An insider's account of how AT&T tried to cope with competition, economic turmoil, and media scrutiny addresses valuable business lessons from AT&T's experience while looking at key events in the corporation's recent history.
As my clients emerged from the global economic turmoil that began in 2008, I began to see what others didn’t see. Something was standing in their way—usually the unwillingness or inability to make a critical decision. They thought they needed more—more education, more experience, more time, or more data. They had enough of these, but they lacked the confidence, courage, and optimism to make the tough calls. Through our work together, we learned that when leaders make good decisions, little else matters. When they refuse to make decisions, or show a pattern of making bad ones, nothing else matters. The most successful leaders realized they could no longer push growth. Instead, they had to remove barriers to success—obstacles they had erected themselves. The compelling stories and surprising research findings in this book focus on real people who actively sought professional improvement and personal development. Working together, we mapped out their journeys, identified roadblocks, recognized the wrong turns they had taken, and unlocked their decision-making potential—in some cases, more than doubling the size of their companies. Most of these stories illustrate how and why these leaders succeed, but others serve as warnings about what can happen when leaders refuse to decide.
In Tough Calls: Game-Winning Principles for Leaders Under Pressure, pastor and high school football official Travis Collins offers encouragement and inspiration to Christian leaders. Travis selects famous moments from sports officiating history to bring to life key principles of spiritual leadership. Written for both men and women, this easy-to-read book mixes stories and quotes from the sports world together with biblical wisdom and input from leadership experts.
Thirty-nine of America's most successful business leaders share the most important decisions of their careers—and the life and career lessons they hold for us all. When former CEO Harlan Steinbaum decided to buy back his retail drug chain with his partners, his life changed dramatically. The personal impact that this one business decision—this "tough call"—had on Steinbaum made him wonder if others had experienced similar kinds of defining moments in their own careers. To find out, he reached out to some of the most successful people in the country—leaders from companies such as Verizon, Chrysler, ESPN, Ogilvy & Mather, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, WellPoint, and Panera Bread Company—to pinpoint the career-defining decisions that were integral to their success. The result is Tough Calls from the Corner Office, a treasure trove of rich business wisdom, stories of tough decisions and hard-won victories, and lessons from a lifetime of achievement in the world of business. Tough Calls from the Corner Office offers inspiring stories, lessons, principles, strategies, ideas, and solutions drawn from every stage in a successful career, from early key choices to the final leave-taking from the world of work. Given unprecedented access to such visionaries as Union Square Hospitality Group's Danny Meyer, ESPN's Bill Rasmussen, Build-A-Bear's Maxine Clark, and Let's Make a Deal's Monty Hall, Steinbaum shares their experiences, told in their own words, so that others may learn from them. In a time when many people are at professional crossroads, Tough Calls from the Corner Office offers inspiration and the confidence to believe that tough decisions can be the first step to extraordinary success.
We all make decisions every day. Most of them are pretty straightforward, but every so often there are some really tough calls. In business the choices that executives are sometimes faced with can make the difference between acclaimed success and ongoing prosperity, and failure and financial disaster. In Tough Calls, leading businessman Allan Leighton focuses on specific decisions he has made in the course of his career - at ASDA, Royal Mail and elsewhere - and describes the thought processes behind them. He also talks to many others in the know, from Sir Stuart Rose and Sir Terry Leahy to Adam Crozier at ITV and Stephen Hester at RBS. Taking into account facts that were known to them at the time, as well as other interrelated factors and potentially high-risk consequences, this line-up of top executives outline their approaches to breaking down often highly complex problems into achievable solutions. All Allan Leighton’s royalties from this book will be donated to Breast Cancer Care (Registered charity: England and Wales 1017658, Scotland SC038104)
Written by an international team of experts, this unique reference offers a case-based approach to the most complex issues in acute neurology. From acute poisoning from tropical fish to white matter disease, these experts provide far-reaching answers to the controversies and problems presented in day-to-day clinical practice. Book jacket.
For better and for worse, few companies have been so prominently and constantly in the public eye as AT&T. Through decades of growth and dominance, followed by its 1984 breakup and a litany of well-documented troubles, the company has soldiered on, by turns thriving and hanging on for dear life.Perhaps no individual experienced as much of the roller-coaster ride as Dick Martin, an executive vice president and 30-year AT&T veteran with both a bird’s-eye view of and a crucial role in the company’s bumpy history.Tough Calls is the ultimate inside look at how AT&T tried to cope with a “perfect storm” of fierce competition, economic turmoil, and punishing media scrutiny. Mixing unflinching candor with love for the company he helped steer -- and clear respect for many of his long-time colleagues -- Martin takes you through boardroom and back room to shed unprecedented light on:* How the 1996 bungled announcement of 40,000 layoffs nearly destroyed the company* How flawed succession planning precipitated sharp declines in AT&T’s stock price* The never-ending, ugly turf battles with the “Baby Bells” brought on by the AT&T breakup* How even small interest groups can have a tremendous influence on business decisions, and how the media are largely responsible for determining what is business news on any given dayTough Calls is also a cautionary tale to be heeded by all businesses, using AT&T’s experience in the brutal telecom wars as a backdrop for new strategies in weathering unforgiving business conditions. Just a few of the lessons to be learned include:* How to avoid the most common mistakes that executives make, such as being held hostage by unrealistic expectations, waiting too long to make critical changes, and building their celebrity rather than their credibility* How to balance internal and external communications, and how and when to deal with the business media* How to improve relationships between PR executives and the “C” suite -- CEO, CFO, Chief Counsel, etc.--and how to make public relations more strategic* How to build and sustain favorable brand recognition and investor allure even in the face of bitter competition and unpredictable market conditionsAs candid and fascinating as it is constructive, Tough Calls is itself a call to attention and to arms, in preparation for the many battles that every business must eventually face, against fierce adversaries, and even within its own camp.
Life is full of tough calls and daunting decisions. The question isn't if you'll face a big decision in the future, but how you'll face the tough call that's guaranteed to come your way. Think about it. There are wedding proposals to ponder, college applications to submit, career moves to make, homes to sell, and confrontations to consider. And, knowing how poorly things could go, we sometimes find ourselves facing these decisions with a deep fear of future regret. The pressure is on. Or is it? Short and straightforward, yet full of practical insight and spiritual truths, Tough Call, will help you see that the Christian faith offers a mindset to confidently and joyfully make your next big decision. More importantly you'll see that you can face life with your fears recognized, your peace maximized, and your hope anchored in something greater than your ability to "get it right." Readers familiar with authors like Acuff, Chan, and Tchividjian will resonate with Matt Popovits's witty, practical, and gospel-centered take on complicated topics. Tough Call is an enjoyable and essential read for any and all facing a major decision.
Why do some children succeed while others fail? The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough traces the links between childhood stress and life success. He uncovers the surprising ways in which parents do—and do not—prepare their children for adulthood. And he provides us with new insights into how to improve the lives of children growing up in poverty. Early adversity, scientists have come to understand, not only affects the conditions of children’s lives, it can also alter the physical development of their brains. But innovative thinkers around the country are now using this knowledge to help children overcome the constraints of poverty. With the right support, as Tough’s extraordinary reporting makes clear, children who grow up in the most painful circumstances can go on to achieve amazing things. This provocative and profoundly hopeful book has the potential to change how we raise our children, how we run our schools, and how we construct our social safety net. It will not only inspire and engage readers, it will also change our understanding of childhood itself.