Great Business

When Mark Rampolla filled a notebook with potential start-up ideas, his wife asked him some tough questions. What about this idea is exciting, beyond the possibility of a profit? How will it fit into a life that makes you and your family happy? How will it change the world? Eventually Mark found his great idea: coconut water. He had seen the developing world use coconut water, but this valuable resource was being discarded in the US. While taking on the beverage industry was a big goal - high-hanging fruit - it was worth the risk.

From the celebrated film critic and author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, a fascinating look at some of the cinema’s finest actors and how they approach their craft "Open to any page and you’ll become enthralled by the...tales of forgotten film lore, childhood memories, sexy...

In Think Bigger, Lead Better, Rick Tollakson shares the “Eight to Great” principles that fueled his company’s transformation from a modest real estate company into a thriving, diversified organization. With decades of leadership experience, he reveals how to foster an entrepreneurial mindset, build a strong company culture, and drive real, sustainable success.

Most people are blown off-course by unexpected events. Top performers, by contrast, know how to navigate our unpredictable world. Not just that: they know how to thrive in it. You can acquire this essential skill, too. In Mastering Uncertainty, investor and serial entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly and award-winning business author Matt Watkinson reveal the shortcomings of conventional business thinking and the advantages of developing a "probabilistic" mindset that turns uncertainty from a source of fear into an incredible and exciting advantage.

With nearly four decades of experience with the good, bad, and ugly of the board universe, Brian Hayward hones in on practical ways to develop the thinking and behaviour necessary for anyone taking this seat. Through real-life examples, and stories featuring Paul McCartney, Kalahari bushmen, Robert Maxwell, camels, Buddhist parables, and the Boeing 737 Max, listeners will see how chairing a board requires leadership competency of its own (distinct from being a director).

Cofounder of Fast Company magazine and bestselling author of Mavericks at Work and Practically Radical shows how true business innovation can spring from the unlikeliest places. Far away from Silicon Valley, in familiar, traditional, even unglamorous fields, ordinary people are unleashing...

Virtually all job hunting experts agree that networking is the best way to find a great job. But most people don't have connections to the decision makers who do the hiring. And "networking" books, which are mostly written by and for salespeople, suggest aggressive tactics, often confusing these with real networking. They focus on building a powerful network over the course of a lifetime. But when you need a new job, you don't have time to build a huge, powerful network. You've got to use the network you already have.

Ben Bergeron has dedicated his life to maximizing human performance. He is best known for his work with CrossFit Games champions, but his success extends well beyond the world of sports. Long before he coached anyone to a CrossFit Games title, Bergeron was maximizing the performance of his businesses—CrossFit New England and CompTrain. In the follow-up to his bestselling first book, he shares the leadership principles that have propelled both organizations to the same level of success enjoyed by his athletes.

Your organization's culture can feel like something that has a life of its own; it's long-standing, inherited, and seemingly impermeable - in fact, a strong culture is often an obstacle to doing new things or going in new directions. But leaders are the stewards of a company's culture and have the power to shape it. The best leaders know that organizational culture is a fundamental and powerful management tool that can drive positive outcomes.

HBR's 10 Must Reads are definitive collections of classic ideas, practical advice, and essential thinking from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Exploring topics like disruptive innovation, emotional intelligence, and new technology in our ever-evolving world, these books empower any leader to make bold decisions and inspire others.

Scott Page, a leading thinker, writer, and speaker whose ideas and advice are sought after by corporations, nonprofits, universities, and governments around the world, makes a clear and compellingly pragmatic case for diversity and inclusion. He presents overwhelming evidence that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls "diversity bonuses".

We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativity demystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical approach, grounded in reality.

Once in Golconda "In this book, John Brooks-who was one of the most elegant of all business writers-perfectly catches the flavor of one of history's best-known financial dramas: the 1929 crash and its aftershocks. It's packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader." -From the Foreword...

Use this guide to storytelling as a sturdy foundation to change how you use stories. You can build solid stories to support your goals in business and life. The provided examples are from some of the world's greatest speakers, storytellers, with advice from leading experts. From best-selling authors to generation-changing motivational speakers, this audiobook covers all the fundamentals of outstanding storytelling. It will help you deliver stories to audiences that will leave them personally affected and motivated.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

Based on in-depth interviews with more than 200 leading entrepreneurs, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business identifies the six essential disciplines needed to transform your ideas into real-world successes. Each of us has the capacity to spot opportunities, invent products, and...

There is a Principle of Power in every person. By the intelligent use and direction of this principle, man can develop his own mental faculties. Man has an inherent power by which he may grow in whatsoever direction he pleases, and there does not appear to be any limit to the possibilities of his growth.

Whether you are leading a meeting or attending someone else's, this book is a practical, no-fluff guide to making meetings shorter, more productive, and (dare I say it) less painful. Drawing on experiences from more than 15,000 meetings, this book delivers a straightforward, no-nonsense approach to avoiding the most common meeting problems and fixing things when the meeting goes off track.

In our hyper-competitive world, we've been conditioned to believe that raw intelligence, relentless optimization, and strategic manipulation are the keys to great leadership. But look around—from toxic tech CEOs to burned-out executives—this "smart" approach is leaving a trail of dysfunction, high turnover, and personal suffering.

How do you grow a truly sustainable business in the hypercompetitive 21st century? By using the practical, psychology-based strategies in this book to dive into the mind of your customer and enhance your business's customer experience by creating "buying loops" that keep your customers coming back for more. The Customer Loyalty Loop includes proven, science-backed secrets for building legions of loyal customers who will become evangelists for your business, buy from you repeatedly, and actually enjoy doing business with you.