Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.
In the wake of 9/11, many Americans feel their individual safety is threatened by forces they cannot control. Some take drastic measures and move from metropolitan areas thought to be targets, while most stay put and try to find ways to protect themselves in their homes, their workplaces, and their communities. Still, a sense of vulnerability or uncertainty can undermine feelings of safety and security. Today's dangerous world calls for daily personal power that overcomes paranoia and puts people back in control of their lives and their sense of safety. Drawing on 34 years of law enforcement work and training, co-authors Doug Graves and Jana Kemp present useful information and practical guidelines for keeping yourself, family members, and co-workers as safe as possible every day. Prepared-Not Paranoid presents methods for recognizing challenges or threats, innovative ways of thinking about safety, checklists with actions to take in various settings, and items to have handy when traveling to the local convenience store or around the world. This book serves as a guide for safe daily living, not as a self-defense manual. The authors raise awareness and offer important information so people feel more confident moving through daily life as safely as possible.
The Oklahoma City bombing, intentional crashing of airliners on September 11, 2001, and anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001 have made Americans acutely aware of the impacts of terrorism. These events and continued threats of terrorism have raised questions about the impact on the psychological health of the nation and how well the public health infrastructure is able to meet the psychological needs that will likely result. Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism highlights some of the critical issues in responding to the psychological needs that result from terrorism and provides possible options for intervention. The committee offers an example for a public health strategy that may serve as a base from which plans to prevent and respond to the psychological consequences of a variety of terrorism events can be formulated. The report includes recommendations for the training and education of service providers, ensuring appropriate guidelines for the protection of service providers, and developing public health surveillance for preevent, event, and postevent factors related to psychological consequences.
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • An absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with the future, by the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine. “Deeply funny and life-affirming, with a warm, generous outlook even on the most challenging of subjects.” —Esquire We’re alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. A pandemic draws our global community to a halt. Everywhere you look there’s an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on earth is anybody doing about it? Dublin-based writer Mark O’Connell is consumed by these questions—and, as the father of two young children, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers. He tours survival bunkers in South Dakota. He ventures to New Zealand, a favored retreat of billionaires banking on civilization’s collapse. He engages with would-be Mars colonists, preppers, right-wing conspiracists. And he bears witness to places, like Chernobyl, that the future has already visited—real-life portraits of the end of the world as we know it. What emerges is an absorbing, funny, and deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with what’s ahead.
Andy Grove, founder and former CEO of Intel shares his strategy for success as he takes the reader deep inside the workings of a major company in Only the Paranoid Survive. Under Andy Grove's leadership, Intel became the world's largest chip maker and one of the most admired companies in the world. In Only the Paranoid Survive, Grove reveals his strategy for measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads--when massive change occurs and a company must, virtually overnight, adapt or fall by the wayside--in a new way. Grove calls such a moment a Strategic Inflection Point, which can be set off by almost anything: mega-competition, a change in regulations, or a seemingly modest change in technology. When a Strategic Inflection Point hits, the ordinary rules of business go out the window. Yet, managed right, a Strategic Inflection Point can be an opportunity to win in the marketplace and emerge stronger than ever. Grove underscores his message by examining his own record of success and failure, including how he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw, which threatened Intel's reputation in 1994, and how he has dealt with the explosions in growth of the Internet. The work of a lifetime, Only the Paranoid Survive is a classic of managerial and leadership skills.
This is a book about avoiding mistakes when making basic business decisions—the kind of mistakes that can result in catastrophic expenses, lawsuits, losses, and bankruptcies. As a veteran private investigator and business consultant, Christopher Eiben has witnessed firsthand how frequently these avoidable mistakes can wreak financial and personal havoc on businesspeople. Through in-depth analysis of authentic case studies, and insight born of his years of experience in the field, Eiben explains how certain prescriptive measures—more careful hiring practices, improved security, effective and thorough due diligence, and others—can limit risks and improve the odds of business success. In the current business climate, with the ever-increasing strategies available to the unscrupulous, the devious, and the outright criminal, this kind of “paranoia” isn’t just a necessary tool—it’s a virtue.
This important book by one of our leading experts on disaster preparedness offers a compelling narrative about our nation’s inability to properly plan for large-scale disasters and proposes changes that can still be made to assure the safety of its citizens. Five years after 9/11 and one year after Hurricane Katrina, it is painfully clear that the government’s emergency response capacity is plagued by incompetence and a paralyzing bureaucracy. Irwin Redlener, who founded and directs the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, brings his years of experience with disasters and health care crises, national and international, to an incisive analysis of why our health care system, our infrastructure, and our overall approach to disaster readiness have left the nation vulnerable, virtually unable to respond effectively to catastrophic events. He has had frank, and sometimes shocking, conversations about the failure of systems during and after disasters with a broad spectrum of people—from hospital workers and FEMA officials to Washington policy makers and military leaders. And he also analyzes the role of nongovernmental organizations, such as the American Red Cross in the aftermath of Katrina. Redlener points out how a government with a track record of over-the-top cronyism and a stunning disregard for accountability has spent billions on “random acts of preparedness,” with very little to show for it—other than an ever-growing bureaucracy. As a doctor, Redlener is especially concerned about America’s increasingly dysfunctional and expensive health care system, incapable of handling a large-scale public health emergency, such as pandemic flu or widespread bioterrorism. And he also looks at the serious problem of a disengaged, uninformed citizenry—one of the most important obstacles to assuring optimal readiness for any major crisis. Redlener describes five natural and man-made disaster scenarios as a way to imagine what we might face, what our current systems would and would not prepare us for, and what would constitute optimal planning—for government and the public—in each situation. To see what could be learned from others, he points up some of the more effective ways countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have dealt with various disasters. And he concludes with a real prescription: a nine-point proposal for how America can be better prepared as well as an addendum of what citizens themselves can do. An essential book for our time, Americans at Risk is a devastating and realistic account of where we stand today.
This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.
What Did You Worry About Today? Chances Are, You Didn't Need to . . . Paranoid Parents take heart: You're not alone in your sleepless nights. When surveyed by Paranoid Parents founder Christie Barnes, 75 percent of moms and dads said they worried about "everything" when it came to their kids. Things like: Is this really the right school? Will she get kidnapped at the mall? Are those car seats safe? Will he be bullied at camp? Is that splinter infected? Does he really have ADD or is he just hyper? Is she experimenting with drugs? In our fear-based culture that makes us over-buy, over-protect, and over-parent in an effort to keep our kids safe, Christie Barnes knows the truth: Most parents are wasting their time worrying about the wrong things. From years of research, Barnes will give parents a much-needed reality check, opening their eyes to the real dangers likely to befall their kids with simple, effective tips to prevent them from happening. She will help paranoid parents to come clean about their biggest fears, reveal the Top Ten real dangers as opposed to the Myth Makers, and offer realistic ways to safeguard kids at every stage without stealing their childhoods. By rallying against our biggest fears with the facts, the Paranoid Parents Guide will help moms and dads enjoy parenthood more, and allow their kids develop the resiliency, independence, and good decision-making skills that are essential—yet lacking—in today's society. So stop worrying about a shark attack . . . because your child is more likely to be injured by a shopping cart. Think that ice hockey is more dangerous than cheering? Think again. Is there ever an age when your kids are safer? (The answer is yes.) Are strangers the real enemy? (Actually, no.) How dangerous is the world we live in? As Barnes will prove, it's easier to enjoy your time with your children when you are prepared; not paranoid.
