Social Business

Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don't know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of "when" decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, it's often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science.

In their book Abundance, best-selling authors and futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler tackled grand global challenges, such as poverty, hunger, and energy. Then, in Bold, they chronicled the use of exponential technologies that allowed the emergence of powerful new entrepreneurs. Now the best-selling authors are back with The Future Is Faster Than You Think, a blueprint for how our world will change in response to the next 10 years of rapid technological disruption.

Why do successful people get things done at the last minute? Why does poverty persist? Why do the lonely find it hard to make friends? These questions seem unconnected, yet Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir show that they are all are examples of a mindset produced by scarcity. Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioral science and economics, Mullainathan and Shafir show that scarcity creates a similar psychology for everyone struggling to manage with less than they need.

One of the biggest myths that plagues the business world today is that our ability to network depends on having the “gift-of-gab”. You don’t have to be outgoing to be successful at networking. You don’t have to become a relentless self-promoter. In fact, you don’t have to act like an extrovert at all. Matthew Pollard, an introvert himself, draws on over a decade of research and real-world examples to provide an actionable blueprint for introverted networking.

Over 60 billion online messages are sent on digital platforms every day, and only a select few succeed in the mad scramble for customer attention. This means that the question for anyone who wants to gain mass exposure for their transformative content, business, or brand or connect with audiences around the globe is no longer if they should use social media but how to best take advantage of the numerous different platforms. How can you make a significant impact in the digital world and stand out among all the noise?

Written over three centuries ago by a Samurai warrior, A Book of Five Rings has been hailed as a limitless source of psychological insight for businessmen or anyone who relies on strategy and tactics to outwit the competition.

Communication should be clear and concise, and we should get to the point quickly. The problem is we don’t always know how to do this. What does it mean to be concise? How can a complex topic be summarized in just a few lines? This award-winning book is a step-by-step guide for clear, concise communication in everyday work conversations. Being concise is not about trying to condense all the information into 60 seconds. It is about having clear intent, talking about one topic at a time, and focusing on solutions instead of dwelling on problems.

Ben & Jerry's has always been committed to an insanely ambitious three-part mission: Making the world's best ice cream, supporting progressive causes, and sharing the company's success with all stakeholders: employees, suppliers, distributors, customers, cows, everybody. But it hasn't been easy. This is the first book to tell the full, inside story of the inspiring rise, tragic mistakes, devastating fall, determined recovery, and ongoing renewal of one of the most iconic mission-driven companies in the world.

During his 20 years as a Navy officer and SEAL, Rich Diviney was intimately involved in a specialized SEAL selection process, which whittled a group of hundreds of extraordinary candidates down to a handful of the most elite performers. Diviney was often surprised by which candidates washed out and which succeeded. Some could have all the right skills and still fail, while others he might have initially dismissed would prove to be top performers.

Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data.

In The Myth of the Nice Girl, Fran Hauser deconstructs the negative perception of "niceness" that many women struggle with in the business world. If women are nice, they are seen as weak and ineffective, but if they are tough, they are labeled a bitch. Hauser proves that women don't have to sacrifice their values or hide their authentic personalities to be successful.

Let's face it: We all know people who are irrational. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, it never works. So what's the solution? How do you talk to someone who's out of control? What can you do with a boss who bullies, a spouse who yells, or a friend who frequently bursts into tears? In his book Just Listen, Mark Goulston shared his best-selling formula for getting through to the resistant people in your life. Now he brings his communication magic to the most difficult group of all - the downright irrational.

In 2012, Hakeem al-Araibi was a promising young player on Bahrain's national football team when he was arrested for attacking a police station during the Arab Spring, despite television footage showing him playing soccer at the time of the alleged attack. After three months of torture and wrongful imprisonment, Hakeem was released. He fled the country and made his way to Australia, where he was granted refugee status. Hakeem made a life here and was playing for the suburban Pascoe Vale Football Club, in Melbourne. He thought he was safe.

Managing up helps you build the sort of relationships that foster more communication, collaboration, cooperation, and understanding between people at different levels of power, with a variety of perspectives and skills. Managing Up is your personal manual for building this vital skill so you can begin building your best future. Real-world strategies give you a set of actionable steps, supplemented by expert advice from a top leadership consultant that helps you get on track to advancement.

Whether it's a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change.

Skill with people is the one essential ingredient for success and happiness at home and in business. The Art of Dealing with People gives you the skills to take your people skills to a level that you never thought possible! Skill in human relations is similar to skill in any other field, in that success depends on understanding and mastering certain basic general principles. You must not only know what to do, but why you're doing it.

Women are the future of American business. According to a recent Nielsen report, women will control two-thirds of American consumer wealth in less than a decade. And yet almost all business and success literature is still written for men - dispensing advice that doesn't take into account women's unique strengths or address the demands of family life on mothers.

"What an asshole!" How many times have you said that about someone at work? You're not alone! In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company.

In Ask Powerful Questions, Will Wise explains how the questions we traditionally ask are virtually meaningless when it comes to establishing connection. Introducing a set of practical tools for accessing and understanding others by changing the way we ask questions, Will shows how to transform "How are you? I'm fine, thanks" into a conversation that changes not only how you lead, but who you are as a person.

Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable. Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage.