Odd Leadership

In 1965, John Brink left the Netherlands for Canada equipped with only a single suitcase and $25.47 in cash. He had no connections, he didn’t speak the language, and he’d never finished elementary school, yet he was convinced he could make his dream to build his own sawmill come true. With a tenacity bordering on obsession, John achieved his dreams...and then some. In this lively autobiography, John distills a half-century’s hard work to share 10 simple takeaways.

To make these big moves happen for your company, you’re going to have to break through inertia, gamesmanship, and risk aversion. You’re going to have to mitigate human biases and manage group dynamics. Eight practical shifts can help you do this, and unlock bigger, bolder, better strategies.  This is not another by-the-book approach to strategy. It’s not another trudge through frameworks or small-scale case studies promising a secret formula for success. It’s an irreverent, fact-driven, and humorous take on the real world of strategic decision making.

John H. Johnson, the remarkable entrepreneur who founded the Ebony publishing empire, tells the story of his success. The wealthiest African-American in the US today, Johnson shares his rags to riches saga, from the many obstacles that confronted him to his ultimate triumph.

Contending with the 24/7 news cycle and an endless barrage of choices and information has stymied leadership and decision-making strategies. The broad-based reaction to this chaotic, unmanageable assault has been to retrench, and to focus on immediate, controllable decisions. In the process, we lose sight of the horizon. More dangerous still, is the shift we've seen from value creation to wealth creation, in a transaction-based society in which the "deal" is more important than the value it drives or the relationships it is based on.

Stacking the Deck offers a proven, practical approach for inspiring meaningful, lasting change across an organization. Stacking the Deck presents a nine-step course of action leaders can follow from the first realization that change is needed through all the steps of implementation, including assembling the right team of close advisors and getting the word out to the wider group.

Veteran venture capitalist Randy Komisar and finance executive Jantoon Reigersman share no-nonsense, counterintuitive guidelines to help anyone build a successful startup. Over the course of their careers, Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman continue to see startups crash and burn because they forget the timeless lessons of entrepreneurship. But, as Komisar and Reigersman show, you can beat the odds if you quickly learn what insiders know about what it takes to build a healthy foundation for a thriving venture.

Raegan Moya-Jones never thought of herself as an entrepreneur. She was full-time corporate cog in her 30s, with a family to help support. Sick of her micromanaging boss, she quietly started a company in the wee hours of the morning while her daughters were asleep - and once that side business, aden + anais, hit the $1 million mark in revenue, she quit to work on it full-time, which now generates over $100 million a year in revenue.

Research shows you have a 50% chance of hiring the right employee...and a 50% chance of hiring the wrong one. It’s a toss up, but it doesn’t have to be. Mis-hires siphon your energy and erode team culture. Replacing them is stressful and can cost over $40,000 per re-hire. With the right tools, all of that can be avoided, and you can consistently make great hires. After years of scientific research and first-hand interview experience with thousands of candidates, Chaka Booker has created a system that helps employers consistently make great hires.

Nenna Feelmore, filmmaker and owner of Feelmore Adult Gallery in Oakland, CA provides an insightful and refreshing look into creating, maintaining, and growing a successful business, which so happens to be an adult retail boutique, all while offering useful tips on how to become a better person. Never Let the Odds Stop You highlights the notion that money may not be in the equation, but you can still get what you desire from life.

In his book Getting to Resilient Mode, Understanding What Matters Most in Business and Life, Tariq Chauhan reveals his leadership challenges and successes throughout his extraordinary career trajectory with one goal in mind: to offer his listeners a chance to transform their own leadership development. The book provides a full spectrum of perspectives to learn from, and is an essential resource for those who are charged with leading or executing leadership development initiatives.

In this innovative business how-to, leadership expert Marcia Daszko draws on her expertise to guide leaders at any level through a three-step process to radically improve their businesses: first, recognize and stop outmoded ways of thinking that fail to move the business forward (like focusing on the bottom line, conducting performance appraisals, and searching for best practices); second, start taking steps to introduce new, innovative ways of thinking and contrarian practices; and finally, transform your company into a more resilient, adaptive, and united organization.

Ten Laws of Great Decision-Making explores the different approaches and influences that feed into great decision making. It identifies 10 fundamental laws that, if applied to decision-making, can help entrepreneurs and business leaders make great decisions consistently over time. Ten Laws of Great Decision-Making is a practical guide that is easy to apply to help you make great decisions for your business. 

Growing up in poverty-stricken rural South Carolina, Tim Mercer wasn’t exactly set up for entrepreneurial success. Despite the odds stacked against him, he would go on to found the technology consulting business Intelibox, growing the company to a multimillion-dollar business. But Bootstrapped Millionaire is not only the true rags-to-riches story of one man’s life; it’s also an inspirational guide to budding entrepreneurs hoping to reach similar heights.