Best Business & Organizational Learning
From one of the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios—the Academy Award–winning studio behind Coco, Inside Out, and Toy Story —comes an incisive book about creativity in business and leadership for readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Huffington Post • Financial Times • Success • Inc. • Library Journal “[ Creativity, Inc. ]. just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”— Fast Company Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”. Praise for Creativity, Inc. “Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success.” —Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last and author of Good to Great “Too often, we seek to keep the status quo working. Any reader of Creativity, Inc., Catmull’s new book on the art of running creative companies, will have to agree. Catmull, president of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, has written what just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.” — Fast Company “It’s one thing to be creative; it’s entirely another—and much more rare—to build a great and creative culture. Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success. Catmull’s book is quickly becoming the latest bible for the show business crowd.” —The New York Times “The most practical and deep book ever written by a practitioner on the topic of innovation.” —Prof. [Catmull] uses Pixar’s triumphs and near-disasters to outline a system for managing people in creative businesses—one in which candid criticism is delivered sensitively, while individuality and autonomy are not strangled by a robotic corporate culture.” — Financial Times “A wonderful new book . An immensely readable and rewarding book that will challenge and inspire readers to make their workplaces hotbeds of creativity.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Punctuated with surprising tales of how the company’s films were developed and the company’s financial struggles, Catmull shares insights about harnessing talent, creating teams, protecting the creative process, candid communications, organizational structures, alignment, and the importance of storytelling. [ Creativity, Inc. ] will delight and inspire creative individuals and their managers, as well as anyone who wants to work ‘in an environment that fosters creativity and problem solving.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “For anyone managing anything, and particularly those trying to manage creative teams, Catmull is like a kind, smart godfather guiding us toward managing wisely, without losing our souls, and in a way that works toward greatness. What Ed Catmull shares instead is his astute experience that creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people. In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.” —George Lucas “This is the best book ever written on what it takes to build a creative organization.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Managers, as well as anyone who wants to better understand how companies work and what elements are necessary to make and keep them successful, will appreciate Catmull’s insight on leadership, nurturing creative environment, and protecting it from invisible threats. After reading the book, I constantly find myself quoting the concepts and examples described there when talking to my husband or friends about their jobs or my own and discussing what works, what doesn’t, and why."
"Ed shared several amusing experiences creating these magnificent movies to illustrate management concepts."
"Mr. Catmull presents an impressive analysis of how corporate culture can negatively impact creativity, even when corporate leaders proclaim their support for creativity and truly believe they are doing everything they can to foster and support it."
"Whether you're just a Pixar fan, or you're looking for ways to improve your company, you can't go wrong with this book."
"It tells of how the company was formed and the various challenges and changes along the way as well as how the people in charge are constantly attempting to maintain Pixar as a separate entity from Disney after being purchased by the latter while fixing Disney's animation studios and making Disney a world class entity itself."
"The book is definitely about creativity and the creative process, but it's equally about business and management."
The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick . ● The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service. In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. (If people hate change, then having a kid is an awfully dumb decision.). We found the answer in the research of some brilliant psychologists who’d discovered that people have two separate “systems” in their brains—a rational system and an emotional system. In those situations where change is hard, is it possible to align the two systems? In our research, we studied people trying to make difficult changes: People fighting to lose weight and keep it off. We wanted, in Switch , to make that game plan available to everyone, in hopes that we could show people how to make the hard changes in life a little bit easier.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book postulates that getting things done is like riding an elephant, emotions being the elephant and rationality the rider."
"Perfect for the entrepreneur or anyone needing to understand the human condition as it relates to decision making."
"I particularly liked how he showed effective interventions during the process of change that ended up solving problems because of adequate understanding of why change was being resisted."
"I actually loved reading this book, based as it is in the reality of the need for all organizations to change, not for the mere sake of change but for the need to address certain areas of structure, growth and development within an organizational to have it meet the needs of today and tomorrow rather than yesterday.."
"The change model is relatable and motivating and can be applied to personal or organizational change."
"The summary at the end (and it only makes complete sense to someone who has read the entire book) is valuable and I am contemplating taping copies of it near my desk at work as I try to convince my senior managers' 'riders and elephants' of the need to change and the benefits that can come from change."
"It's very well written in a style similar to Malcolm Gladwell, and offers so many intruiging stories and so much research (not in a dull way though)."
"thought-provoking and an easy read."
When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2004, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing. TEACHING A LEVIATHAN TO IMPROVISE It’s no secret that in any field, small teams have many advantages—they can respond quickly, communicate freely, and make decisions without layers of bureaucracy. A NEW APPROACH FOR A NEW WORLD McChrystal and his colleagues discarded a century of conventional wisdom and remade the Task Force, in the midst of a grueling war, into something new: a network that combined extremely transparent communication with decentralized decision-making authority. Leaders looked at the best practices of the smallest units and found ways to extend them to thousands of people on three continents, using technology to establish a oneness that would have been impossible even a decade earlier. Team of Teams harnesses these new realities as assets, providing a leadership framework to produce the inclusiveness and adaptability of a fast-moving start-up, at the scale of any size organization.” —Brad Smith , president and CEO, Intuit. “In Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal, who won some of our most striking victories in the great war between nations and terrorist networks, shares insights for all in this lucid, persuasive, and sometimes wrenching account of our troubled yet transformational times.” —John Arquilla , professor, Defense Analysis United States Naval Postgraduate School. “In the fast-moving world of today and tomorrow, organizations that don’t adapt will simply fade.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The book is not a military history, but instead a concise and exceptionally “fun to read” collection of insightful ideas told through entertaining stories ranging from industry to hospital emergency rooms. I recommend it for leaders and associates from all types of organizations who need to break down the effects of siloed teams in which information flow and decision making is ineffective in today’s increasingly complex environment. The discussions in the book are grounded in organizational management theory and leadership methods, but along the way gives a once in a lifetime look at the inside of the most storied Special Operations Forces (SOF) unit in existence today. They include weather forecasting, basketball and soccer, engineering marvels, big data, airline customer service, aircraft crews, NASA, SEAL training, plastic surgeons at the Boston Marathon bombing, GM versus Ford, MIT studies, and the enduring effects of Ritz Carlton and Nordstrom. The following should be of interest to today’s leaders: the difference between complicated and complex environments; how having more information available does not improve prediction nor mean lead to smarter decisions at the top; Taylorisms and efficiency ideals may actually cost you more than they save; the ‘need to know’ fallacy; the value of using your best people as ‘liaison officers’ or ‘embeds’; how resilient people make organizations stronger because they can adapt to changing environments; learning from your adversary is time well spent--they might have a better organizational model not necessarily better people; how to delegate authority to take action until you are uncomfortable; how to build trust and a shared awareness of the big picture; ‘eyes on, hands off’ leadership; and the difference between creating Strategic Corporals and an organization full of Lord Horatio Nelsons. The book carries you forward in time to see how far the Task Force had come by changing their culture, structure, and habits to allow the larger corporate command to become as agile and capable as its commandos. This short example, that covers just 46 minutes of a follow-on-target operation, highlights sharply the outcome of The Task Force’s investment in transparency, trust building and empowered execution. Sir Lieutenant General Lamb, a close friend of Stan McChrystal, shared a paper with me once that he titled 'In Command and Out of Control' and it raises a lot of the same questions and concepts about how to lead in a complex and fast-paced world. The concept is literally about getting 'out of the control' business and realizing that in order for organizations to take advantage of fleeting opportunities teams must be empowered at the lowest levels to take action."
"This book should be read by leaders of organizations both large and small so they can get the most out of their workforce and thrive in today’s ever-changing business climate."
"General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army Retired, took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in the Middle East in 2003 and transformed it from a hierarchical organization built on efficiency and discipline to a fluid, information-rich, decentralized organization. As author Pat Lencioni (“Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars,” “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”) has pointed out, organizations seeking creativity, collaboration, agility and speed need to break down silos and work across groups. McChrystal in his “Team of Teams” shares insights and his personal evolution that led to the transformation of his Task Force from one that suffered frequent and disastrous set-backs to one that could match, and then beat back networked terrorist organizations which could strike rapidly, reconfigure in real time, and integrate its globally dispersed actions. “Team of Teams” is organized around five topics: The challenge of the new environment: Accelerating speed and interdependence in today’s world has created levels of complexity that confound even the most superbly efficient organizations. The myths and magic of teams: What is it that creates the trust and common purpose that bond great small teams and why do so many small teams and firms falter as they grow and scale. AHSC was ahead of its time with its team of teams (19 Divisions) organizational structure that proved collaborative, agile and fast…and an incubator for industry leaders."
Best Business Decision Making
Major New York Times bestseller. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011. A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title. One of The Economist 's 2011 Books of the Year. One of The Wall Street Journal 's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011. 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient. Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. “Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow , how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality.” ― Christopher Shea, The Washington Post. Arguably the most important psychologist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being . A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused with knowledge, laced with wisdom, informed by modesty and deeply humane. Arguably the most important psychologist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being . A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused with knowledge, laced with wisdom, informed by modesty and deeply humane. So impressive is its vision of flawed human reason that the New York Times columnist David Brooks recently declared that Kahneman and Tversky's work ‘will be remembered hundreds of years from now,' and that it is ‘a crucial pivot point in the way we see ourselves.'. But for those who are merely interested in Kahenman's takeaway on the Malcolm Gladwell question it is this: If you've had 10,000 hours of training in a predictable, rapid-feedback environment--chess, firefighting, anesthesiology--then blink. It now seems inevitable that Kahneman, who made his reputation by ignoring or defying conventional wisdom, is about to be anointed the intellectual guru of our economically irrational times.” ― Evan R. Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education. As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Mr. Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reason we assume ourselves to be.” ― The Economist. But Mr. Kahneman's simple experiments reveal a very different mind, stuffed full of habits that, in most situations, lead us astray.” ― Jonah Lehrer, The Wall Street Journal. “[A] tour de force of psychological insight, research explication and compelling narrative that brings together in one volume the high points of Mr. Kahneman's notable contributions, over five decades, to the study of human judgment, decision-making and choice . Thanks to the elegance and force of his ideas, and the robustness of the evidence he offers for them, he has helped us to a new understanding of our divided minds--and our whole selves.” ― Christoper F. Chabris, The Wall Street Journal. “With Kahneman's expert help, readers may understand this mix of psychology and economics better than most accountants, therapists, or elected representatives. “The mind is a hilariously muddled compromise between incompatible modes of thought in this fascinating treatise by a giant in the field of decision research. Kahneman uses this scheme to frame a scintillating discussion of his findings in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and of the ingenious experiments that tease out the irrational, self-contradictory logics that underlie our choices. We learn why we mistake statistical noise for coherent patterns; why the stock-picking of well-paid investment advisers and the prognostications of pundits are worthless; why businessmen tend to be both absurdly overconfident and unwisely risk-averse; and why memory affects decision making in counterintuitive ways. Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, marvelously readable guide to spotting--and correcting--our biased misunderstandings of the world.” ― Publishers' Weekly (starred review). Before Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics, there was Daniel Kahneman who invented the field of behavior economics, won a Nobel…and now explains how we think and make choices. Before computer networking got cheap and ubiquitous, the sheer inefficiency of communication dampened the effects of the quirks of human psychology on macro scale events. In this absolutely amazing book, he shares a lifetime's worth of wisdom presented in a manner that is simple and engaging, but nonetheless stunningly profound. This book is a must read for anyone with a curious mind.” ― Steven D. Levitt, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; co-author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. “ Thinking, Fast and Slow is a masterpiece--a brilliant and engaging intellectual saga by one of the greatest psychologists and deepest thinkers of our time. Kahneman should be parking a Pulitzer next to his Nobel Prize.” ― Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University Professor of Psychology, author of Stumbling on Happiness, host of the award-winning PBS television series "This Emotional Life". “This is a landmark book in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud . His work has reshaped social psychology, cognitive science, the study of reason and of happiness, and behavioral economics, a field that he and his collaborator Amos Tversky helped to launch.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The first observation, giving the title to the book, is that eons of natural selection gave us the ability to make a fast reaction to a novel situation. Thinking slow, applying human logic, we might reflect that it is probably Johnny coming back from the Girl Scout camp across the river bringing cookies, and that running might not be the best idea. Thinking is metabolically expensive; 20 percent of our energy intake goes to the brain. NB: Kahneman uses the example of multiplying two digit numbers in your head quite frequently. Whistling past the graveyard - we know full well that mental processes slow down after 65. We are inclined to expect more regularity than actually exists in the world, and we have poor intuition about the tail ends of the bell curve. It requires slow thinking to come up with the right answer - and the instinct to distrust your intuition. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the statistical inference from measuring them. For instance, the asking price of the house should have nothing to do with its value, but it does greatly influence bids. If I know somebody who got mugged last year, and you don't, my assessment of the rate of street crime will probably be too high, and yours perhaps too low. Newspaper headlines distort all of our thinking about the probabilities of things like in and terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, if you ask about Tom W, a sallow gloomy type of guy, people will ignore the statistics and guess he is in mortuary science. The most important aspect of this chapter is Bayesian analysis, which is so much second nature to Kahneman that he doesn't even describe it. Given these numbers, most people will assume that the cab in the accident was blue because of the witness testimony. However, if we change the statement of the problem so that there is a 20% chance that the blue identification of the color was wrong, but 85% of the cabs involved in accidents are green, people will overwhelmingly say that the cab in the accident was a green madman. In other words, this witness could be expected to identify the cab as blue 29% of the time whether she was right or wrong. Recommend that you cut and paste this, because Bayes theorem is cited fairly often, and is kind of hard to understand. The chances are little bit of both, and if I take a test a second time I will get a lower score, not because I am any stupider but because your first observation of me wasn't exactly accurate. The probability of a smart grade school kid becoming a Rhodes scholar is a cumulative probability of passing a whole series of hurdles: studying hard, excelling in high school, avoiding drink and drugs, parental support and so on. We make judgments on the basis of the knowledge we have, and we are overconfident about the predictive value of that observation. We discount the many perils which could have totally derailed the company along the way, including the venture capitalist who could have bought it all for one million dollars but thought the price was too steep. The answer is, not really, because performance on the SAT depends quite a bit on prior education and previous exposure to standardized tests. The key anecdote here is about a formula for predicting the quality of a French wine vintage. The rule of thumb formula beat the best French wine experts. He would trust the expert intuition of a firefighter; there is some similarity among fires, and the firemen learns quickly about his mistakes. The key notion here is that people within an institution, project, or any endeavor tend to let their inside knowledge blind them to things an outsider might see. It should destroy the notion that there are CEOs who are vastly above average, and also the efficient markets theory. The guys in charge often don't understand, and more important, they are blind to their own lack of knowledge. Part four - choices. This is a series of chapters about how people make decisions involving money and risk. Pouring good money after bad, the sunk cost effect, is an example. We overestimate the visible ones, such as tsunamis and terrorist attacks, and ignore the ones of which we are unaware. As a policy, should we accept the supposedly lower risk of buying mutual funds, even given the management fees? The classic example is people who refuse to sell for a loss, whether shares of stock or a house. Mountain climbing or marathon running are sheer torture at the time, but the memories are exquisite. Lift decision: do we live life for the present experience, or the anticipated memories?"
"Content is interesting, but as other reviewers point out, do not buy the Kindle version, because links often don't work, and many images and footnotes seem to be lost."
"Back in 1994, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Director of the Institute of San Raffaele in Milan, Italy, wrote a charming little book about common cognitive distortions called Inevitable Illusions. In it, he predicted that the two psychologists behind behavioral economics - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman - would win the Nobel prize. Although Gladwell never says that snap judgments are infallible and cannot badly mislead us, many readers got a different message. As the Royal Statistical Society's Significance magazine put it "Although Gladwell's chronicle of cognition shows how quick thinking can lead us both astray and aright, for many readers Blink has become a hymn to the hunch." As a student, she was deeply concerned with the issues of discrimination and social justice, and she also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Eighty-five percent of test subjects chose the second option, that Linda was a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. A more formal and theoretically better argued rebuttal of some of Kahneman's hypotheses can be found in the works of Gerd Gigerenzer. Kahneman notes that even top performers in business and sports tend to revert to the mean in the long run. While much of what we learnt can perhaps be extended to the real world, it is doubtful every generalization will work in practice. My cautionary comments probably have more to do with the distortions that might arise by those who uncritically generalize the findings to contexts for which they may not applicable. Nevertheless, Thinking Fast and Slow is a very valuable book by one of the most creative minds in psychology. After I published this review, I noticed an odd coincidence between Thinking Fast and Slow and Inevitable Illusions that I mentioned in my opening paragraph. Both books have white covers, with an image of a sharpened yellow pencil with an eraser top."
"As a result, we overweight the expectation of rationality based decisions (our own and those of public policy makers) with potentially dire outcome consequences. The author believes that the evidence shows (1) the great majority of the people are incapable of or unwilling to exercise the rational thinking needed to make good decisions; (2)most people are easily manipulated in the marketplaces of their private lives and public political thought;(3)that the rational and economically elite sector of society engages in these manipulations to maximize profit (as expected by free market capitalism) and is enabled in doing so by exploiting the deep seated American ethic that peoples' freedom to make bad decisions, i.e. their freedom, must be protected."
Best Organizational Change
Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal, a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a professor from student days - Jonah - to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas, which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC), developed by Eli Goldratt. One of Eli Goldratt s convictions was that the goal of an individual or an organization should not be defined in absolute terms. "A survey of the reading habits of managers found that though they buy books by the likes of Tom Peters for display purposes, the one management book they have actually read from cover to cover is The Goal."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As many other reviewers observed, the story has literal value as a conduit for learning how to identify process problems and resolve them by illustrating successful examples of HOW to question status quo plus successful examples of HOW to implement change through creating a collaborative or collective-ownership working environment that questions status quo as a matter of course."
"If you are employed in a business area, or interested in learning more about how to streamline company processes, this book is a great read."
"I have worked in oil and gas and manufacturing as an engineer and now manager for 20 years and I am finding this book is providing me insights on problems I am facing today."
"Between the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2011, I pursued a Master of Business Administration and Master of Systems Engineering back to back while working during the day."
"Anyone who is in their own business or has a management position in any size company should read this timeless classic."
"I had a really hard time finishing 11 CDs, I can not imagine what the book is like. From there, its hard to say which Chapters are the most valuable because he (Alex) does go back and forth about "The Goal" and the story of the book."
"TOC is a very beneficial way of finding constraints in your organization and work on a path of constant improvement .After listening to the successful implementation of TOC''s implementations in verious fields like hospitals , Automobiles etc I am convinced it can be the best tool for a manager and will be happy to be a part of its implementation or be the implamenter one day."
Best Business Operations Research
Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal, a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a professor from student days - Jonah - to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas, which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC), developed by Eli Goldratt. One of Eli Goldratt s convictions was that the goal of an individual or an organization should not be defined in absolute terms. "A survey of the reading habits of managers found that though they buy books by the likes of Tom Peters for display purposes, the one management book they have actually read from cover to cover is The Goal."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As many other reviewers observed, the story has literal value as a conduit for learning how to identify process problems and resolve them by illustrating successful examples of HOW to question status quo plus successful examples of HOW to implement change through creating a collaborative or collective-ownership working environment that questions status quo as a matter of course."
"If you are employed in a business area, or interested in learning more about how to streamline company processes, this book is a great read."
"I have worked in oil and gas and manufacturing as an engineer and now manager for 20 years and I am finding this book is providing me insights on problems I am facing today."
"Between the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2011, I pursued a Master of Business Administration and Master of Systems Engineering back to back while working during the day."
"Anyone who is in their own business or has a management position in any size company should read this timeless classic."
"I had a really hard time finishing 11 CDs, I can not imagine what the book is like. From there, its hard to say which Chapters are the most valuable because he (Alex) does go back and forth about "The Goal" and the story of the book."
"TOC is a very beneficial way of finding constraints in your organization and work on a path of constant improvement .After listening to the successful implementation of TOC''s implementations in verious fields like hospitals , Automobiles etc I am convinced it can be the best tool for a manager and will be happy to be a part of its implementation or be the implamenter one day."
Best Business Purchasing & Buying
Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. · Start new business from scratch in a way both salespeople and clients can feel good about. · Ask hard questions in a soft way. · Close the deal by opening mindsClose the deal by opening minds. Mahan is a highly sought-after speaker, author, and business consultant who has helped clients earn billions of dollars in sales. Randy Illig is a senior consultant at the FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group (SPG).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I wish I found this book much sooner in my career, and I've asked my entire team to read it (as the concepts are important for anyone dealing with clients)."
"This book was alright."
"My favorite sales how-to book of all time."
"Empecé la aplicación de estas técnicas y principios y resultados en las relaciones con mis clientes y las ventas mejoraron casi al instante."
"Having the right intent, a call for a higher moral and ethical framework. 2."
"Amazing book."
"This book was required reading for a 2-day training class by Franklin Covey for Sales People at my company."
"I know this is supposed to be one of the holy bibles of selling consulting, but OMG, the writing style is abysmal and a snoozer to read."
Best Business Facility Management
Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law’s iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport. “Law provides necessary insight into how front offices have come to evaluate talent... Smart Baseball is an essential and accessible primer on how data and analytics shape America’s Pastime, and where it’s headed. Smart Baseball gives us a preview of the future as Keith introduces the stats that really matter in a way that all fans will enjoy.” (--Molly Knight, author of New York Times Bestseller The Best Team Money Can Buy). “There is still, probably, someone in your life who thinks that “grit,” “intensity,” and “hustle” are more important than “on-base percentage” and “WHIP.” Give that person this book, and end the argument forever.” (--Mike Schur, co-creator of Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Good Place). “In mercifully plain English, Law explains how the new statistical tools can answer questions that previously baffled baseball experts.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Part Three taps into Mr. Law's ideas about where baseball is headed with scouting & data, with front-office insights from baseball business people."
"I'm only a casual baseball fan, but I found this book fascinating."
"It's neat to read about the machinery of the new-age of baseball."
"Whether you get this book and read it for the enjoyment of a few hours of non-traditional baseball thought, or you get this book and read it in search of the baseball Grand Unified Theory, by all means get this book and read it."
"It was my hope to have a bit more detail ... give me more examples of the most egregious uses of statistics and why certain HOF snubs should be in, etc."
"Incredibly well written and exceptional flow to the narrative makes for an easy read."
"Definitely worth reading for any real baseball fan."
"How Hall of Fame voting by sports writers have got it wrong on numerous occasions."
Best Business Research & Development
After years of research, Christensen and his co-authors have come to one critical conclusion: our long held maxim--that understanding the customer is the crux of innovation--is wrong. The "Jobs to Be Done" approach can be seen in some of the world's most respected companies and fast-growing startups, including Amazon, Intuit, Uber, Airbnb, and Chobani yogurt, to name just a few. Christensen, Hall, Dillon, and Duncan contend that by understanding what causes customers to "hire" a product or service, any business can improve its innovation track record, creating products that customers not only want to hire, but that they'll pay premium prices to bring into their lives. Jobs Theory has had --and will continue to have ---a profound influence on Intuit’s approach to innovation. It just might change yours, too. Clay Christensen and his co-authors have presented critical business thinkers and doers with a breakthrough theory that will change how leaders approach innovation by reverse engineering from a high value and focused customer job to be done. True to its unpretentious name, jobs theory is disarmingly simple… “What job is our customer trying to accomplish?” stands as one of those great business questions that companies deploy to stimulate creative juices at the start of meetings. The Theory of Jobs to Be Done has the essential trait of any good management theory: Once explained, it seems glaringly obvious.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Mr. Christensen did is usual excellent job with this book."
"Using experience gained from the numerous companies they have worked with over the years, the authors clearly show how the successful companies like Amazon, Intuit, The Mayo Clinic and others continue to stay focused on their North Star."
"Another master piece from Clayton!!"
"Great book, focuses totally on the "task" a customer is trying to resolve."
"Good idea of what job to be done."
"Christensen has been using “jobs theory” for 20 years, and I enjoyed reading his stories of how he applied it to different products like computer chips, medical clinics, colleges, and milk shakes."
"Very well framed explanation of JTB theory."
"This book and its underlying theory is professional scripture."
Best Business Infrastructure
When Louis Vuitton: The Birth of Modern Luxury was published in 2004, the book was the first to describe the dramatic rise of the world’s finest luxury company. He is the author of Abrams Louis Vuitton: 100 Legendary Trunks.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"BOUGHT FOR MY DAUGHTER AS A GIFT SHE LOVED IT AND SAID IT WAS GOOD QUALITY."
"Nice to see how a classic company evolves , and always stays current. Good reference."
"a must for every louis vuitton fan!"
"The most comprehensive Louis Vuitton compendium I have come across - fabulous beyond words!"
"Beautiful presentation and informative."
"Disappointed that the Amazon version does not include the slip case as sold with the book at Louis Vuitton."
"Love this book, amazing reading and photos- dont miss out !!"
Best Strategic Business Planning
How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Standards: Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The Comparisons: The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? At the heart of the findings about these companies' stellar successes is what Collins calls the Hedgehog Concept, a product or service that leads a company to outshine all worldwide competitors, that drives a company's economic engine and that a company is passionate about.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Finally, a book from Jim Collins on Good to Great for Social Sectors which should be read by everybody working in social enterprises and organization, who are not operating as businesses and companies in their field, but who want to contribute their very best in the interest of people's rights and wellbeing around the world."
"Yet the proof is in the results that these level 5 leaders have achieved, for example Fannie Mae's CEO David Maxwell who exemplified these qualities and grew the company 3.8 times the general stock market."
"Good to Great is a marvelous description of what makes companies elevate themselves in the minds of their customers and their other constituencies."
"An interesting read, but I'm not sure his conclusions are sound--info is fairly anecdotal and correlational, not causal."
"Practical - because the Great companies' analysis indicates duplicateable concepts and steps which are universal in any field by aspiring Level 5 leaders. Encouraging - Some of the toughest decisions made by Level 5 leaders are being made by leaders aspiring to attain the Level 5 mentality."
"The book is based on a huge amount of research and has great examples to underpin their conclusions."
"If you work in government, non-profit or higher education, I recommend the companion monograph for the Social Sectors, which helps apply these business-focused concepts in a more meaningful way."
"Just a great, thorough book."
Best Business Structural Adjustment
Eliyahu M. Goldratt is an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems, and acts as an educator to many of the world's corporations. The 20th anniversary edition includes a series of detailed case study interviews by David Whitford, Editor at Large, Fortune Small Business, which explore how organizations around the world have been transformed by Eli Goldratt's ideas.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In short, I think the novel does a fantastic job of introducing the down-sides of "Taylorist" management approaches, even in manufacturing, which is what Taylorism was developed for in the first place. You will not get that empathetic viewpoint from the nonfiction literature on the subject, so the inclusion is still a strength - it is just that the content has not aged all that well. The discussion of how traditional accounting rules and consequential financial controls can create a set of counterproductive incentives is telling, and presages by a couple of decades the work being done now in the Beyond Budgeting movement."
"If you are employed in a business area, or interested in learning more about how to streamline company processes, this book is a great read."
"I have worked in oil and gas and manufacturing as an engineer and now manager for 20 years and I am finding this book is providing me insights on problems I am facing today."
"Between the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2011, I pursued a Master of Business Administration and Master of Systems Engineering back to back while working during the day."
"Goldratt describes many different types of problems involved in a production process that can occur in a manufacturing plant such as a failure to ship the product on time or deciding the correct throughput and capacity of the plant. Throughout “The Goal”, Goldratt guided me to simulate the sequence of problems through the mind of Alex Hugo and I was able to practice identifying and solving problems along with Alex which was a valuable experience."
Best Office Automation Business
You will discover everything you need to know about social media marketing This expanded 3rd edition has Outstanding New Content to make building your online presence even more powerful than before! Doubling Your Instagram Followers Understanding Facebook Ad marketing Top Strategies For Growth Monetizing Your Social Media.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As someone who has used social media to support multilple activities this book is just so helpful. There are so many social media formats out there now and this book helps break them down and what their application for different use would be."
"If you really are completely new to social media or struggling to keep up it’s a quick read that will tell you the strategies of each of the major social media sites and a step by step how to set up each."
"Many social media platforms are explained and each section has a few suggestions on utilizing it efficiently."
"I have a facebook page and even a website but short of paying all the time to boost my posts, I was wondering what I could do to advertise and get more people interested in my brand."
"He tells how to recognize your brand, your key audience- customers, and even points out a few social media sites I hadn't heard of before and was interested in checking out."
"Social Media: Strategies to Mastering Your Brand is a useful guide to teaching businesses how to use social media as resort for marketing their business."
"The information is fit for those who just want to understand the different social media platforms and establish a presence, as well as, those who want to invest more time, money and effort in order to maximize their results."
Best Green Business
Cool Tools is a highly curated selection of the best tools available for individuals and small groups. It's a habit he learned while editing and publishing the Whole Earth Catalog , the bible of counterculture do-it-yourselfers who wanted in 'tools and ideas for the 21st century.'". "Stewart Brand said that Cool Tools had captured the spirit of the Whole Earth Catalog but without taking on a counterculture and back-to-the-land philosophy. "Jeff Bezos is a fan of e-mail newsletters such as Cool Tools , a compendium of technology tips and product reviews written by Kevin Kelly, a co-founder of Wired ."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"So in addition to hand jacks that can raise 7000 lbs., the Teeny Turner (a pocket sized driver), portable band saws, and laser measuring tools, you can find the best source on how to buy a car cheaply, make a low-budget movies, brew your own beer, rear an optimistic child, design a logo, win a fight, soak in feral (!). hot springs, learn to swim efficiently, prepare for a natural disaster, vagabond the world, do something dangerous (and live to tell about it), run for local office and win, go solar on your roof, or (a great boon to Boomers) remember anything."
"When I first opened the original Whole Earth Catalog, I found myself standing in a clearing, looking at the partially built geodesic dome I was going to live in the rest of my life."
"This carries me back to my childhood pouring over electronics magazines or the Aircraft Spruce and Specialty catalog imagining what I could do if I combined and use the right parts and tools."
"The categories are wide ranging, from cooking, crafts, learning, music, family, electronics and more. There's certain to be some area of immediate interest, but half the fun is the insight into the tools of the trade of some activity you may never have considered like beekeeping or world travel on a shoestring budget. (Disclosure--I received an early copy because a review I contributed years ago to the site was included in the book, but I'll be ordering more copies."
"I've learned about many 'cool tools' I've never heard about and I've bought several items based upon the recommendations in this book, " Veganomicon" "Glorious One- Pot Meals" "FitBit" and " Ultimate Fit or Fat"- and this is the part that makes this catalog so much fun to read and look at - You'll see many reviews on items you've never heard of before, such as, (for me) "Ideo Method cards" , used for brainstorming or "Making Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop up, Twist and Turn" or find reviews for an item you would like to purchase, but haven't had the time to do the research to find out which one is the best."
"I've was considering getting this book as a gift for my father as he and I both love this kind of stuff, but he's not the type of person to check out a website regularly."
Best E-commerce Professional
The second edition includes: A broad introduction to bitcoin--ideal for non-technical users, investors, and business executives An explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects Details of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles New developments such as Segregated Witness, Payment Channels, and Lightning Network Improved explanations of keys, addresses and wallets User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts. With experience ranging from hardware and electronics to high level business and financial systems technology consulting and years as CTO/CIO/CSO in many companies — he combines authority and deep knowledge with an ability to make complex subjects easy to understand. His expertise includes Bitcoin, crypto-currencies, Information Security, Cryptography, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Linux, Open Source and robotics software development.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Deep complex book for programmers."
"This book really shows how a transaction works, how blockchain works, and why we need it--along with a history and and thorough introduction of bitcoin that could explain it to someone that knows nothing of distributed ledger technology."
"It explains how keys work—even down to the level of the elliptic curve math—the ins and outs of transactions, and the components of Script, Bitcoin’s language for securing unspent transaction outputs (UTXO)."
"Fantastic book if you want to learn what Bitcoin is and how it works."
"A MUST READ FOR EVERYONE AND EVERY GENERATION."
"Very completed and easy to comprehend."
"I would recommend this book to everyone, who wants to know how the bitcoin works in bit level."
Best Office Management
This new updated and expanded edition includes: More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled their income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point * Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating email, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than GBP5 a meal * How lifestyle design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times * The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either. His podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, was one of iTunes's "Best of 2015," typically among the top 30 out of more than 300,000 podcasts.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Don't get me wrong, Ferriss makes some excellent points and he's got some really great tips and tricks in here, I'm just not sure how universal they really are. I thought he was just talking about ways to spend less time working, but that "The 4-Hour" just sounded good (since he now has a whole line of books with titles that start that way). I never did understand the point of retirement, so Ferriss's plan sounds much more appealing to me. Granted, that would make my job a whole lot more portable, but I could never get away with only working four hours per week (at least not until after I sell that bestselling novel, which is such a realistic plan!). I, too, thought I could get another job within a few months, but that did not turn out to be the case. So, if I go spend all my money on a mini-retirement now, and then come back only to find that I can't get a job for another year, I'll be screwed. I love them, but they have enough to deal with right now, and the last thing I want to do is burden the people around me because I decided to go globe-trotting for a few months."
"I was a fan of Tim Ferris before I read this book so my opinion may be a little biased."
"Got me thinking in ways that I wasn't thinking before."
"It's opened my mind to what's possible, and has actionable items to make things happen."
"I've known about this book since its release but have delayed reading for fear of "drinking the Koolaid", falling prey to the wiles of wishful thinking, unintentionally joining a cult, etc."
"Tim ferris shares great ideas that anyone can grab ahold of."
"Seriously, he begins by admitting he first made his fortune selling (allegedly) nutritional supplements that cost almost nothing to make and weren't based on science, but were then hyped to the point the uninformed public was paying through the nose to get it. This gave him ideas on how to further hype his message to an even larger audience, without bothering to sell anything tangible. He then gives advice about "paraphrasing and combining points from several books," borrowing from the public domain, and/or compensating some other "expert." Apparently, not knowing a damn thing is a virtue he calls "Cultivating Selective Ignorance." If having an educated and well-informed populace is fundamental to having a flourishing democracy, this is how we'll end up with a plutocracy where the stupidest few prey on the desperate and stupid masses, while outsourcing all the jobs they might create. Outsource everything -- including your brain -- to a 3rd World Country: He hires virtual assistants in various 3rd World Countries, especially India, who are then given fabulous access to all of his personal information to the point they can pretend to be him and make all of his personal and business decisions. Hey, what could possibly go wrong by hiring complete strangers and giving them all information about you in order to think for you, do your work and run your errands? Just tell him you're too busy and further kill morale by then asking those other suckers - aka, co-workers - for a quick breakdown of what happened."
"Several chapters in, Ferriss recommends that you not be hesitant to walk out of a bad movie or to put down a book you are not enjoying - - so I did."
Best Office Equipment & Supplies
#1 Best Seller, May 3, 2017. Large sized (8 X 10) and value priced! In addition to other works, Angelo Tropea is the author of "Pass the New York Notary Public Exam Second Edition" and its companion book, "Pass the New York Notary Exam Questions and Answers."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great book for my job which entails me swearing in witnesses."
"Just got my Notary License and the book is greatly detailed."
"Large and with enough space to write."
"Soft back but very resourceful!"
"Perfect size and details."
"Nice large print and easy to use."
Best Government Management
In this fifth edition of Basic Economics , Thomas Sowell revises and updates his popular book on common sense economics, bringing the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, and Amherst.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"What sets Thomas Sowell apart from many economists and intellectuals is his ability to present complex ideas with both clarity and simplicity. As he himself once noted, "If academic writings were difficult because of the deep thoughts involved, that might be understandable, even if frustrating. Yet the book is of such breadth and depth that economist Dr. Walter Williams says "it provides an understanding of some economic phenomena that might prove elusive to a Ph.D. He also explains why, for similar reasons, rent control decreases the quality of apartment buildings, or why lowering the price of gas can cause a shortage. An insightful chapter, Sowell explains why some countries enjoy luxury while others suffer poverty, pointing to such commonly overlooked factors as geography and culture. Another addition is that this book ends with a section of questions covering important economic issues."
"I recommend this work to everyone who wishes to know the way sound economic policies should work, and how to go about making the proper changes."
"I got my bachelors degree in economics but this book is so clear I will remember the concepts presented here for much longer."
"The anecdotal teaching of economics is far and away the best for a beginner...a student or a citizen looking to become more educated in a field that is vastly misunderstood."
"Easy to read."
"This book should be mandatory reading before anyone can register to vote."
"this is a must read book."
"This book was far clearer than any economics class I had as an undergrad or in grad school."