Small Leadership

The pressure to generate big ideas can feel overwhelming. We know that bold innovations are critical in these disruptive and competitive times, but when it comes to breakthrough thinking, we often freeze up. Instead of shooting for a $10-billion payday or a Nobel Prize, the most prolific innovators focus on Big Little Breakthroughs - small creative acts that unlock massive rewards over time. By cultivating daily micro-innovations, individuals and organizations are better equipped to tackle tough challenges and seize transformational opportunities.

Patagonia, named by Fortune in 2007 as the coolest company on the planet, has earned a reputation as much for its ground-breaking environmental and social practices as for the quality of its clothes. In this exceptionally frank account, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence, by step and misstep, to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately share its discoveries with companies as large as Wal-Mart or as small as the corner bakery.

If you’re an innovator or entrepreneur, you challenge precedent and disrupt the status quo. You trust that the result is worth the struggle and embrace change because it could equal progress. You have blind faith. You know that success isn’t reserved for the superstars, but you remain humble because failure is always a possibility This journey of entrepreneurship and innovation shouldn’t be a solo trip. If you’re missing something, struggling to begin, or have reached a plateau, fellow entrepreneur and innovator Bob Moesta knows your next steps because he’s been there himself.

In 1998, three Harvard Business School graduates - two men and one woman - turned down six-figure salaries at big corporations, bet on themselves, and launched their own new companies. By their 10-year reunion, their audacity had paid huge dividends. They'd made many millions of dollars, created hundreds of jobs and left their mark on the world. The Intelligent Entrepreneur tells the compelling and instructive story of how these three young founders did it.

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.

Don Wenner is a master of scaling high-growth, high-profit entrepreneurial companies. In ​Building an Elite Organization​, he walks you through the Elite Execution System his company and other highly successful organizations use to drive growth and improve profitability.

So many HR professionals crave the freedom and flexibility of being an independent HR consultant, and then the fear kicks in about whether they can make the transition from corporate to consulting and maintain their income whilst learning how to be a consultant. This audiobook guides you through not only the knowledge but also the mindset needed to be successful as well as building your confidence so that you too can make this move.

Basementality [beys-men-tal-i-tee] / noun: A mindset that blends foresight, scrappiness, flexibility, and passion, empowering you to turn vision into reality and achieve success. For 15 years, Ben Weiss created coffee and beverage products to mixed success. Then, during the Great Recession in 2009, he created Bai in the basement of his town house, disrupting the marketplace with a revolutionary beverage with five calories, no artificial sweeteners, and unprecedented taste. In just seven years, Bai grew from Ben’s basement to a $1.7 billion acquisition by Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

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.

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.

Aspiring entrepreneurs are told that to launch a business, you must go all in, devoting every resource and moment to making it work. But following this advice comes at an enormous personal cost: divorce, addiction, even suicide. It means sacrificing the intangibles that make life worth living. Sheryl O'Loughlin knows there is a better way. In Killing It, she shares the wisdom she's gained from her successful experiences.

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.

What's holding you back? Marshall Goldsmith is an expert at helping global leaders overcome their (sometimes unconscious) annoying habits and attaining a higher level of success. His one-on-one coaching comes with a six-figure price tag. But with this audiobook, you'll get Marshall's great advice without the hefty fee!

Scott Wozniak leverages his decades of brand-building experience within some of America’s most-loved companies to show you how to create world-class customer experience. After years of battle-tested work, Scott realized that there was a set of systems that all the great brands used to create raving fans. He captured these practices in an engine diagram, a simple tool to help leaders become legends. If you use this approach, you can build a Customer Experience Engine that will create those same kinds of raving fans that always seem to dominate dinner-party conversations and water-cooler chats.

Three comprehensive manuscripts in one audiobook. This audiobook is intended for people who want to know something about the fundamentals of bookkeeping and accounting without necessarily becoming a certified bookkeeper or accountant. Many people are in this position; small business owners, employers, employees, business owners, stockholders, investors, and many, many more. Most of these folks do not need a deep understanding of bookkeeping or accounting; they just need to learn what it is and how they should be using it.

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.

CEO of Hint, Inc., and author Kara Goldin turned her unsweetened flavored water into one of the most successful beverage businesses of our time. As she started to achieve her goals, Kara found herself being called “fearless”, “confident” and even “unstoppable”, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Undaunted, she shares real stories about her own fears and doubts, the challenges she encountered and what she did to overcome them to eventually build a great business and a life she loves.

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.

A unique and significant guide to selling more books through personal appearances and online interviews, brimming with information and resources as well as tips and ideas from nearly two dozen author-speaker professionals.The most powerful tool in your book promotion toolkit is your personality. The fact is that personality sells books.

Author Amber Richards owned and operated a single-person home-cleaning business for three years. She shares tips and advice she wishes someone had shared with her before starting up the business. With transparency to both mistakes and successes, this audiobook is packed with useful information and strategies from someone who actually worked in the business.

The emphasis is not focused on practical cleaning tips, although there is a chapter about products in general.