Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement, bringing IBM back from the brink of insolvency to lead the computer business once again.Offering a unique case study drawn from decades of experience at some of America's top companies -- McKinsey, American Express, RJR Nabisco -- Gerstner's insights into management and leadership are applicable to any business, at any level. Ranging from strategy to public relations, from finance to organization, Gerstner reveals the lessons of a lifetime running highly successful companies.
An expert explains how the conventional wisdom about decision making can get us into trouble—and why experience can’t be replaced by rules, procedures, or analytical methods In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we try to analyze every option? When should we use our intuition and when should we rely on logic and statistics? Most of us would probably agree that for important decisions, we should follow certain guidelines—gather as much information as possible, compare the options, pin down the goals before getting started. But in practice we make some of our best decisions by adapting to circumstances rather than blindly following procedures. In Streetlights and Shadows, Gary Klein debunks the conventional wisdom about how to make decisions. He takes ten commonly accepted claims about decision making and shows that they are better suited for the laboratory than for life. The standard advice works well when everything is clear, but the tough decisions involve shadowy conditions of complexity and ambiguity. Gathering masses of information, for example, works if the information is accurate and complete—but that doesn't often happen in the real world. (Think about the careful risk calculations that led to the downfall of the Wall Street investment houses.) Klein offers more realistic ideas about how to make decisions in real-life settings. He provides many examples—ranging from airline pilots and weather forecasters to sports announcers and Captain Jack Aubrey in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander novels—to make his point. All these decision makers saw things that others didn’t. They used their expertise to pick up cues and to discern patterns and trends. We can make better decisions, Klein tells us, if we are prepared for complexity and ambiguity and if we will stop expecting the data to tell us everything. “I know of no one who combines theory and observation—intellectual rigor and painstaking observation of the real world—so brilliantly and gracefully as Gary Klein.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Blink
DIVThe most cited, most controversial, and most modern book on warfare. The author examines moral and psychological aspects of war: courage, audacity, self-sacrifice, the importance of morale and public opinion, more. /div
Change is hard, but learning more about it doesn't have to be boring. The Change Book: Change the Way You Think About Change helps you get smart on change management without the pain. It addresses framing your change, leadership, resistance, culture, communication and more. Flip it open to any page and you'll find powerful, concise, and easy advice from battle-tested practitioners. Why aren't your communication efforts working? The book addresses common pitfalls, like waiting too long, delivering "bad" news and hitting people with the wrong kinds of information. How many people should you involve in your new effort? There's advice on engaging the masses and there are real stories of organizations who harnessed the power of their people. What should you do about those who resist? Do you have to turn all of them into supporters? Read about finding the people in your "sweet spot" and focusing on them. How will you keep people excited and engaged? The book offers tips for getting buy-in and maintaining momentum.
"A sunny, smart, tongue-in-cheek tale." --The New York Times Book Review "Sweet and affirming." --Kirkus Reviews When the local Pet Club won't admit a boy's tiny pet elephant, he finds a solution--one that involves all kinds of unusual animals in this sweet and adorable picture book. Today is Pet Club day. There will be cats and dogs and fish, but strictly no elephants are allowed. The Pet Club doesn't understand that pets come in all shapes and sizes, just like friends. Now it is time for a boy and his tiny pet elephant to show them what it means to be a true friend. Imaginative and lyrical, this sweet story captures the magic of friendship and the joy of having a pet.
Highly Readable, Crisply Written&Inspirational Reading For Any New Indian EntrepreneurFrontline Difficult Though Setting Up A Business Is, Becoming A High-Performance Entrepreneur Is Harder Still. And Yet, Of The Many Thousands Who Try, There Are Those Who Go On To Become Successful; Some Even Graduate To Setting Up Companies That Hold Their Own Against The Toughest Competition, Becoming Icons Of Achievement. In The High-Performance Entrepreneur, Subroto Bagchi, Co-Founder And Chief Operating Officer Of Mindtree Consulting, Draws Upon His Own Highly Successful Experience To Offer Guidance From The Idea Stage To The Ipo Level. This Includes How To Decide When One Is Ready To Launch An Enterprise, Selecting A Team, Defining The Values And Objectives Of The Company And Writing The Business Plan To Choosing The Right Investors, Managing Adversity And Building The Brand. Additionally, In An Especially Illuminating Chapter, Bagchi Recounts The Systems And Values Which Have Made Indian It Companies On A Par With The Best In The World. High-Performance Entrepreneurs Create Great Wealth, For Themselves As Well As For Others. They Provide Jobs, Crucial For An Expanding Workforce Such As India S, And Drive Innovation. In India As Elsewhere, Governments Have Become Much More Entrepreneur Friendly Than Ever Before And The Rewards Of Being A Successful Entrepreneur Are Many. More Than Just A Guide, This Is A Book That Will Tap The Entrepreneurial Energy Within You. The Tips Offered In The Book Can Make All Of Us, Businessmen And Employers, Better At Our JobsBusiness India [A] Wonderful Book Which Will Go A Long Way In Guiding Aspiring EntrepreneursSahara Times A Guiding Light To Budding EntrepreneursI.Times Of IndiaFree Press Journal
Explore how entrepreneurial thinking can dramatically improve your work, life and relationships Having the drive, ambition and inspiration to start a new business takes a special mind-set and self-confidence—think Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. It’s no wonder that we regard successful entrepreneurs as modern-day magicians, transforming sometimes-radical ideas into global brands that change the way we live our lives. But what if that spirit and drive were applied to the world outside of business start-ups? An entrepreneur seeks to build something from nothing, to take an inspired idea and make it a reality. In How to Think Like an Entrepreneur, Philip Delves Broughton will explore what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur—the ability to disrupt the status quo and generate fresh perspectives—and ultimately lead us to the heart of great entrepreneurial thinking: an understanding of our deepest human needs. By harnessing the passion, verve and limitless imagination of an entrepreneur, this book will show you new ways to improve your business, but also your life and relationships. "Self-help books for the rest of us." - The New York Times
The first complete look at one of America's legendary business leaders This groundbreaking biography by Kevin Maney, acclaimed technology columnist for USA Today, offers fresh insight and new information on one of the twentieth century's greatest business figures. Over the course of forty-two years, Thomas J. Watson took a failing business called The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company and transformed it into IBM, the world's first and most famous high-tech company. The Maverick and His Machine is the first modern biography of this business titan. Maney secured exclusive access to hundreds of boxes of Watson's long-forgotten papers, and he has produced the only complete picture of Watson the man and Watson the legendary business leader. These uncovered documents reveal new information about how Watson bet the company in the 1920s on tabulating machines-the forerunners to computers-and how he daringly beat the Great Depression of the 1930s. The documents also lead to new insights concerning the controversy that has followed Watson: his suppos ed coll usion with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Maney paints a vivid portrait of Watson, uncovers his motivations, and offers needed context on his mammoth role in the course of modern business history. Jim Collins, author of the bestsellers Good to Great and Built to Last, writes in the Foreword to Maney's book: "Leaders like Watson are like forces of nature-almost terrifying in their release of energy and unpredictable volatility, but underneath they still adhere to certain patterns and principles. The patterns and principles might be hard to see amidst the melee, but they are there nonetheless. It takes a gifted person of insight to highlight those patterns, and that is exactly what Kevin Maney does in this book." The Maverick and His Machine also includes never-before-published photos of Watson from IBM's archives, showing Watson in greater detail than any book ever has before. Essential reading for every businessperson, tech junkie, and IBM follower, the book is also full of the kind of personal detail and reconstructed events that make it a page-turning story for general readers. The Maverick and the Machine is poised to be one of the most important business biographies in years. Kevin Maney is a nationally syndicated, award-winning technology columnist at USA Today, where he has been since 1985. He is a cover story writer whose story about IBM's bet-the-company move gained him national recognition. He was voted best technology columnist by the business journalism publication TJFR. Marketing Computers magazine has four times named him one of the most influential technology columnists. He is the author of Wiley's MEGAMEDIA SHAKEOUT: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry, which was a Business Week Bestseller. Residence: Clifton, VA . "Watson was clearly a genius with a thousand helpers, yet he managed to build an institution that could transcend the genius."-from the Foreword by Jim Collins "Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story . . .his fascinating and definitive book about IBM's founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today."-Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve! and When Giants Learn to Dance
A lively and encouraging picture book celebrating boys who love to dance, from the renowned American Ballet Theatre. Boys who love to dance are center stage in this encouraging, positive, rhyming picture book about guys who love to pirouette, jeté, and plié. Created in partnership with the American Ballet Theatre and with the input of their company's male dancers, here is a book that shows ballet is for everyone. Written by the acclaimed author of A Is for Audra: Broadway's Leading Ladies from A to Z, this book subtly seeks to address the prejudice toward boys and ballet by showing the skill, hard work, strength, and smarts is takes to be a dancer. Fun and buoyant illustrations show boys of a variety of ages and ethnicities, making this the ideal book for any boy who loves dance. An afterword with photos and interviews with some of ABT's male dancers completes this empowering and joyful picture book.
In this eloquent first-person account of a family drama that changed the face of American business, the man who transformed IBM into the world's largest computer company reflects on his lifelong partnership with his father--and how their management style and shared dedication to excellence united to create a unique corporate culture that became the blueprint for the entire technology boom. In the course of sixty years Thomas J. Watson Sr. and his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., together built the international colossus that is IBM. This is their story: a riveting and revealing account of two men who loved each other--and fought each other--with a terrible fierceness. But along with the story of a father and son, this is IBM's story too. It chronicles the management insights that shaped its course and its unique corporate culture, the style that made Thomas Watson Sr. one of America's most charismatic bosses, and the daring decisions by Thomas Watson Jr. that transformed IBM into the world's largest computing company. One of the greatest business-success stories of all time, Father, Son & Co. is a moving lesson for fathers who dream for their children, as well as a testament to American ingenuity and values, told in a disarmingly frank and eloquent voice. Promising to remain an important business reference as we move into the next century, FATHER, SON & CO. takes a look at the management insight that helped to shape IBM's course and unique corporate culture. It looks at Watson, Sr., one of America's most charismatic bosses, and Watson, Jr., who spurred IBM into the computer age. Ten years after its original publication, FATHER, SON & CO. remains a uniquely honest book. Watson's willingness to write about the loving but ferociously combative relationship he had with his father and the turbulent battles behind some of IBM's most far-reaching decisions gives readers rare insights into the realities of leadership. -->
