders must learn not only to manage, analyze, and appraise, but also to encourage, improve, and inspire.
Here, a leadership training expert explains how Confucian philosophy can help one become a better leader. He demonstrates how, far from merely being interesting ideas from centuries ago, Confucius's sayings, or Analects, can help readers to develop all aspects of leadership ability—from communication and creativity to motivation and decision-making.
Whether one already has a team or an organization, or has aspirations to build one, this unique combination of ancient and modern wisdom will help build the skills needed to be the best leader possible.
ISBN:9781447218807
Author:John Adair
Better Stronger Faster The Myth of Am...
Brief Summary
Financial meltdown, a deep recession, and political polarization—combined with strong growth outside the United States—have led to a global bubble of pessimism surrounding America’s economic prospects. Bloated with debt, and outpaced by China and other emerging markets, the United States has been left for dead as an economic force. But in this time of grim predictions, Daniel Gross, Yahoo! financial columnist and author of Dumb Money, offers a refreshingly optimistic take on our nation’s economic prospects, examining the positive trends that point to a better, stronger future.
Widely respected for his Newsweek and Slate coverage of the crash and the recovery, Daniel Gross shows that much of the talk about decline is misplaced. In the wake of the crash, rather than accept the inevitability of a Japan-style lost decade, America’s businesses and institutions tapped into the very strengths that built the nation’s economy into a global powerhouse in the first place: speed, ingenuity, adaptability, pragmatism, entrepreneurship, and, most significant, an ability to engage with the world. As the United States wallowed in self-pity, the world continued to see promise in what America has to offer—buying exports, investing in the United States, and adopting American companies and business models as their own. Global growth, it turns out, is not a zero-sum game.
Better, Stronger, Faster is an account of the remarkable reconstruction and reorientation that started in March 2009, a period that Gross compares to March 1933—as both marked the start of unexpected recoveries. As the U.S. public sector undertook aggressive fiscal and monetary actions, the private sector sprang into action. Companies large and small restructured, tapped into long-dormant internal resources, and invested for growth, at home and abroad. Between 2009 and 2011, as Europe struggled with a cascade of crises, the U.S. got back on its feet—and began to run.
Through stories of innovative solutions devised by policy makers, businesses, investors, and consumers, Gross explains how America has the potential to emerge from this period, not as the unrivaled ruler of the global economy but as a healthier leader and an enabler of sustainable growth.
ISBN:9781451621358
Author:Daniel Gross
Ahead of the Curve A Commonsense Guid...
Brief Summary
Economic and stock market cycles affect companies in every industry. Unfortunately, a confusing array of anecdotal and conflicting indicators often renders it impossible for managers and investors to see where the economy is heading in time to take corrective action.
Now, a 35-year Wall Street veteran unveils a new forecasting method to help managers and investors understand and predict the economic cycles that control their businesses and financial fates. In Ahead of the Curve, Joseph H. Ellis argues that the problem with current forecasting models lies not in the data, but rather in the lack of a clear framework for putting the data in context and reading it correctly.
The book explains critical economic indicators in nontechnical language, identifies and documents the recurring cause-and-effect relationships that consistently predict turning points in the economy, and provides the tools managers and investors need to position themselves ahead of cyclical upturns and downturns. Economic events are not as random and unpredictable as they seem.
This book helps readers recognize and react to signs of change that their rivals don't see—and win a sizeable competitive advantage. Joseph H. Ellis was a partner at Goldman Sachs and was ranked for 18 consecutive years by Institutional Investor magazine as Wall Street's No.1 retail industry analyst.
ISBN:9781591396918
Author:Joseph H. Ellis
The Zero Turnover Sales Force
Brief Summary
The Zero-Turnover Sales Force: How to Maximize Revenue by Keeping Your Sales Team Intact
There’s no question about it Sales force turnover can be disastrous to the financial health of an organization, whatever its size, whatever its products or services. With a salesperson’s exit often costing at least 150% of that employee’s annual compensation, a high rate of turnover can translate into millions of dollars lost each year.
The Zero-Turnover Sales Force exposes the outdated Old School management practices that perpetuate this costly but avoidable problem. This eye-opening book examines the real reasons for high turnover, explains how it can be avoided, and gives readers specific strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of their sales force.
The book demonstrates how to combat the 12 Assassins of Sales Force Stability, such as cold calling, straight commission sales compensation, weak recruiting, unfocused training, fuzzy goals, and unrealistic expectations. Sparkling with fresh thinking on hiring smarter, appreciating the values of younger salespeople, retaining top sellers, eliminating wasteful cold calling, and conducting sales meetings that work, The Zero-Turnover Sales Force is a powerful must-read for any corporate executive, sales manager, or salesperson who aspires to management.
ISBN:9780814415603
Author:Doug McLeod
Chinese Business Etiquette
Brief Summary
Chinese Business Etiquette: A Guide to Protocol, Manners, and Culture in the People's Republic of China.
East-West business is booming as thousands of people flock to China. The author, with 25 years of experience dealing with the Chinese, provides up-to-date advice on how to succeed, avoid gaffes, interpret behaviour and make positive impressions.
ISBN:9780446673877
Author:Scott D. Seligman
Future Hype The Myths of Technology C...
Brief Summary
Conventional wisdom says that technology is the greatest new growth frontier, coupling infinite potential with an ever-growing number of faster, more efficient, and more reliable products and instruments. According to this view, we live in an unprecedented golden era of technological expansion. "Future Hype argues the opposite.
Author Bob Seidensticker, who has an intimate understanding of technology on professional, theoretical, and academic levels, asserts that today's technological achievements are neither fast nor progressive. He explodes seven major myths of technology, including "Change is exponential," "Product cycle time is decreasing," and "Today's high-tech price reductions are unprecedented."
Examining the history of tech hype, Seidensticker skillfully uncovers the inaccuracies and misinterpretations that characterize the popular view of technology, explaining how and why this view has been created, and offering specific strategies for measuring progress against what is actually known rather than against what its boosters have promised.
ISBN:9781576753705
Author:Robert B. Seidensticker
Head Heart and Guts How the Worlds Be...
Brief Summary
Head, Heart and Guts: How the World's Best Companies Develop Complete Leaders
This book reveals the three most important capabilities leaders must demonstrate today: the ability to set strategy, empathize with others, and take risks—all at the same time. In Head, Heart, and Guts, leadership experts David Dotlich, Peter Cairo, and Stephen Rhinesmith—who teach and coach CEOs and executive teams throughout the world—argue that to be successful in a complex, matrixed, fast-moving world, "whole” leaders must set strategy, develop trusting relationships with others, and consistently do the right thing based on personal values.
"Partial” leaders, often the product of traditional executive programs, may be successful in the shortrun, but their companies lose over time. Filled with case studies of companies such as Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and UBS, Head, Heart, and Guts, lays out specific steps and actions for leaders who want to grow beyond their "leadership comfort zone” and an action plan for companies that want to move beyond tried-and-true leadership development in order to develop "whole” leaders throughout their leadership pipeline.
ISBN:9780787964795
Author:David L. Dotlich, Peter C. Cairo and Stephen H. Rhinesmith
The Retail Revolution How WalMart Cre...
Brief Summary
Wal-Mart is the world's largest company and it sets the standard--both social and commercial--for a huge swath of the global economy. In this probing investigation, historian Nelson Lichtenstein shows how the company's success has spread evangelical Protestantism into the workplace, made South China an American workshop, and pushed American politics to the right.
At the same time, he anticipates a day of reckoning, when challenges to the Wal-Mart way, at home and abroad, are likely to change the far-flung empire.
Insightful and original, The Retail Revolution gives a fresh and necessary understanding of the phenomenon that has reshaped international commerce.
ISBN:9780312429683
Author:Nelson Lichtenstein
The Attackers Advantage by Ram Charan
Brief Summary
The Attacker's Advantage: Turning Uncertainty into Breakthrough Opportunities.
The forces driving today's world of structural change create sharp bends in the road that can lead to major explosions in your existing market space. But exponential change also offers exponential opportunities. How do you leverage change to go on the offense? The Attacker's Advantage is the game plan for winning in an era of ambiguity, volatility, and complexity, when every leader and every business is being challenged in new and unexpected ways.
Ram Charan, harnessing an unequalled depth and breadth of experience working with leaders and companies around the globe, provides tested, practical tools to help you:
• Build the perceptual acuity to see around corners and detect, ahead of others, those forces—especially people, who are the catalysts of change—that could radically reshape a company or industry
• Have the mindset to see opportunity in uncertainty
• Commit to a new path forward despite the unknowns, positioning your business to make the next move ahead of competitors
• Break the blockages that can hold your company back
• Know when to accelerate and when to shift the short-term and long-term balance
Make your organization agile and steerable by aligning people, priorities, decision-making power, budgeting and capital allocation, and key performance indicators to the new realities of the marketplace
The Attacker's Advantage provides a stark and simple challenge: stay in a legacy world of incremental gains or defensiveness, or be an attacker by creating a new world, scaling it up quickly, ahead of the traditional players.
ISBN:9781610394741
Author:Ram Charan
Ideaship How to Get Ideas Flowing in ...
Brief Summary
Innovative, original ideas are a company's most powerful competitive advantage. Nathan Mhyrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft, has said that a great employee is worth 1,000 times more than an average one simply because of his or her ideas. In Ideaship, the sequel to his bestselling book, how to Get Ideas, Jack Foster shifts from how individuals spark their new ideas to how to unleash the creative genius of an entire organization.
To create an idea-prone workforce, Foster proposes a totally new concept of leadership: "ideaship." Leaders shouldn't be spending their time obsessing over profits or sales or quality or service. Instead, they should devote most of their energies to making the office a place where creative ideas flow, where the workforce truly believes in its ability to brilliantly solve any problem put before it. Above all, where it's fun to work.
With energy and humor, Foster draws on over thirty-five years as creative director of major advertising agencies-organizations whose only purpose is to constantly generate ideas-to offer dozens of fun, fast, often surprising nuggets of practical advice on how to create an environment where innovation and fresh thinking thrive.
He reveals why you should only hire people you like, insist employees take vacations whether they want to or not, why efficiency is sometimes inefficient, and how sometimes you can accomplish more by playing the fool instead of the capital L "Leader."
Ideaship spells out proven ways to encourage creativity, simply and clearly and cogently, without a lot of charts and graphs and formulas and acronyms and statistics and fillers. It flips traditional leadership on its head and shows how simple acts of compassion, trust, and generosity of spirit, as well as some seemingly zany actions, can unleash unexpected, vital bursts of creativity.
ISBN:9781576751640
Author:Jack Foster and Larry Corby
Private Label Strategy How to Meet th...
Brief Summary
As retailers have become more powerful and global, they have increasingly focused on their own brands at the expense of manufacturer brands. Rather than simply selling on price, retailers have transformed private labels into brands. Consequently, manufacturers such as Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, and Procter & Gamble now compete with their largest customers: major retail chains like Carrefour, CVS, Tesco, and Wal-Mart.
The growth in private labels has huge implications for managers on both sides. Yet, brand manufacturers still cling to their outdated assumptions about private labels. In Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge, Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp describe the new strategies for private labels that retailers are using, and challenge brand manufacturers to develop an effective response.
Most important, they lay out actionable strategies for competing against - or collaborating with - private label purveyors. Packed with detailed international case studies, valuable visuals, and hands-on tools, Private Label Strategy enables managers to navigate profitably in this radically altered landscape.
ISBN:9781422101674
Author:Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-benedict E. m. Steenkamp
Beyond Buzz The Next Generation of Wo...
Brief Summary
Gold prize winner for best marketing book (tie), 2008 Axiom/Inc Magazine awards Finalist, 2008 Berry-American Marketing Association Book Prize It’s official: the old marketing model is dead, and word of mouth is king. But while a lot of attention has been paid to the mechanics of creating buzz, only the savviest of marketers have learned to focus on crafting the right kind of message -- because without it, even the loudest buzz will soon die down.
Beyond Buzz shows readers how to listen to customers, identify what is important to them, and then craft the kind of message that will truly resonate and spark conversation. Filled with insightful examples of conversational marketing at work, Beyond Buzz gives readers the tools and inspiration they need to create an effective and interesting conversational theme that will engage their customers and take their marketing to a whole new level.
Without the right message in place, word of mouth marketing will never live up to its promise. This innovative and practical book shows readers how to ignite people’s interest...and generate much more than buzz.
ISBN:9780814416754
Author:Lois KELLY
The Robot in the Next Cubicle by Larr...
Brief Summary
The Robot in the Next Cubicle: What You Need to Know to Adapt and Succeed in the Automation Age
This optimistic and useful look at the coming convergence of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, shows how we can take advantage of this revolution in the workplace, crafting "robot-proof jobs" and not fearing "the robocalypse."
It's called the Fourth Industrial Revolution--a revolution fueled by analytics and technology--that consists of data-driven smart products, services, entertainment, and new jobs. Economist and data scientist Larry Boyer lays out the wealth of exciting possibilities this revolution brings as well as the serious concerns about its disruptive impact on the lives of average Americans.
Most important, he shows readers how to navigate this sea of change, pointing to strategies that will give businesses and individuals the best chance to succeed and providing a roadmap to thriving in this new economy.
Boyer describes how future workers may have to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, marketing their special talents as valuable skills that machines cannot do. This will be especially important in the coming employment climate, when full-time jobs are likely to decrease and industries move toward contract-based employment. He provides guidelines for identifying your individual talents and pursuing the training that will make you stand out. He also shows you how to promote your personal brand to give more exposure to your unique skills.
Whether we like it or not, automation will soon transform the work place and employment prospects. This book will show you how to look for and take advantage of the opportunities that this revolution presents.
ISBN:9781633884090
Author:Larry Boyer
The Specialty Shop How to Create Your...
Brief Summary
The Specialty Shop: How to Create Your Own Unique and Profitable Retail Business
At some point in their lives, many people fantasize about running a shop of their own. But while many of them actually do open their own shop, only about a quarter of them will succeed. Every year, nearly two million small specialty shops open in the U.S. alone, and more than 500,000 go out of business. The Specialty Shop shows readers how they can establish a business that they are passionate about and that will also be profitable for years to come.
Dorothy Finell has traveled the world in search of fascinating, creative, and successful shops. In The Specialty Shop, she describes more than 37 of them, including bakeries, gift shops, toy stores, book shops, tea houses, clothing boutiques, and even unique shops like Papier-Maché, a mask shop in Venice, Italy and The Carmel Doll Shop in Carmel, California.
Based on interviews with shop owners, Finell offers advice on everything new shop owners need to know, from pre-planning, décor and display, finance, and customer service to marketing and community relations. She also includes appendices on trade and gift shows where shop owners can find the merchandise they need. Filled with lively vignettes and beautiful photographs, The Specialty Shop will show prospective owners how to open the shop of their dreams and nurture their business into a success.
ISBN:9780814474426
Author:Dorothy Finell