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The Halo Effect
Overview
The Halo Effect: and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
With two new chapters and a new preface, the award-winning book The Halo Effect continues to unmask the delusions found in the corporate world and provides a sharp understanding of what drives business success and failure.
Too many of today’s most prominent management gurus make steel-clad guarantees based on claims of irrefutable research, promising to reveal the secrets of why one company fails and another succeeds, and how you can become the latter.
Combining equal measures of solemn-faced hype and a wide range of popular business delusions, statistical and otherwise, these self-styled experts cloud our ability to think critically about the nature of success.
Central among these delusions is the Halo Effect—the tendency to focus on the high financial performance of a successful company and then spread its golden glow to all its attributes—clear strategy, strong values, brilliant leadership, and outstanding execution.
But should the same company’s sales head south, the very same attributes are universally derided—suddenly the strategy was wrong, the culture was complacent, and the leader became arrogant.
The Halo Effect not only identifies these delusions that keep us from understanding business performance, but also suggests a more accurate way to think about leading a company. This approach—focusing on strategic choice and execution, while recognizing the inherent riskiness of both—clarifies the priorities that managers face.
Brilliant and unconventional, irreverent and witty, The Halo Effect is essential reading for anyone wanting to separate fact from fiction in the world of business.
ISBN:9781476784038
Author:Phil Rosenzweig
The Breakthrough Company
Overview
The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers
The vast majority of small businesses stay small–and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent–a tiny one tenth of one percent–break through to the very highest ranks.
In The Breakthrough Company, technology CEO and Fortune 500 consultant Keith McFarland draws upon an extensive empirical study to reveal exactly how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that breakthrough success is associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate–from small startup to industry leader.
With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter–and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability–The Breakthrough Company is stuffed with real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle.
ISBN:9780307352194
Author:Keith R. McFarland
The Seven Day Weekend
Overview
Ricardo Semler thinks that companies ought to put employee freedom and satisfaction ahead of corporate goals.
Imagine a company where employees set their own hours; where there are no offices, no job titles, no business plans; where employees get to endorse or veto any new venture; where kids are encouraged to run the halls; and where the CEO lets other people make nearly all the decisions.
This company—Semco—actually exists, and despite a seeming recipe for chaos, its revenues have grown from $35 million to $160 million in the last six years. It has virtually no staff turnover, and there are no signs that its growth will stop any time soon.
How did Semco become wildly successful despite breaking many of the commonly accepted laws of business? In The Seven-Day Weekend, Ricardo Semler shows that for those willing to take a chance, there is a better way to run a workplace.
He explains how the technology that was supposed to make life easier—laptops, cell phones, e-mail, pagers—has in fact stolen free time and destroyed the traditional nine-to-five workday. But this can be a good thing—if you have the freedom to get your job done on your own terms and to blend your work life and personal life with enthusiasm and creative energy.
Smart bosses will eventually realize that you might be most productive if you work on Sunday afternoon, play golf on Monday morning, go to a movie on Tuesday afternoon, and watch your child play soccer on Thursday.
This is a radical book that will challenge the business world to make the seven-day weekend a reality.
"
ISBN:9781591840268
Author:Ricardo Semler
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
Stories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate.
Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards.
The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s.
His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman.
But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.
Economist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic.
Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees).
The Bottom Billion: Why Poorest Count...
Brief summary
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are failing and what can be done about it
In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century.
The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, which are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living standards.
A struggle rages within each of these nations between reformers and corrupt leaders--and the corrupt are winning. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that ensnare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance.
Standard solutions do not work, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions. Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty. In The Bottom Billion, he offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.
ISBN:9780195373387
Author:Paul Collier
A Contented House with Twins
Brief summary
A Contented House with Twins unites the UK's leading baby expert, Gina Ford, and the highly regarded television presenter Alice Beer, a mother of twin girls.
Discovering you are pregnant with twins is both an exciting and a thoroughly terrifying prospect. Within weeks of the arrival of her beautiful daughters, Alice found that she was "screaming out for a routine" and craving the knowledge of mothers who had been through it with two.
This book is the result of those cries. Alice's front-line experience of coping with twins is combined with Gina's highly successful parenting advice and, for the first time, her groundbreaking routines, specially adapted for twins.
Together, they tackle the practical and emotional aspects of parenting two babies, including what you can expect in a multiple pregnancy; how to feed two at once; what to do when they each want a different story or both want a hug; and how to cope with everyday practicalities: shopping, bath time, and much more.
Alice's humorous insights and Gina's essential advice, tips, support, and successful routines will guarantee that parents enjoy their twins and get their lives back.
ISBN:9780091906986
Author:Gina Ford
Good Morning Mr Mandela A Memoir
Brief summary
Good Morning, Mr. Mandela tells the extraordinary story of how a young woman’s life, beliefs, prejudices—everything she once believed—were utterly transformed by the man she had been taught was the enemy.
It is the incredible journey of an awkward, terrified young secretary in her twenties who rose from a job in a government typing pool to become one of the president’s most loyal and devoted associates. During his presidency, she was one of his three private secretaries, and then became an aide-de-camp and spokesperson and managed his office in his retirement.
Working and traveling by his side for almost two decades, La Grange found herself negotiating with celebrities and world leaders, all in the cause of supporting and caring for Mr. Mandela in his many roles.
Here La Grange pays tribute to Nelson Mandela as she knew him—a teacher who gave her the most valuable lessons of her life. The Mr. Mandela we meet in these pages is a man who refused to be defined by his past, who forgave and respected all, but who was also frank, teasing, and direct. As he renewed his country, he also freed La Grange from a closed world of fear and mistrust, giving her life true meaning.
"I was fearful of so much twenty years ago—of life, of black people, of this black man and the future of South Africa—and I now was no longer persuaded or influenced by mainstream fears. He not only liberated the black man but the white man, too.”
This is a book about love and second chances that honors the lasting and inspiring gifts of one of the great men of our time. It offers a rare intimate portrait of Nelson Mandela and his remarkable life as well as moving proof of the power we all have to change.
"
ISBN:9780525428282
Author:Zelda la Grange
Animals of the Masai Mara
Brief summary
One of the greatest attractions of a trip to Kenya is the chance to see animals such as lions, cheetah, leopards, zebra, and giraffe up close and in their natural habitats.
Animals of the Masai Mara is a lavish photographic guide that explores the charismatic wildlife most likely to be encountered by a safari visitor to the Masai Mara National Reserve in southwest Kenya.
More than 140 stunning photographs showcase 65 mammals and 17 reptile species, including 6 snakes. Designed to be informative and locally accurate, rather than purely identification-based, this easy-to-use book pays particular attention to wildlife behavior and is written from the firsthand experiences of the authors and the knowledge of local safari guides.
Numerous "Top Tips" throughout show readers how and where to locate specific species. The only field guide to focus solely on the wildlife of the Masai Mara National Reserve, Animals of the Masai Mara will be indispensable to visitors to this famous park and all nature enthusiasts with an interest in this area of the world.
• The only photographic guide specific to the animals of the Masai Mara National Reserve
• More than 140 remarkable photographs covering 65 mammals and 17 reptile species, including 6 snakes
• Accessible text explores animal behavior and other interesting facts
• A brief and informative introduction to the habitats of the Masai Mara
ISBN:9780691156019
Author:Adam Scott Kennedy and Vicki Kennedy
The Wait by DeVon Franklin and Meagan...
Brief summary
The Wait: A Powerful Practice for Finding the Love of Your Life and the Life You Love.
Hollywood power couple DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good candidly share about their courtship and marriage, and the key to their success—waiting.
President/CEO of Franklin Entertainment and former Sony Pictures executive DeVon Franklin and award-winning actress Meagan Good have learned sometimes all we can do is wait for "the one” to come into our lives. T
hey spent years crossing paths but it wasn’t until they were thrown together while working on the film Jumping the Broom that their storybook romance began.
Faced with starting a new relationship and wanting to avoid potentially devastating relationship pitfalls, DeVon and Meagan chose to do something almost unheard of in today’s society—abstain from sex until they were married.
In The Wait, DeVon and Meagan share the life-changing message that waiting—rather than rushing a relationship—can help you find the person you’re meant to be with.
Filled with candid his-and-hers accounts of the most important moments of their relationship, and practical advice on how waiting for everything—from dating to sex—can transform relationships, allowing you to find a deep connection based on patience, trust, and faith.
ISBN:9781501105296
Author:DeVon Franklin & Meagan Good
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Brief summary
William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger.
But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could enjoy: electricity and running water.
His neighbors called him misala—crazy—but William refused to let go of his dreams. With a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks; some scrap metal, tractor parts, and bicycle halves; and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to forge an unlikely contraption and small miracle that would change the lives around him.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a remarkable true story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. It will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him.
"
ISBN:9780061730337
Author:William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer
Uta do
Brief summary
Do you have great business ideas but don't know what to do about them? How do you make them a reality? Uta Do? How to Get Support for your business Idea has the answers.
This is a book every entrepreneur must have, especially if you are starting a new business venture. Whether you are seeking partners, clients or funding, this is a practical, step-by-step guide to presenting your business idea.
The language is clear, the information accessible and situations discussed apply to the East African context. You are guaranteed to learn something useful on every page, and you will refer to this little gem again and again.
ISBN:9789966001023
Author:Agatha Verdadero
Career of Evil
Brief summary
Cormoran Strike is back, with his assistant Robin Ellacott, in a mystery based around soldiers returning from war.
When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.
Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible – and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them…
Career of Evil is the third in the series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A mystery and also a story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives.
ISBN:9780316349932
Author:Robert Galbraith
A Gift of Love
Brief summary
A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings
The classic collection of sixteen sermons preached and compiled by Dr. King
As Dr. King prepared for the Birmingham campaign in early 1963, he drafted the final sermons for Strength to Love, a volume of his best-known homilies. King had begun working on the sermons during a fortnight in jail in July 1962.
Having been arrested for holding a prayer vigil outside Albany City Hall, King and Ralph Abernathy shared a jail cell for fifteen days that was, according to King, ‘‘dirty, filthy, and ill-equipped’’ and "the worse I have ever seen.” While behind bars, he spent uninterrupted time preparing the drafts for classic sermons such as "Loving Your Enemies,” "Love in Action,” and "Shattered Dreams,” and continued to work on the volume after his release.
A Gift of Love includes these classic sermons, along with two new preachings. Collectively they present King’s fusion of Christian teachings and social consciousness, and promote his prescient vision of love as a social and political force for change.
ISBN:9780141985183
Author:Martin Luther King Jr.
A Long Walk Home
Brief summary
A Long Walk Home: One Woman's Story of Kidnap, Hostage, Loss - and Survival
This is the story of how, over a period of one hundred and ninety-two days, I was torn away from the life I knew and loved, and dragged down to the depths of despair; of how I endured enforced isolation and near-starvation at the hands of Somali pirates; and of how I made a choice to survive by any and all means that I could muster.
In September 2011 Judith Tebbutt and her husband David set out on an adventurous holiday to Kenya. A couple for thirty-three years, they had first met in Zambia: Africa had played a major part in their life together.
After a joyous week on safari in the Masai Mara, they flew on to a beach resort forty kilometres south of Somalia. And there, in the early hours of 11 September, tragedy struck them.
Judith was torn away from David by a band of armed pirates, dragged over sea and land to a village in the arid heart of lawless Somalia, and there held hostage in a squalid room, a ransom on her head. There, too, she learned the terrible truth that the responsibility of securing her release now rested with her son Ollie.
Powerful, moving and at times quite devastating, this is Judith Tebbutt's story in her own words.
ISBN:9780571303069
Author:Judith Tebbutt
You Are the Universe
Brief summary
You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why It Matters
What happens when modern science reaches a crucial turning point that challenges everything we know about reality? In this brilliant, timely, and practical work, Chopra and Kafatos tell us that we've reached just such a point.
In the coming era, the universe will be completely redefined as a "human universe" radically unlike the cold, empty void where human life is barely a speck in the cosmos.
You Are the Universe literally means what it says--each of us is a co-creator of reality extending to the vastest reaches of time and space. This seemingly impossible proposition follows from the current state of science, where outside the public eye, some key mysteries cannot be solved, even though they are the very issues that define reality itself:
1. What Came Before the Big Bang?
2. Why Does the Universe Fit Together So Perfectly?
3. Where Did Time Come From?
4. What Is the Universe Made Of?
5. Is the Quantum World Linked to Everyday Life?
6. Do We Live in a Conscious Universe?
7. How Did Life First Begin?
"The shift into a new paradigm is happening," the authors write. "The answers offered in this book are not our invention or eccentric flights of fancy. All of us live in a participatory universe.
Once you decide that you want to participate fully with mind, body, and soul, the paradigm shift becomes personal. The reality you inhabit will be yours either to embrace or to change." What these two great minds offer is a bold, new understanding of who we are and how we can transform the world for the better while reaching our greatest potential.
ISBN:9781846045301
Author:Deepak Chopra & Menas Kafatos
The Bat
Brief summary
Includes the opening of the brand new Harry Hole thriller, The Thirst, and an exclusive new introduction by Jo Nesbo
Harry Is Out Of His Depth
Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can.
He's not supposed to get too involved...
When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth. The hunt for a serial killer is on, but the murderer will talk only to Harry.
...But he might just be the next victim
ISBN:9781784705848
Author:Jo Nesbo
Warren Buffetts Management Secrets
Brief summary
Warren Buffett's Management Secrets: Proven Tools for Personal and Business Success.
Even in today's economic climate, when so many investors and major companies are failing, Warren Buffett continues to be successful in all aspects of his life. Mary Buffett and David Clark have written the first book ever to take an in-depth look at Warren Buffett's philosophies for personal and professional management -- what they are, how they work, and how you can use them.
Through close examination of Warren Buffett's life and career from his earliest days to now, Buffett and Clark shed light on his decision-making processes and reveal his strategies for keeping on track and maintaining focus.
They examine Buffett's inimitable leadership qualities and explain how Warren integrated what he learned over time into a winning management formula and became not only the manager whom other managers want to emulate but also the second richest man in the world.
A true companion volume to Buffett and Clark's successful Buffettology series, Warren Buffett's Management Secrets is filled with anecdotes and quotes that show how Buffett's life philosophies are reflected in his business decisions and in the way he manages people and businesses.
This insider's view into Warren Buffett's management techniques offers simple solutions for success to newcomers and seasoned Buffettologists alike and illustrates how and why success in business and life usually go hand in hand.
"
ISBN:9781849833233
Author:Mary Buffett & David Clark
Warren Buffett and the Interpretation...
Brief summary
Warren Buffett & the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage.
With an insider's view of the mind of the master, Mary Buffett and David Clark have written a simple guide for reading financial statements from Buffett's successful perspective.
They clearly outline Warren Buffett's strategies in a way that will appeal to newcomers and seasoned Buffettologists alike. Inspired by the seminal work of Buffett's mentor, Benjamin Graham, this book presents Buffett's interpretation of financial statements with anecdotes and quotes from the master investor himself.
Destined to become a classic in the world of investment books, Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements is the perfect companion volume to The New Buffettology and The Tao of Warren Buffett.
"
ISBN:9781849833196
Author:Mary Buffett & David Clark
The Tao of Warren Buffett
Brief summary
The Tao of Warren Buffett: Warren Buffett's Words of Wisdom - Quotations and Interpretations to Help Guide You to Billionaire Wealth and Enlightened Business Management.
A collection of pithy and inspiring sayings from America's favorite businessman that reveal his secrets of success
Like the sayings of the ancient Chinese philospher Lao-tzu, Warren Buffett's worldly wisdom is deceptively simple and enormously powerful in application.
In The Tao of Warren Buffett, Mary Buffett — author of three books on Warren Buffett's investment methods — joins noted Buffettologist and international lecturer David Clark to bring you Warren Buffett's smartest, funniest, and most memorable sayings with an eye toward revealing the life philosophy and the investment strategies that have made Warren Buffett, and the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, so enormously wealthy.
Warren Buffett's investment achievements are unparalleled. He owes his success to hard work, integrity, and that most elusive commodity of all, common sense. The quotations in this book exemplify Warren's practical strategies and provide useful illustrations for every investor — large or small — and models everyone can follow.
The quotes are culled from a variety of sources, including personal conversations, corporate reports, profiles, and interviews. The authors provide short explanations for each quote and use examples from Buffett's own business transactions whenever possible to illustrate his words at work.
As Warren says:
"You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will."
"With enough inside information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year."
"No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."
"Our method is very simple. We just try to buy businesses with good-to-superb underlying economics run by honest and able people and buy them at sensible prices. That's all I'm trying to do."
The Tao of Warren Buffett inspires, amuses, sharpens the mind, and offers priceless investment savvy that anyone can take to the bank. This irresistibly browsable and entertaining book is destined to become a classic.
ISBN:9781416541325
Author:Mary Buffett & David Clark
The End of Average
Brief summary
In this ground-breaking book perfect for readers of The Power of Habit and Quiet, Harvard scientist Todd Rose shows how our one-size-fits-all world is actually one-size-fits-none.
Each of us knows we’re different. We’re a little taller or shorter than the average, our salary is a bit higher or lower than the average, and we wonder about who it is that is buying the average-priced home. All around us, we think, are the average people—with the average height, the average salary and the average house.
But the average doesn’t just influence how we see ourselves—our entire social system has been built around this average-size-fits-all model. Schools are designed for the average student. Healthcare is designed for the average patient.
Employers try to fill average job descriptions with employees on an average career trajectory. Our government implements programs and initiatives to serve the average person. For more than a century, we’ve believed that the best way to run our institutions is by focusing on the average person.
But when you actually drill down into the numbers, you find an amazing fact: no one is average—which means that our society built for everyone is actually serving no one.
In the 1950s, the American Air Force found itself with a massive problem—performance in expensive, custom-made planes was suffering terribly, with crashes peaking at seventeen in a single day. Since the state-of-the-art planes they were flying had been meticulously crafted to fit the average pilot, pilot error was assumed to be at fault.
Until, that is, the Air Force investigated just how many of their pilots were actually average. The shocking answer: out of thousands of active-duty pilots, exactly zero were average. Not one. This discovery led to simple solutions (like adjustable seats) that dramatically reduced accidents, improved performance, and expanded the pool of potential pilots. It also led to a huge change in thinking: planes didn’t need to be designed for everyone—they needed to be designed so they could adapt to suit the individual flying them.
The End of Average shows how success lies in customizing to our individual needs in all aspects of our lives, from the way we mark tests to the medical treatment we receive. Using principles from The Science of the Individual, it shows how we can break down the average to create individualized success that benefits everyone in the long run.
It's time we stopped settling for average, and in The End of Average, Todd Rose will show you how.
ISBN:9780062358363
Author:Todd Rose