Small Leadership

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning about - and solving - an extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most daunting. Today it is machine learning programs that enable Amazon and Netflix to predict what users will like, Apple to power Siri's ability to understand voices, and Google to pilot cars.

In this hands-on successor to the popular book The Trusted Advisor, you'll find answers to pervasive questions about trust and leadership - such as how to develop business with trust, nurture trust-based relationships, build and run a trustworthy organization, and develop your trust skill set. This pragmatic workbook delivers everyday tools, exercises, resources, and actionable to-do lists for the wide range of situations a trusted advisor inevitably encounters.

Become a digital-first organization. If you read (or listen) to nothing else on leading digital transformation, listen to these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help revitalize your offerings and processes, stay ahead of disruptors and technology shifts, and manage the necessary cultural change.

Not confident with your negotiating skills? This book will cure you! A must-have for any small business owner, The Pocket Small Business Owner’s Guide to Negotiating is full of helpful tips and strategies for getting what you want without alienating your clients and suppliers. You will learn to analyze your wants, needs, advantages, and disadvantages going in, maintain your resolve, and see the negotiation through to a successful end. Topics include position bargaining, contracts, purchases, conflict resolution, and more.

Unsliced is the resource for elevating your pizzeria - from managing staff to mindset, marketing, and everything in between. Industry leader Mike Bausch explains how to make your restaurant unique and in demand based on his 20 years of experience. You’ll learn how to build systems that will help you boost your sales and keep your sanity. And you’ll discover time-tested protocols that will protect you and your restaurant. It’s hard not to get discouraged in this business. But with the right perspective, smart systems, and hard work, your restaurant can thrive.

Why are some people more successful in business than others? Why do some businesses flourish where others fail? Renowned business speaker and author Brian Tracy has discovered the answers to these profoundly puzzling questions. In this eye-opening practical audio guide, he presents a set of principles or "universal laws" that lie behind the success of business people everywhere.

The Wisdom of Teams is the definitive work on how to create high-performance teams in any organization. Having sold nearly a half million copies and been translated into more than 15 languages, the authors' clarion call that teams should be the basic unit of organization for most businesses has permanently shaped the way companies reach the highest levels of performance. Wisdom lies in recognizing a team's unique potential to deliver results and in understanding its many benefits.

A rags-to-$9-billion-riches story. A crash course in Burger King history and fast food in America, The Burger King is McLamore's candid and conversational memoir. Written before his death in 1996, he talks of his life, the birth of the Whopper, and the rise of Burger King. McLamore's account of Burger King offers an instructive and inspiring tale to young entrepreneurs. Here's a story of entrepreneurship development from one of the top entrepreneurs of fast food chains.

Seth Godin, one of today's most influential business thinkers, writes best-selling books like Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. And in between those annual books, he delivers a daily stream of ideas on one of the world's most popular blogs.

Around the world, a new generation is looking beyond greater profits, for meaningful purpose. But, unlike business, few social interventions have achieved significant impact at scale. Inspired by the modern innovation practices popularized by best seller The Lean Startup that have fueled technology breakthroughs touching every aspect of our lives, Lean Impact turns our attention to a new goal-achieving radically greater social good.

In AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Superintelligent Firm, leading futurist Jonathan Brill and innovation expert Stephen Wunker unveil a groundbreaking vision for how organizations must evolve to survive and thrive in the age of artificial intelligence. Drawing inspiration from the octopus, an ancient creature noted for both rapid adaptation and distributed intelligence, the authors show that only businesses that rewire their structure, leadership, and decision-making can unlock AI's full potential.

Problem: Most Americans don't realize the potential gold mine in blue-collar business. By blue-collar business I mean a business providing a specialized service requiring a trained employee and manual labor. In my case it is chimney sweeping, but it can range from construction to gardening to plumbing and junk removal. There are literally thousands and thousands of opportunities, but many people don't consider blue-collar work as an option and are missing out as a result.

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.

The ultimate do-it-now guide to getting started in managed services. Now includes chapters on cloud services, bundling, and more. Whether you're a new computer consultant or an experienced technician making the move to managed services, this is the perfect audiobook for you! The audiobook includes step-by-step instructions for creating service offerings, reformulating your business, creating service agreements, and more!

Koch shows how to maximize success in your career and life by using the proven principle that 80 percent of changes in the world result from the most powerful 20 percent of actions and ideas. He'll show how to use your own powerful "20 percent spike" - your most creative ideas and unique skills - to measure the amount of value you bring to your employer, clients, or customers. For most people, there is a huge disparity between their intrinsic value and the compensation they receive for their efforts.

Strong leaders at all levels within an organization are a requisite for business success. Yet the leadership pipeline—the internal architecture for growing leaders—is often broken or non-existent. This updated edition of the best-selling The Leadership Pipeline has been revised to help address the challenges of today’s business environment. Anchored in experience, it offers a tested model for planning leadership succession and development that has proven to get results.

In The Business Playbook, serial entrepreneur Chris Ronzio walks you through his proven framework for building a playbook: the profile of your business, the people who work in it, the policies that guide it, and the processes that operate it. He shows you how to codify your culture and create a living document that allows you to let go of day-to-day responsibilities and empower your team to run the business without you. If you want to build a company that doesn’t rely on you putting in more hours, this book will show you the way.

Trevor Blake built three successful startups and sold them for more than $300 million. Now he's written a complete instruction manual that covers everything the budding entrepreneur or existing business owner needs to know to build the career or business of their dreams. Unlike the many theoretical guides out there, this is a practical handbook based on Blake's wildly successful in-the-trenches experience.

With a nod to Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and other ruthless yet highly successful managers, author Dan S. Kennedy delivers the answer. In this new edition, Kennedy expands on his proven (if radical) strategies to get accountability, profitability, and productivity from employees. In his traditional "No B.S." style, Kennedy kicks traditional leadership and management ideas squarely in the teeth with a realistic, straightforward assessment of the real relationship between business owners and their employees.

How well does your organization respond to changing market conditions, customer needs, and emerging technologies when building software-based products? This practical guide presents Lean and Agile principles and patterns to help you move fast at scale - and demonstrates why and how to apply these methodologies throughout your organization. Through case studies, you'll learn how successful enterprises have rethought everything from governance and financial management to systems architecture and organizational culture in the pursuit of radically improved performance.