Small Business Leadership

A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Company, America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm, told by one of the nation's leading financial journalists. In The Firm, Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts. With unrivaled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.

Imagine what Atari might have achieved if Steve Jobs had stayed there to develop the first massmarket personal computer. Or what Steve Case might have done for PepsiCo if he hadn't left for a gaming start-up that eventually became AOL. What if Salomon Brothers had kept Michael Bloomberg, or Bear Stearns had exploited the inventive ideas of Stephen Ross? Scores of top-tier entrepreneurs worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own and became self-made billionaires.

Watching his father struggle to support his family through bigotry and other challenges in being an Italian immigrant, Tom Golisano learned early on the value of thinking outside the box and not letting perception sway your view of reality. Now, for the first time, Golisano shares the political shenanigans, behind-the-scenes stories, significant characters from his remarkable life, and key insights to thrive in your career.

Teamwork, one of the most celebrated concepts in corporate life, is falling short on its promise. Why Teams Don't Work identifies the obstacles (most of them people-made) that prevent teams from achieving their potential, suggests methods to remove those obstacles, and explains how to take care of the team members.

Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel are three eminent business consultants on the cutting edge of the knowledge economy. They have coached managers at many world-class organizations; now their combined expertise on the subject of leadership is condensed in this fascinating audiobook.

What are the forces that are reshaping the relationship between the two? What can we all do to strengthen the relationship between purpose and profit as entrepreneurs, managers, employees, consumers, and investors? Backed by cutting-edge research, Purpose and Profit provides answers to these fundamental questions that are increasingly defining the business landscape all around the world.

Rising Tide Car Wash in Parkland, Florida, isn’t average in any way. When Tom D’Eri and his father John bought the location in 2013, it was struggling. Now it’s one of the highest-volume washes in Florida. Its employee retention rate is five times that of its competitors. It has spun off into two additional locations that have been immediately successful, and the business is absurdly profitable.

The purpose of The Sticking Point Solution is to help entrepreneurs and executives recognize the ways in which their businesses may be stuck, and to then give them tools for getting unstuck and enjoying exponential growth. To achieve this, Jay will help you to identify the nine "sticking points" that keep entrepreneurs and executives alike grinding just to survive, instead of growing and thriving.

You already know the Starbucks story. Since 1992, its stock has risen a staggering 5,000 percent! The genius of Starbucks success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences, stimulate business growth, generate profits, energize employees, and secure customer loyalty - all at the same time. The Starbucks Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of the world's "most admired" companies, according to Fortune magazine.

In The Perfect 10, Dave Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, the company that revolutionized real estate for agents and home buyers everywhere, shares fifty-plus years of business insights to help guide future generations of entrepreneurs as they pursue their professional dreams. Beyond being a real estate magnate, Liniger is a major philanthropist, a serial investor in new ventures, a franchising expert, an educator, a former NASCAR team owner and driver, and the proprietor of one of the world’s most successful Arabian horse breeding operations.

Being a startup CEO is a job like no other: it's difficult, risky, stressful, lonely, and often learned through trial and error. As a startup CEO seeing things for the first time, you're likely to make mistakes, fail, get things wrong, and feel like you don't have any control over outcomes. Author Matt Blumberg has been there, and in Startup CEO he shares his experience, mistakes, and lessons learned as he guided Return Path from a handful of employees and no revenues to over $100 million in revenues and 500 employees.

Scrum is the most successful framework for agile product development, and much has been written about how to follow the Scrum process, but the key to success is in the leadership skills of the product owner. Product Mastery explores the traits of the best product owners, offering an insight into the difference between good and great product ownership and explaining how the best product owners are driven to be successful.

Fraser Doherty's 48-Hour Start-Up is your handy and essential cheat sheet to starting your own business, giving the key steps for developing an idea and getting it to market quickly. Almost everyone dreams of starting their own business, but very few do it. What if it had to be only a decision of a weekend, and it didn't cost a fortune?

In Whale Done!, Ken Blanchard shows how positive reinforcement and redirection can help increase productivity. These techniques are remarkably easy to master and can be applied equally well at home, allowing listeners to become better parents and more committed spouses and have happier personal lives.

After 15 years stuck behind a desk in the software industry, Bob Clagett walked away from a well-paying, stable job to make the things he was interested in and show the world how to make them, too. His company, I Like to Make Stuff, started as a hobby but quickly grew into a passion project. In "Making Time", Bob recounts his history and build-up to becoming a full-time content creator, and shares his process, experiences, and mistakes from his first two years of self-employment.

We experience change in four phases. The first is panic. Then we adapt. Then we find a new normal. And then, finally, we reach the phase we could not have imagined in the beginning, the moment when we realize that we wouldn’t go back. Build for Tomorrow is designed to accelerate that process—to help you lessen your panic, adapt faster, define the new normal, and thrive going forward. And it arrives as we all, in some way, have felt a shift in our lives.

In The One Minute Entrepreneur, Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the number-one best selling business classic The One Minute Manager); Don Hutson, CEO of U.S. Learning; and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning, tell the inspiring story of one man's challenges in creating his own business.

What this book offers you is not a boiler-plate, “10-step plan for success”. It offers you something better. Tools you can use in your unique situation as an entrepreneurial leader. Tools that will help you grow as your organization grows.

Jennings and Haughton traveled the globe and penetrated the world's fastest companies to witness the methods used by quick, dominant leaders in business ranging from retail sales to fast food, from financial services to communications. If you want to think faster, all the information you need is here. You'll find lessons from the speediest international companies on how to become faster than anyone else in today's ever-changing business world.

The bulk of the world’s growth in population and economic activity in the foreseeable future will be generated in the developing world. This is precisely where enterprising families dominate, operating very differently than their peers in more stable and affluent nations. These businesses not only survive but actually thrive in turbulent times, enduring wars, lawlessness, market failures, environmental disasters, and more. The world’s most advanced economies will increasingly experience these types of structural shocks and chronic uncertainties in the years ahead.