Business Development Skills

This book explains how wielding power affects your emotions and decision making and helps you avoid the traps that lead to negative consequences. With the latest psychological research and practical advice from leading experts, you'll learn how to use soft power to persuade others, fix unhealthy power dynamics in your team, use compassion to connect better with others, and remain ethical in your choices and actions.

Best-selling social historian Charles Murray has written a delightfully fussy - and entertaining - book on the hidden rules of the road in the workplace - and in life - from the standpoint of an admonishing, but encouraging, workplace grouch and taskmaster. Why the curmudgeon? The fact is that most older, more senior people in the workplace are closet curmudgeons. In today's politically correct world, they may hide their displeasure over your misuse of grammar or your overly familiar use of their first name without an express invitation. But don't be fooled by their pleasant demeanor....

Do you lack confidence or self-belief? Join the club. Millions of otherwise smart people lack the confidence to achieve their full potential - at work, in their careers and even in their personal pursuits. Yet confidence isn't something that can be conjured from motivational exercises or via quick-fix techniques. Confidence is something you must build for yourself. It takes planning and action, deciding where you want to gain confidence and how it must be won. It will require courage, optimism, and resilience.

What makes someone charismatic? Why do some captivate a room, while others have trouble managing a small meeting? What makes some ideas spread, while other good ones fall by the wayside? If you have ever been interrupted in meetings, overlooked for career opportunities or had your ideas ignored, your cues may be the problem - and the solution.

Productivity and effective time management end with multitasking. The false idea that multitasking is productive has become even more prevalent and damaging to our productivity and well-being since the first edition of The Myth of Multitasking was published in 2008. In this revised and updated second edition, author and productivity expert Dave Crenshaw provides a solution for the chaos of distraction that multitasking creates - and a way to combat the temptation to constantly switch between tasks.

Many of us dread having to convey our ideas to others, often feeling ill-equipped, anxious, and awkward. Public speaking experts help by focusing on planned communication experiences such as slide presentations, pitches, or formal talks. Yet, most of our professional and personal communication occurs in spontaneous situations that creep up on us and all too often leave us flustered and stumbling for words. Stanford lecturer, podcast host, and communication expert Matt Abrahams provides tangible, actionable skills to help even the most anxious of speakers succeed when speaking spontaneously.

One wrong move can undercut your message. Believe it or not, our bodies speak louder than our words. Postures, gestures, and expressions convey reams of information - and often not what you'd expect. A smile, for example, is usually considered welcoming. But crook one corner of your mouth higher, and you project superiority, subconsciously chasing other people away. Without Saying a Word explains how even the subtlest motions have meaning.

Margaret Wheatley proposes that citizens band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. Turning to One Another encourages this process.

Often the decision between a customer choosing you over someone like you is your ability to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make it count. Phil M. Jones has trained more than two million people across five continents and over 50 countries in the lost art of spoken communication. In Exactly What to Say, he delivers the tactics you need to get more of what you want.

John C. Maxwell has been a public speaker and motivational teacher for more than fifty years. He is one of only eight people on the planet who have been awarded Toastmaster’s Golden Gavel and been inducted into the National Speakers' Association Hall of Fame. In The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication: Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message, he shares everything he’s learned from a lifetime of communication.

For business leaders and public figures in any arena, The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in our every transaction and relationship - from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction - and how to establish trust immediately so that you and your organization can forego the time - killing, bureaucratic check - and - balance processes so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.

From the time we learn to speak, we're told that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. When you become a manager, it’s your job to say it--and your obligation. Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she developed a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor. Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly.

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan isn’t one to avoid arguments. He relishes them as the lifeblood of democracy and the only surefire way to establish the truth. Arguments help us solve problems, uncover new ideas we might not have considered, and nudge our disagreements toward mutual understanding. A good argument, made in good faith, has intrinsic value—and can also simply be fun.

Communication is essential in a healthy organization. But all too often when we interact with people - especially those who report to us - we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry. Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as "the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person."

In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps - and inner mindset - he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. And in the time since Never Eat Alone was published in 2005, the rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business.

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) has been successfully applied in almost every area of human endeavor. And while Eli Goldratt is indeed a scientist, an educator and a business leader, he is first and foremost a philosopher. He is a thinker who provokes others to do the same. Dr. Goldratt exhorts his readers to examine and reassess their lives and business practices by cultivating a different perspective. In his latest book, The Choice, Goldratt once again presents his thought provoking approach.

In Exactly What to Say: For Real Estate Agents, Phil M. Jones, Chris Smith, and Jimmy Mackin provide 30 Magic Words to help with the most common, critical, and difficult conversations real estate agents have today. If you are open-minded to a better way of selling, this book is for you. Imagine what it is going to feel like knowing exactly what to say when it matters the most.

Celebrating the 75 anniversary of the original landmark bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People, comes an up-to-the-minute adaptation of Carnegie’s timeless prescriptions for the digital age. Dale Carnegie’s principles have endured for nearly a century. Since its original publication in 1936, his timeless classic How to Win Friends and Influence People has gone on to sell 15 million copies. Now, introducing new listeners to Carnegie’s words of wisdom, comes How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, a new guide for a new era.

This 2006 revision - edited by a longtime consultant to Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., and the editor in charge of updating How to Win Friends and Influence People - is the definitive one for our era. While up to date in its language and points of reference, Public Speaking for Success preserves the full range of ideas and methods that appeared in the original, including Carnegie's complete speech and diction exercises, which follow each chapter, as the author originally designated them.

Many people have a fear of public speaking or are insecure about their ability to give a successful presentation. Now public speaking coach and best-selling author Carmine Gallo explores what makes a great presentation by examining the widely acclaimed TED Talks, which have redefined the elements of a successful presentation and become the gold standard for public speaking. TED - which stands for technology, entertainment, and design - brings together the world's leading thinkers.