Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Leadership

Your employees and teams may be quite capable of handling their specific areas of focus, but unless you get them to work together, your products, services, and profits will suffer. While progress has been made, maximizing collaboration is still a challenge for many companies. They need a new approach. Over the last quarter century, California's Silicon Valley has become synonymous with building complex, successful businesses. Companies and leaders there have succeeded because they did more than apply existing business models - they created a new model.

In today's volatile economic environment, filled with uncertainty and sudden change, the forces pushing you to stay focused on the core business are extremely powerful. Profiting from the core is crucial, but the danger is that overfocusing on the core can blind companies. Scanning the horizon for new markets and new products can also be tempting, but risky. Fixating too much on either strategy can cause you to miss the substantial opportunities for growth that are often hidden in plain sight, at the edge of the core business.

Conventional wisdom today says that to survive, companies must move beyond incremental, sustaining innovation and invest in some form of radical innovation. "Disrupt yourself or be disrupted!" is the relentless message company leaders hear. The Power of Little Ideas argues there's a third way that is neither sustaining nor disruptive.

Professional service firms face a serious challenge. Their clients increasingly need them to solve complex problems - everything from regulatory compliance to cybersecurity, the kinds of problems that only teams of multidisciplinary experts can tackle. Yet most firms have carved up their highly specialized, professional experts into narrowly defined practice areas, and collaborating across these silos is often messy, risky, and expensive.

Your company is turning in regular profits every year, and its market share is only getting bigger. Competitors can't touch you. So why is your stock price so sluggish? The answer is as simple as it is cruel: Investors aren't interested in history, and they already know you're profitable and competitive - that knowledge is baked into your stock price. The hard reality is that a competitive advantage just isn't enough.

Whether you're rolling out a new product from a city-view office or rolling up your sleeves to deliver a social service in the field, learning why and how to embrace failure can help you do better faster. Smart leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents design their innovation projects with a key idea in mind: ensure that every failure is maximally useful. In Fail Better, Anjali Sastry and Kara Penn show how to create the conditions, culture, and habits to systematically, ruthlessly, and quickly figure out what works in three steps.

About 97 percent of a rocket's fuel is used in the first three feet of its launch. The same is true in launching a new business, product, or service. Those first few steps are absolutely critical. Scott Duffy has developed a practical approach for turning your big idea into a thriving venture by focusing on the crucial period immediately before, during, and after opening your doors (literally or online). His approach is based on his experiences working with top entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins and Richard Branson, who taught him how to balance the two key sides of entrepreneurship.

A provocative work that challenges the traditional and widely accepted principles of business management - and proves that they are outdated, outmoded, or simply don't work. Do open floor plans really work? Are there companies that put their employees' welfare first, and their clients second? Are annual performance reviews necessary? Dr. David Burkus is a highly regarded and increasingly influential business school professor who challenges many of the established principles of business management.

The author of the classic best seller Lincoln on Leadership answers the question: How would President Lincoln handle the pressing crises of our modern world? Abraham Lincoln is recognized as one of history's finest leaders, a great president when the United States was under tremendous strain. But suppose he were alive today. How would Lincoln deal with today's high-pressure issues, from politics to business?

Making Futures brings together 18 young entrepreneurs from 14 countries doing incredible work across the continent. Their stories are both inspirational and aspirational, providing a template for listeners who might be interested in embarking on their own entrepreneurial journey, and allowing others to see the incredible energy and work that is happening across the continent.

Develop a high-performing team based on a culture where respect trumps harmony. As teams become more diverse, we won't always see eye to eye. We won't agree on everything, and we may not even like each other. In order to achieve results, we need to have robust, candid, and constructive discussions. Respect Trumps Harmony offers a proven approach to navigating the difficulties faced in teams and workplaces today. To build collaboration; strengthen innovation; and manage safety, risk, and well-being, it's critical that there is a foundation of respect, not harmony.

Understand the dynamics of all different types of teams. Beyond Team Building: How to Build High Performing Teams and the Culture to Support Them represents the latest in thinking about creating effective teams. The authors present a new "Five C" framework that focuses on the core aspects of team building. The book helps the listener assess how his/her team is performing on each of the 5Cs - context, composition, competencies, change, and collaborative leadership - and discusses options concerning how to improve team performance along each of these dimensions.

What's happened to real? In a world of jargon, acronyms, and distrust, does authenticity in leadership mean anything anymore? The answer is a resounding yes. Businesses and organizations are starving for real communication and authentic leadership. But there's a lot of baggage and distrust to overcome. With real-life case studies, pointers, and guidelines, leadership consultant Gabrielle Dolan shows you how authenticity can earn trust with honest communication, and why it's well worth the effort.

Society largely praises early risers, while maligning so-called "night owls." However, countless research studies have consistently shown that night owls are more successful and wealthier than early risers. The Morning Myth is intended to show that, indeed, night owls are generally more successful in life than early risers. The book is intended to restore self-confidence to night owls and help them to achieve more on their natural schedules, and also to inform employers on just how much productivity they're losing by forcing night owls to be at work bright and early....

Successfully cope with day-to-day problems - and find joy along the way. The Joy in Business provides you with an abundance of practical and immediately applicable life-changing ideas and inspirational, thought-provoking, and entertaining stories and quotes - in an instant. Each chapter is designed to be listened to and absorbed in approximately 60 seconds, offering you "Golden Nuggets" and "Joy Gems" that will help make positive, lasting change.

Whether you want to reset your career, strike out on your own, or just ignite more joy in what you do, this Illuminating book shows you how to create a working life that reveals meaning while rewriting our collective future. When we connect with something larger than ourselves, we enjoy the fruits of our labour as well as the journey - the sweat and the struggle. It's the unyielding commitment to a purpose that gives shapers their shimmer. The benefits of this shine are plentiful: enhanced well-being, more community engagement, a healthier economy, and better work for all.

Can you be a leader that people will follow? The most successful leaders and influencers are not only committed to making the world a better place, but they have the character and integrity to lead others to do the same. People Follow People is a practical guide for embracing your true character and values to create an authentic, long-lasting connection with your audience, colleagues, and customers. Best-selling author and international speaker Sam Cawthorn reveals the 12 characteristics you need to become an outstanding leader who attracts a loyal following, attains longevity to achieve objectives, and leaves a revered legacy.  

 Hidden Truths is an audiobook about leadership that every existing or future leader must listen to. It offers insights about C-suite jobs that few employees really understand - insights that can help them help their leaders perform better and prepare themselves to be leaders. When everyone from board members to junior executives are on the same page as to leadership roles and responsibilities, the organization performs at a higher level. 

A nationally recognized business etiquette specialist, Professor Robert A. Shutt of Binghamton University reviews the strategies, guidelines, and appropriate behavior that can help people excel in a variety of professional environments. During the course of these lectures, Professor Shutt examines etiquette in situations such as the business dinner and the job interview. He shows how etiquette functions in the workplace and discusses such features as electronic-communications and sales etiquette.

The Don: 36 Rules of the Bosses is the fascinating culmination of author RJ Roger’s extensive research into the Italian-American Cosa Nostra. Analyzing more than 100 years of underworld history, Roger has distilled the behavior of the bosses of the five New York Mafia families—the most powerful in the United States—into 36 rules. Unwritten until codified in The Don, these rules were the foundation of the bosses’ success for over a century.