Taking Smart Risks: How Sharp Leaders Win When Stakes are High

Taking Smart Risks: How Sharp Leaders Win When Stakes are High

Author: Doug Sundheim

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2013-01-04

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0071778209

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In today’s market, playing it safe is not an option Lead your company to sustainable success by taking the RIGHT RISKS The business world is in flux, and you have to think and act quickly in order to stay competitive. But the last thing you want to do is make reckless business decisions. You have to find the middle ground. You have to take SMART RISKS. In this groundbreaking book, leadership expert Doug Sundheim explains how to find that precise point between comfort and danger for generating the sustained ability to work at the highest level of performance. Taking Smart Risks reveals the secrets to discovering, planning for, and acting upon the kind of risks that will move your company forward and ahead of the competition. Learn how to: Find Something Worth Fighting For—What do you care enough about to risk time, energy, and money to try to make happen? Determining this is half the battle. See the Future Now—Clarify your big idea in terms of real objectives, plans, and intended results. Act Fast, Learn Fast—Make your move quickly, but be sure you don’t squander valuable resources in the process. Communicate Powerfully—Assume communication will break down at points, plan accordingly—and don’t shy away from the tough conversations. Create a Smart Risk Culture— Build teams that share the same mindsets and values about expected smart risk behavior. Applying Sundheim’s advice will help you let go of old assumptions, explore new possibilities, move your organization out of its comfort zone, and experience long-term success. When you take smart risks, you will create. You will innovate. You will grow. And you will WIN. “From Sherwin Williams to Moo.com, Doug Sundheim is onto something here: your work is worth fighting for. A worthy read for everyone in your organization.” —Seth Godin, Author, The Icarus Deception “The risk-taking concepts in this book lie at the heart of effective leadership. Using case studies and stories from executives who have ‘been there, done that,’ Doug Sundheim teaches us that sometimes the most dangerous thing to do—in business and life—is to play it safe.” —Marshall Goldsmith, million-selling author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There “Sundheim delivers a message that every business needs to hear right now: excessive risk will kill you, but so will complacency. . . . If you’re charged with driving growth in your organization, buy this book—but more importantly, use it.” —Jed Hartman, Group Publisher, Fortune & CNNMoney.com “A spectacular book! The stories were powerful, the advice was crystal clear, and every few pages called me to action. I have bookmarked more pages in Taking Smart Risks than I have in any book since reading Peter Drucker’s classics.” —Michael Hejtmanek, President & CEO, Hasselblad Bron Inc. “Doug Sundheim does an excellent job of demonstrating not only how to take smart risks, but also how to lead the process of risk-taking—a critical skill set for leaders today.” —Cindy Zollinger, President & CEO, Cornerstone Research “A compelling case for why smart risk taking is so important in today’s fast-paced, uncertain world.” —Willie Pietersen, Professor, Columbia Business School; former CEO, Tropicana and Seagram USA


Summary: Taking Smart Risks

Summary: Taking Smart Risks

Author: BusinessNews Publishing,

Publisher: Primento

Published: 2014-11-12

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13: 2511024276

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The must-read summary of Doug Sundheim's book: "Taking Smart Risks: How Smart Leaders Win When Stakes Are High". This complete summary of the ideas from Doug Sundheim's book "Taking Smart Risks" shows that when you stay in your comfort zone indefinitely, you really don’t feel alive. Thus to keep growing, you have to work towards achieving challenging goals which force you to stretch and grow. This summary highlights five things you need to do in order to get in the “smart-risk zone” and stay there. Added-value of this summary: • Save time • Understand key concepts • Expand your knowledge To learn more, read "Taking Smart Risks" and find out why you should break out of your comfort zone and start taking risks that will help you reach your goals.


Smart Women Take Risks: Six Steps for Conquering Your Fears and Making the Leap to Success

Smart Women Take Risks: Six Steps for Conquering Your Fears and Making the Leap to Success

Author: Helene Lerner

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2006-03-17

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0071467548

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Take the plunge. Come out ahead. There are certain risks you might feel uncomfortable making—but calculated risks are necessary to propel you to new heights in your professional and personal development. Every time you choose security over something new, you’re missing new opportunities—and the chance to live a happier, more fulfilled life. As CEO of Creative Expansions, Inc., Helene Lerner coaches women on how to actualize their potential, increase their self-esteem, and reach their goals. Now, in Smart Women Take Risks, she shares her powerful 6-step program, revealing how you too can take smart, strategic risks born from careful thought and intuition-and create positive change in your professional and personal life. Lerner helps you change your perception about risk-taking, and shows you how to determine whether a risk is a Best Bet, a Not Now, or a No Go. You won't risk blindly; you'll go in with your eyes wide open and commit to a doable goal that lets you move forward confidently without the overpowering fear of failure. Lerner gives you expert tools that will help you: Build and maintain a strong support team-a crucial step for successfully creating change Overcome procrastination, perfectionism, and second-guessing Vocalize your success (yes, it's ok to brag!) Keep your accomplishments “green” by continuing to build on them Apply these risk-taking principles to other areas of your life Lerner shares inspiring stories and tips from women who stepped out of their own comfort zones, took leaps, and moved ahead with faith and confidence. she shows you how to harness the opportunities in your own life--and take risks that will push you to greater heights of success.


Smart Collaboration

Smart Collaboration

Author: Heidi K. Gardner

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Published: 2016-12-13

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 163369111X

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A Washington Post Bestseller Not all collaboration is smart. Make sure you do it right. 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. Unless you know why you’re collaborating and how to do it effectively, it may not be smart at all. That’s especially true for partners who have built their reputations and client rosters independently, not by working with peers. In Smart Collaboration, Heidi K. Gardner shows that firms earn higher margins, inspire greater client loyalty, attract and retain the best talent, and gain a competitive edge when specialists collaborate across functional boundaries. Gardner, a former McKinsey consultant and Harvard Business School professor now lecturing at Harvard Law School, has spent over a decade conducting in-depth studies of numerous global professional service firms. Her research with clients and the empirical results of her studies demonstrate clearly and convincingly that collaboration pays, for both professionals and their firms. But Gardner also offers powerful prescriptions for how leaders can foster collaboration, move to higher-margin work, increase client satisfaction, improve lateral hiring, decrease enterprise risk, engage workers to contribute their utmost, break down silos, and boost their bottom line. With case studies and real-world insights, Smart Collaboration delivers an authoritative case for the value of collaboration to today’s professionals, their firms, and their clients and shows you exactly how to achieve it.


Smart Growth

Smart Growth

Author: Edward D. Hess

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0231150504

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Wall Street believes that all public companies should grow smoothly and continuously, as evidenced by ever-increasing quarterly earnings, and that all companies either "grow or die." Introducing a research-based growth model called "Smart Growth," Edward D. Hess challenges this ethos and its dangerous mentality, which often deters real growth and pressures businesses to create, manufacture, and purchase noncore earnings just to appease Wall Street. Smart Growth accounts for the complexity of growth from the perspective of organization, process, change, leadership, cognition, risk management, employee engagement, and human dynamics. Authentic growth is much more than a strategy or a desired result. It is a process characterized by complex change, entrepreneurial action, experimental learning, and the management of risk. Hess draws on extensive public and private company research, incorporating case studies of Best Buy, Sysco, UPS, Costco, Starbucks, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Room & Board, Home Depot, Tiffany & Company, P&G, and Jet Blue. With conceptual innovations such as an Authentic Earnings and Growth System framework, a seven-step growth funnel pipeline, a Growth Decision Template, and a Growth Risks Audit, Hess provides a blueprint for an enduring business that strives to be better, rather than simply bigger.


Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges

Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges

Author: Anna Visvizi

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2019-06-18

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0128166487

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Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges: Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats serves as a primer on smart cities, providing readers with no prior knowledge on smart cities with an understanding of the current smart cities debates. Gathering cutting-edge research and insights from academics, practitioners and policymakers around the globe, it identifies and discusses the nascent threats and challenges contemporary urban areas face, highlighting the drivers and ways of navigating these issues in an effective manner. Uniquely providing a blend of conceptual academic analysis with empirical insights, the book produces policy recommendations that boost urban sustainability and resilience. - Combines conceptual academic approaches with empirically-driven insights and best practices - Offers new approaches and arguments from inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives - Provides foundational knowledge and comparative insight from global case-studies that enable critical reflection and operationalization - Generates policy recommendations that pave the way to debate and case-based planning


Smart Health Choices

Smart Health Choices

Author: Les Irwig

Publisher: Judy Irwig

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1905140177

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Every day we make decisions about our health - some big and some small. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. But how can we be sure that the advice we are given about these important matters is right for us? This book will provide you with the right tools for assessing health advice.


The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy

Author: Michael Lewis

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1324002654

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The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword "[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.


Smart Risks

Smart Risks

Author: Jennifer Lentfer

Publisher: Practical Action Publishing

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781853399312

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As never before, international aid is in the hands of ordinary people. Concerned citizens in wealthy countries are starting philanthropy groups, joining giving circles, and travelling internationally to lend support. Yet, they are torn between the feelings that 'something' must be done about global poverty and that foreign assistance is creating dependency and fueling corruption overseas. A growing community of international small grant-makers know how to find and fund effective grassroots initiatives. Compared to donor-controlled, large-scale, project-based international aid funding, small grant-makers use the concept of 'smart risks' to build upon existing human and social capital and to make a lasting changes in people's lives. Smart Risks brings together the wisdom of experts with wide-ranging experience within the development sector. Their contributions focus on five guiding question, such as 'who is a smart risk?' and 'what is your role in smart risks?' They include case studies, personal stories of lessons learned over time, provocative insights on power and privilege, and practical frameworks for choosing, investing in, and measuring the impact of grassroots organizations and movements. This book is essential reading for all those who wonder how their donations and work can make a difference in developing countries - from aid agency staff and policy makers, to globally engaged individuals.


Solving for Project Risk Management: Understanding the Critical Role of Uncertainty in Project Management

Solving for Project Risk Management: Understanding the Critical Role of Uncertainty in Project Management

Author: Christian B. Smart

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2020-11-23

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1260473848

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Risk is real—but you can manage it with this hard-hitting guide to reducing risk on any project, in any industry All projects, large and small, are subject to various risks. But the failure to manage inherent risk with diligence and know-how can lead to devastating consequences for an organization. In this comprehensive hands-on guide, a renowned expert in the field provides everything organizations need to conduct project risk management the right way. Why do so many projects come in over schedule and over budget? How do projected expenditures and schedules line up with reality? How can you accurately assess risk to mitigate financial disaster? Through a methodical, statistics-based approach, Christian B. Smart reveals: The enduring problem of cost and schedule growth How rigorous project risk management can reduce the impact of uncertainty The systematic tendency to underestimate risk—and how to avoid it Ways to accurately assess confidence levels in project risk management The need for proper risk management at the portfolio level The author lays out common problems and explains how to effectively solve them. And while he employs a wealth of illustrative charts, graphs, and statistics, he presents the material in an accessible style, and peppers the text with powerful personal anecdotes. Ideal for project managers, business analysts, and senior decision makers in both the public and private sectors, Solving for Project Risk Management offers everything you need to ensure your projects run smoothly, on budget, and deliver the expected outcomes.