Best Business Management & Leadership
Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training to pass on their harsh lessons learned in combat to help forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. Detailing the mindset and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult combat missions, Extreme Ownership demonstrates how to apply them to any team or organization, in any leadership environment. Riveting, engaging, and free from the usual cliché platitudes, this book is strikingly impactful and will dramatically improve leaders of all types.” ― Amy Brandt Schumacher, entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist. An inspiring and page-turning read, the leadership lessons are easy to digest and implement. This book made me a better leader and enabled my entire team step up our game!” ― Jared Hamilton, founder and CEO, DrivingSales "One of the best books on leadership I've ever read and a tremendous war story book as well."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Extreme Ownership is written by two former Navy SEALs, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, who now head a leadership training company. There aren't many books out there that give such detailed glimpses into the lives of SEALs in action. The authors convey one main point per chapter by sharing a story from their battlefield experiences, then highlighting the main principle of that story, and finally giving a concrete example of how this principle applies in business settings. In my opinion, the simplicity, clarity, and structure of this book are it's greatest strengths. There are several moments when the authors share a complete story or personal thought--and then share the story again, but this time in the context of telling it to either their SEAL teams or to a group of business executives. Second, while this book is very descriptive--especially with the battle scenes--it is also incredibly restrained, almost cold. Their lessons are insightful and thought-provoking, and I can definitely see how their experiences will help guide leaders in the business world."
"They explain hard-learned principles of leadership, which they experienced first-hand as US Navy SEALs, specifically in and around their 2006 deployment to Ramadi, Iraq, one of the most dangerous places and times in the war. Military recruits & officers, parents, corporate executives, students, low-level management, spouses, shop foremen, independent contractors, and sole proprietors will all benefit from the lessons of Extreme Ownership. If you feel you're stuck in a rut, lacking self-discipline, or perhaps know someone who simply needs to improve their lot, this book is an excellent starting point."
"I like the approach of looking at real life examples of leadership on the battlefield, followed by principles of leadership based on those experiences and concluding with proving the validity of these principles in areas requiring effective leadership."
"Instant purchase, my husband doesn't read a lot but he really enjoys reading this book and said it was the perfect gift."
"Good read, I've been reading multiple chapters at a time."
From the author: “For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration. TIM FERRISS has been called “a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk” by The New York Times .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I have hereditary cholesterol problems and my forays into a ketogenic lifestyle dropped my particle count from ~1950 to ~1225. There are many other great things that have come as a result of my exposure to Tim's podcast, too many to list here. This is supposedly a "recipe book" (according to page xvi in the Foreword). A few guests on his podcast have amazing things to say about meditation (Sam Harris, Naval Ravikant, Kevin Rose, etc.). But there is no central place to which you can turn to find out the collected wisdom of the many guests who have delved into this topic. In fact, there's not even one central place in the book that gives a list of the commonalities between the guests. They have the discipline to turn down the good, so that they can pursue (and achieve) the great. It might teach the tactics and routines and habits of world-class performers, but there's FAR TOO MUCH here to make it valuable in showing YOU how to achieve those heights."
"This book suffers from the expectations of his previous work--Tim is honest about presenting "Tools of Titans" as sort of a glimpse of his journals/notes from his life's work, but this book loses nearly everything we've come to expect. It's WebMD with a clouded personality...it's a bit like a bound website without the hyperlinking. He's shown he's capable of completely rethinking a problem or a lifestyle or a way of doing things, and this book isn't like that at all."
"It was worth the price especially after 200+free episodes of the podcast which I enjoy every week."
"Pros- you can open up to any page and find a life lesson. - it has life lessons from over one hundred industry leaders."
"I ordered this book yesterday, and it showed up on my door step today. The book is laid out in a format that is easy to navigate should you want to go back to reference again."
Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek , shares the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure book—a compilation of tools, tactics, and habits from 130+ of the world's top performers. From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life. To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. This book, Tribe of Mentors , includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. • Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that “losing makes you think in ways victories can’t.”. • How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn’t realistic). This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. TIM FERRISS has been called “a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk” by The New York Times .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"You are supposed to find an actionable nugget on every page, from some of the best people in the world. He basically sent out an email to hundreds of successful people, asking them the same questions. But unlike his "Tools of Titan" (which is one of the most valuable books you can have in your bookshelf), the informations is shallow. I like the Tools of Titans format, since it is more of Tim's distillied notes and higlights."
"The fascination with Hollywood and stardom and constantly introducing people as “billionaire” and “‘New York Times’ Bestselling Author” etc. Ah, the old Tools of Titans profiles of everyday brilliant heroes profiled elsewhere like P. Attia, R. Patrick, D. D'agostino, N. Ravikant, W. Hof; C. Sommer and P. Tsatsouline...real, complete, true people - also Gabi and Laird come to mind - who are true mentors in action, word and bravery...thank you again Tim for that. But now with Tribe we see many others who have reaped far too much pathological adoration already, too many money whores and power whores who deign to preach to us plebes, and too few everyday heroes who are truly humbling, inspiring, and unsung."
"It was a massive treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge from some of the smartest people in the world. Most of the people who responded to his interview questions are not interesting people, especially the Hollywood celebrities."
"The introduction (a few pages) by Tim is the only valuable part of the book."
"I'm a big fan of Tim Ferriss and ran to the nearby Barnes and Nobles as soon as I heard that this book is released."
Best Consolidation & Merger
A timely update to the global best-selling book on investment banking and valuation. In the constantly evolving world of finance, a solid technical foundation is an essential tool for success. Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions, Second Edition is a highly accessible and authoritative book that focuses on the primary valuation methodologies currently used on Wall Street--comparable companies, precedent transactions, DCF, and LBO analysis--as well as M&A analysis. In codifying the art and science of investment banking, the authors convert this oral history into an accessible framework by bridging the theoretical to the practical with user-friendly, step-by-step approaches to performing primary valuation methodologies.” –Joseph R. Perella, Chairman and CEO, Perella Weinberg Partners. "Investment Banking provides a highly practical and relevant guide to the valuation analysis at the core of investment banking, private equity, and corporate finance. "This book will surely become an indispensable guide to the art of buyout and M&A valuation, for the experienced investment practitioner as well as for the non-professional seeking to learn the mysteries of valuation." Rosenbaum and Pearl have created a comprehensive and thoughtfully written guide covering the core skills of the successful investment professional with particular emphasis on valuation analysis." Investment Banking provides specific step-by-step valuation procedures for LBO and M&A transactions, with lots of diagrams and numerical examples."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is a very good book for professionals working in the different areas of Corporate Bankin."
"It is my pleasure to recommend 'Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions', which is easily one of the best and most practical books on M&A and valuation that I've read."
"This is more informative than many longer investment banking books I've owned and it's much more accessible and lays in the information out in a more practical manner than lighter investment banking books that I've owned."
"Actually, this is the only book I found, which is practical oriented and allows the reader to gain practical oriented experience while using the book as a tool to work through Valuation, LBOs, and M&As."
"Great product, great book."
"It even includes a sample LBO model which is well constructed and will give some insights not only into Excel, but also into the economics of an LBO."
"Book was required for my class at Pepperdine University for the fully employed graduate program."
"This provides detailed explanation on the process of investment banking and valuation methods including examples."
Best Corporate Governance
The economic climate is ripe for another golden age of shareholder activism Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a must-read exploration of deep value investment strategy, describing the evolution of the theories of valuation and shareholder activism from Graham to Icahn and beyond. The book combines engaging anecdotes with industry research to illustrate the principles and methods of this complex strategy, and explains the reasoning behind seemingly incomprehensible activist maneuvers. Written by Tobias Carlisle—an active value investor and the well-known blogger at greenbackd.com—this important resource describes the evolution of the various theories of intrinsic value and activist investment from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffett to Carl Icahn and beyond. In Deep Value , Carlisle examines Graham’s 80-year-old intellectual legacy using modern statistical techniques to offer a penetrating and highly original perspective: that losing stocks—those in crisis with apparently failing businesses and uncertain futures—offer unusually favorable investment prospects.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Most investing books are essentially marketing material about how the author buys companies that are not only cheap, but also high-quality and low-risk. His previous book was about value investing in a systematic, quantitative way, a subject I find endlessly fascinating. (Greenbackd readers will find there's a decent amount of backtesting and historical analysis in the book.). As someone who did special sits before getting into more quantitative value investing, I thought the chapters and Icahn, Graham and Buffett were riveting. I liked that this one was clearly written by someone who was having fun and who sees how investing is not just about making money, it's about capital finding value, something that counts for a heck of a lot in this world, whether you're a small business owner in Manila or the manager of a $6 billion hedge fund in New York."
"The book directly instructs you on what value investing is and how to identify a valuable company."
"Most investors will pursue conventional strategies that largely revolve around investing in `glamour' stocks. Third, Mr. Carlisle shows how investing greats like Carl Icahn, Benjamin Graham, and Warren Buffett succeeded by effectively revolting against the investing status quo of their times. It will have you thinking differently about some great investment strategies which investors may otherwise overlook."
"The reader should have a good grasp of markets, investments and the concept of value investing to understand all of the insights that the book has to offer, but Mr. Carlisle’s clear and concise writing results in an important tool for any investor looking to intelligently implement a value investing strategy."
"The book is well-written and only a little repetitive regarding some of the elements of a strategy that works well over a 10 year time horizon."
"exceptiionally profound."
Best Decision-Making & Problem Solving
Major New York Times bestseller. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011. A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title. One of The Economist 's 2011 Books of the Year. One of The Wall Street Journal 's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011. 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient. Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds. “Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow , how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality.” ― Christopher Shea, The Washington Post. Arguably the most important psychologist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being . A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused with knowledge, laced with wisdom, informed by modesty and deeply humane. Arguably the most important psychologist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being . A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused with knowledge, laced with wisdom, informed by modesty and deeply humane. So impressive is its vision of flawed human reason that the New York Times columnist David Brooks recently declared that Kahneman and Tversky's work ‘will be remembered hundreds of years from now,' and that it is ‘a crucial pivot point in the way we see ourselves.'. But for those who are merely interested in Kahenman's takeaway on the Malcolm Gladwell question it is this: If you've had 10,000 hours of training in a predictable, rapid-feedback environment--chess, firefighting, anesthesiology--then blink. It now seems inevitable that Kahneman, who made his reputation by ignoring or defying conventional wisdom, is about to be anointed the intellectual guru of our economically irrational times.” ― Evan R. Goldstein, The Chronicle of Higher Education. As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Mr. Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reason we assume ourselves to be.” ― The Economist. But Mr. Kahneman's simple experiments reveal a very different mind, stuffed full of habits that, in most situations, lead us astray.” ― Jonah Lehrer, The Wall Street Journal. “[A] tour de force of psychological insight, research explication and compelling narrative that brings together in one volume the high points of Mr. Kahneman's notable contributions, over five decades, to the study of human judgment, decision-making and choice . Thanks to the elegance and force of his ideas, and the robustness of the evidence he offers for them, he has helped us to a new understanding of our divided minds--and our whole selves.” ― Christoper F. Chabris, The Wall Street Journal. “With Kahneman's expert help, readers may understand this mix of psychology and economics better than most accountants, therapists, or elected representatives. “The mind is a hilariously muddled compromise between incompatible modes of thought in this fascinating treatise by a giant in the field of decision research. Kahneman uses this scheme to frame a scintillating discussion of his findings in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and of the ingenious experiments that tease out the irrational, self-contradictory logics that underlie our choices. We learn why we mistake statistical noise for coherent patterns; why the stock-picking of well-paid investment advisers and the prognostications of pundits are worthless; why businessmen tend to be both absurdly overconfident and unwisely risk-averse; and why memory affects decision making in counterintuitive ways. Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, marvelously readable guide to spotting--and correcting--our biased misunderstandings of the world.” ― Publishers' Weekly (starred review). Before Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics, there was Daniel Kahneman who invented the field of behavior economics, won a Nobel…and now explains how we think and make choices. Before computer networking got cheap and ubiquitous, the sheer inefficiency of communication dampened the effects of the quirks of human psychology on macro scale events. In this absolutely amazing book, he shares a lifetime's worth of wisdom presented in a manner that is simple and engaging, but nonetheless stunningly profound. This book is a must read for anyone with a curious mind.” ― Steven D. Levitt, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; co-author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. “ Thinking, Fast and Slow is a masterpiece--a brilliant and engaging intellectual saga by one of the greatest psychologists and deepest thinkers of our time. Kahneman should be parking a Pulitzer next to his Nobel Prize.” ― Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University Professor of Psychology, author of Stumbling on Happiness, host of the award-winning PBS television series "This Emotional Life". “This is a landmark book in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud . His work has reshaped social psychology, cognitive science, the study of reason and of happiness, and behavioral economics, a field that he and his collaborator Amos Tversky helped to launch.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The first observation, giving the title to the book, is that eons of natural selection gave us the ability to make a fast reaction to a novel situation. Thinking slow, applying human logic, we might reflect that it is probably Johnny coming back from the Girl Scout camp across the river bringing cookies, and that running might not be the best idea. Thinking is metabolically expensive; 20 percent of our energy intake goes to the brain. NB: Kahneman uses the example of multiplying two digit numbers in your head quite frequently. Whistling past the graveyard - we know full well that mental processes slow down after 65. We are inclined to expect more regularity than actually exists in the world, and we have poor intuition about the tail ends of the bell curve. It requires slow thinking to come up with the right answer - and the instinct to distrust your intuition. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the statistical inference from measuring them. For instance, the asking price of the house should have nothing to do with its value, but it does greatly influence bids. If I know somebody who got mugged last year, and you don't, my assessment of the rate of street crime will probably be too high, and yours perhaps too low. Newspaper headlines distort all of our thinking about the probabilities of things like in and terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, if you ask about Tom W, a sallow gloomy type of guy, people will ignore the statistics and guess he is in mortuary science. The most important aspect of this chapter is Bayesian analysis, which is so much second nature to Kahneman that he doesn't even describe it. Given these numbers, most people will assume that the cab in the accident was blue because of the witness testimony. However, if we change the statement of the problem so that there is a 20% chance that the blue identification of the color was wrong, but 85% of the cabs involved in accidents are green, people will overwhelmingly say that the cab in the accident was a green madman. In other words, this witness could be expected to identify the cab as blue 29% of the time whether she was right or wrong. Recommend that you cut and paste this, because Bayes theorem is cited fairly often, and is kind of hard to understand. The chances are little bit of both, and if I take a test a second time I will get a lower score, not because I am any stupider but because your first observation of me wasn't exactly accurate. The probability of a smart grade school kid becoming a Rhodes scholar is a cumulative probability of passing a whole series of hurdles: studying hard, excelling in high school, avoiding drink and drugs, parental support and so on. We make judgments on the basis of the knowledge we have, and we are overconfident about the predictive value of that observation. We discount the many perils which could have totally derailed the company along the way, including the venture capitalist who could have bought it all for one million dollars but thought the price was too steep. The answer is, not really, because performance on the SAT depends quite a bit on prior education and previous exposure to standardized tests. The key anecdote here is about a formula for predicting the quality of a French wine vintage. The rule of thumb formula beat the best French wine experts. He would trust the expert intuition of a firefighter; there is some similarity among fires, and the firemen learns quickly about his mistakes. The key notion here is that people within an institution, project, or any endeavor tend to let their inside knowledge blind them to things an outsider might see. It should destroy the notion that there are CEOs who are vastly above average, and also the efficient markets theory. The guys in charge often don't understand, and more important, they are blind to their own lack of knowledge. Part four - choices. This is a series of chapters about how people make decisions involving money and risk. Pouring good money after bad, the sunk cost effect, is an example. We overestimate the visible ones, such as tsunamis and terrorist attacks, and ignore the ones of which we are unaware. As a policy, should we accept the supposedly lower risk of buying mutual funds, even given the management fees? The classic example is people who refuse to sell for a loss, whether shares of stock or a house. Mountain climbing or marathon running are sheer torture at the time, but the memories are exquisite. Lift decision: do we live life for the present experience, or the anticipated memories?"
"Content is interesting, but as other reviewers point out, do not buy the Kindle version, because links often don't work, and many images and footnotes seem to be lost."
"Back in 1994, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Director of the Institute of San Raffaele in Milan, Italy, wrote a charming little book about common cognitive distortions called Inevitable Illusions. In it, he predicted that the two psychologists behind behavioral economics - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman - would win the Nobel prize. Although Gladwell never says that snap judgments are infallible and cannot badly mislead us, many readers got a different message. As the Royal Statistical Society's Significance magazine put it "Although Gladwell's chronicle of cognition shows how quick thinking can lead us both astray and aright, for many readers Blink has become a hymn to the hunch." As a student, she was deeply concerned with the issues of discrimination and social justice, and she also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Eighty-five percent of test subjects chose the second option, that Linda was a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. A more formal and theoretically better argued rebuttal of some of Kahneman's hypotheses can be found in the works of Gerd Gigerenzer. Kahneman notes that even top performers in business and sports tend to revert to the mean in the long run. While much of what we learnt can perhaps be extended to the real world, it is doubtful every generalization will work in practice. My cautionary comments probably have more to do with the distortions that might arise by those who uncritically generalize the findings to contexts for which they may not applicable. Nevertheless, Thinking Fast and Slow is a very valuable book by one of the most creative minds in psychology. After I published this review, I noticed an odd coincidence between Thinking Fast and Slow and Inevitable Illusions that I mentioned in my opening paragraph. Both books have white covers, with an image of a sharpened yellow pencil with an eraser top."
"Great book, basically Psychology 101."
"It has provided a robust framework for understanding, evaluating, and making decisions and understanding what guides others in their decisions such that the reader can avoid pitfalls and better guide others towards better decisions, or at least to mitigate large and potentially damaging fallacies."
"This is pretty much the life work of Daniel Kahneman placed inside an easily digested book."
"How glad I am that I have now become a little more aware of how my intuitive system overrides my decision making and thinking in so many ways, many of them being wrong."
Best Distribution & Warehouse Management
The latest thinking, strategies and technologies to stay current in supply chain management Presenting the core concepts and techniques of supply chain management in a clear, concise and easily readable style, the Third Edition of Essentials of Supply Chain Management outlines the most crucial tenets and concepts of supply chain management. Michael H. Hugos is an author, speaker, and principal at Center for Systems Innovation [c4si].
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Well organized and well written numerous examples, charts, diagrams, uses the terminology the professionals in the field use on a day to day basis in addition to the academic backgrounds to the concepts in the book."
"Standard text, I will use it to teach my master's degree course."
"Covers metrics for measuring success, different software and hardware for supply chain mgt."
"Don't let the number of pages in the book fool you as there is generous white space between lines of text."
"I'm happy with the time and quality of the delivery and the book."
"Very pleased by this book."
"My husband used it as a source for a couple of research papers he wrote in graduate school."
"Provided some real world scenarios, use cases and metrics."
Best Industrial Management & Leadership
Recognized as one of the most iconic and impactful strategy books ever written, Blue Ocean Strategy , now updated with fresh content from the authors, argues that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne are Professors of Strategy at INSEAD and Codirectors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book defines a way of thinking about business strategy."
"Best business book I've ever read!"
"this is the very best business book i have ever read."
"Bought this for my girlfriend and she has gotten so much useful information from this book."
"Excellent book, perfect advisor to understand how to rebuild and transform your business into a more competitive entity."
"Love the approach and have applied them quite often."
Best Information Management
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak , a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world—provided we ask the right questions. Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. “Brimming with intriguing anecdotes and counterintuitive facts, Stephens-Davidowitz does his level best to help usher in a new age of human understanding, one digital data point at a time.” ( Fortune , Best New Business Books). “ Freakonomics on steroids—this book shows how big data can give us surprising new answers to important and interesting questions. Drawing on a wide variety of revelatory sources, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz will make you cringe, chuckle, and wince at the people you thought we were.” (Christian Rudder, author of Dataclysm ). “A tour de force—a well-written and entertaining journey through big data that, along the way, happens to put forward an important new perspective on human behavior itself. What he found is that Internet search data might be the Holy Grail when it comes to understanding the true nature of humanity.” ( New York Post ). “ Everybody Lies is an astoundingly clever and mischievous exploration of what big data tells us about everyday life.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The basic thesis of "Everybody Lies" is that online data on human behavior, including Google searches and data from Facebook, shopping and pornographic sites, can reveal much about what we really think than data from surveys in which people might be too embarrassed to tell the truth. What has allowed us to access this pool of unguarded opinions and truckloads of data concerning human behavior is the Internet and the tools of "big" data. As the author puts it, this data is not just "big" but also "new", which means that the kind of data we can access is also quite different from what we are used to; in his words, we live in a world where every sneeze, cough, internet purchase, political opinion, and evening run can be considered "data". Generally speaking there is quite an emphasis on exploring human sexuality in the book, partly because sexuality is one of those aspects of our life that we wish to hide the most and are also pruriently interested in, and partly because investigating this data through Google searches and pornographic sites reveals some rather bizarre sexual preference that are also sometimes specific to one country or another. Based on Google searches in particular states, the author shows how racism (as indicated by racist Google searches) was a primary indicator of which states voted for Obama in the 2008 election and Trump in the 2016 election. The primary tool for doing all this data analysis is correlation or regression analysis, where you look at online searches and try to find correlations between certain terms and factors like geographic location, gender, ethnicity. There are tons of other amusing and informative studies - sometimes the author's own but more often other people's - that reveal human desires and behavior across a wide swathe of fields, including politics, dating, sports, education, shopping and sexuality. As the author himself acknowledges, understanding correlation is not the same as understanding causation, and it's in very few cases that a true causal relationship between people's Google searches and their true nature can be established. At the end of the day you could thus end up with a lot of data (including a lot of noise), but teasing apart the useful data points from the red herrings is a completely different matter. Secondly, it's usually quite hard to control for all possible variables that may reflect a Google search; for instance in concluding that racism contributes the most to a particular political behavior, it's very hard to tease out all other factors that also may do so, especially when you are talking about a heterogeneous collection of human beings."
"I read it in two days. The data is the data, but the interpretation is subjective."
"In the end, I hope there is another book like this, or maybe a blog, because sometimes I'd like to get this kind of perspective on current events rather than ten or so years after the fact (dissection of Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaign)."
"Yes, subjects such as sex are discussed but in a manner of data extraction."
"A little long on commentary but easy read through."
Best Business Leadership
Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training to pass on their harsh lessons learned in combat to help forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. Detailing the mindset and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult combat missions, Extreme Ownership demonstrates how to apply them to any team or organization, in any leadership environment. Riveting, engaging, and free from the usual cliché platitudes, this book is strikingly impactful and will dramatically improve leaders of all types.” ― Amy Brandt Schumacher, entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist. An inspiring and page-turning read, the leadership lessons are easy to digest and implement. This book made me a better leader and enabled my entire team step up our game!” ― Jared Hamilton, founder and CEO, DrivingSales "One of the best books on leadership I've ever read and a tremendous war story book as well."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Extreme Ownership is written by two former Navy SEALs, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, who now head a leadership training company. There aren't many books out there that give such detailed glimpses into the lives of SEALs in action. The authors convey one main point per chapter by sharing a story from their battlefield experiences, then highlighting the main principle of that story, and finally giving a concrete example of how this principle applies in business settings. In my opinion, the simplicity, clarity, and structure of this book are it's greatest strengths. There are several moments when the authors share a complete story or personal thought--and then share the story again, but this time in the context of telling it to either their SEAL teams or to a group of business executives. Second, while this book is very descriptive--especially with the battle scenes--it is also incredibly restrained, almost cold. Their lessons are insightful and thought-provoking, and I can definitely see how their experiences will help guide leaders in the business world."
"They explain hard-learned principles of leadership, which they experienced first-hand as US Navy SEALs, specifically in and around their 2006 deployment to Ramadi, Iraq, one of the most dangerous places and times in the war. Military recruits & officers, parents, corporate executives, students, low-level management, spouses, shop foremen, independent contractors, and sole proprietors will all benefit from the lessons of Extreme Ownership. If you feel you're stuck in a rut, lacking self-discipline, or perhaps know someone who simply needs to improve their lot, this book is an excellent starting point."
"I like the approach of looking at real life examples of leadership on the battlefield, followed by principles of leadership based on those experiences and concluding with proving the validity of these principles in areas requiring effective leadership."
"Instant purchase, my husband doesn't read a lot but he really enjoys reading this book and said it was the perfect gift."
"Good read, I've been reading multiple chapters at a time."
Best Business Management
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in 2001 which ignited a global conversation and helped millions to discover their top five talents. * A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment. * A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year. * A more customized version of your top five theme report. * 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes). Those who are familiar with the StrengthsFinder assessment know that it is designed to uncover certain key talents -- patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be productively applied. Those talents, when multiplied by the investment of time spent practicing, developing skills, and building knowledge, can become strengths. But some of it seems counterintuitive and runs directly against conventional wisdom: No amount of training will help you excel in your areas of weakness. StrengthsFinder has resonated with the business community because there's a direct link between talent development and performance. In this interview, Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0, discusses what Gallup scientists have learned since the publication of the first book, what more there is to discover about your talents, and why it's bad to focus on your employees' weaknesses, but simply cruel to ignore them completely. Tom Rath: StrengthsFinder 2.0 is an effort to get the core message and language out to a much broader audience. We had no idea how well received the first strengths book would be by general readers -- it was oriented more toward managers -- or that the energy and excitement would continue to grow. We also added more than five thousand Strengths Insights to version 2.0 that allow us to offer more individualized theme descriptions than we could before. But in the last ten years, we've also found that it's a good strategy just to wipe out the extreme negativity in the workplace. You may not take someone who's actively disengaged and make him into your most engaged employee, but it will help get him out of that mindset where he's scaring off colleagues and customers. GMJ: So is that the business case to be made for putting people in roles that play to their strengths? [Taking] StrengthsFinder is just a starting point; it's step one of a hundred in figuring out the areas where you have the most potential for growth. So while we have hundreds of new case studies and meta-analyses about strengths -- and about employee engagement and business outcomes -- we tried to stay as close as we could to the basics. Rath: Yes, we looked at that extensively as we started to review our plan for the updated version of the assessment. We found that so far, the thirty-four themes have done a good job of describing much of what we've learned since releasing the first version of the assessment.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Each copy includes a scratch off passcode that gives you access to the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test. Knowing these strengths is critical, because they are unchangeable traits that will enable you to succeed to your fullest potential."
"I really enjoyed taking this assessment and 4 of the 5 were spot on."
"Just be sure you are the first owner of the book since the code for the test is one time use only and isn't worth buying the book and then paying additionally for the test."
"This book definitely lives up to it's hype!"
"This book helped me understand myself and others better."
"A great way to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are."
"But, like most tests, it is flawed in that it is your own evaluation of yourself and your preferences. People also tend to take the findings of tests like this and make excuses ("I can't be expected to do detailed work, it's not by strength") or pigeonhole others ("You can't be expected to do any work with the Marketing team, you're not creative enough.")."
Best Management Science
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive . This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. In keeping with the parable style, Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO) begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Corporate has made teamwork backwards and now we need to fix what was originally a good idea, implemented completely wrong due to personal goals instead of group goal."
"A great, quick read on the darker side of leadership that few are every educated or coached on and expected to figure out themselves regarding dysfunctional teams."
"Dysfunction within teams can be covered up with moderate success but greatness will on,y be a i.e. end when those dysfunctions are addressed."
"It was very interesting to read about (hypothetical) social interactions in a professional climate from the perspective of the chief officer, president, principal, etc."
"Written as a use case story, Five Dysfunctions guides the reader through navigating the essentials of teamwork, leadership, and communication."
"I'm only about five years into being a leader at my organization, so an older more experienced crowd might already know this stuff... then again you just might not, and you should read this book!"
"This book helps take a deeper look at the situation and most common issues experienced within a team."
"I like that the book explains things in details."
Best Business Mentoring & Coaching
In Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit , coaching becomes a regular, informal part of your day so managers and their teams can work less hard and have more impact. He unpacks sevenessential coaching questions to demonstrate how--by saying less and asking more--you can develop coaching methods that produce great results. Get straight to the point in any conversation with The Kickstart Question Stay on track during any interaction with The Awe Question Save hours of time for yourself with The Lazy Question , and hours of time for others with The Strategic Question Get to the heart of any interpersonal or external challenge with The Focus Question and The Foundation Question Finally ensure others find your coaching as beneficial as you do with The Learning Question. "Michael Bungay Stanier distills the essentials of coaching to seven core questions. Michael asks and answers this question by offering aspiring leaders seven thoughtful questions that will change their leadership habits. In this practical and inspiring book, Michael shares seven transformative questions that can make a difference in how we lead and support.''. ''This book is full of practical, useful and interesting questions, ideas and tools that will guide any leader trying to be better.''. ''Michael's intelligence, wit, articulateness and dedication to the craft of coaching shine forth in this brilliant how-to manual for anyone called to assist others. ''The book tailors its organization and length to time-pressed readers, who can finish it easily in a couple of hours or in 15-minute increments.''. ''Amid a sea of coaching books that drone on with the same old, overused conceptual frameworks, there is a gem of hope. A simple read that is bold and direct, relatable and real, this book will change the way you communicate with colleagues at work and family at home. ''Among a plethora of books, studies and op-ed pieces about the importance of coaching and how to execute this most critical of development interventions well, it's easy to understand why students and practitioners of the craft feel confused or overwhelmed by the array of approaches, frameworks and systems extolled as ''the right way.''. Michael Bungay Stanier has expertly cut through this confusion with his new book in a manner that is simple to understand, realistic in its intention and ultimately effective to apply. I believe this book will establish itself as a powerful and useful toolset for the professional coach, the student learner and the people manager alike.''. Michael has a remarkable way of delivering that message through artful storytelling, practical examples and proven techniques. He succinctly articulates the research behind the art of respectful inquiry and its role in fostering an authentic partnership among colleagues who are committed to doing meaningful work together. With The Coaching Habit , Michael Bungay Stanier gives managers an extremely simple yet powerful tool (just seven questions!). I ve read countless books on leadership and coaching over my career but few brought it all together like Michael Bungay Stanier's.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The highly energetic, wise and witty facilitator was Michael Bungay Stanier, the author of the hot-off-the-press book, “The Coaching Habit.”. At a coffee break, halfway through the three-hour, how-to-coach practicum, I told Stanier that—already—the seminar was on my Top-10 list of best workshops ever attended (and I’ve attended my fair share). This book gives you seven questions and the tools to make them an everyday way to work less hard and have more impact.” The seven essential questions: --The Kickstart Question. --The AWE Question. --The Focus Question. --The Foundation Question. --The Lazy Question. --The Strategic Question. --The Learning Question. Stanier says the best coaching question in the world is the AWE question: “And What Else?”. In a four-minute drill with another board chair, I was instructed to ask four questions displayed on the seminar room screen. Stanier says “the first answer someone gives you is almost never the only answer, and it’s rarely the best answer,” so the AWE question is the perfect follow-up. I’ve underlined gems on almost every page: --Although coaching is listed as one of the six essential leadership styles in Daniel Goleman’s article, “Leadership That Gets Results” (a Harvard Business Review classic), “it was the least-used leadership style.”. --“You can build a coaching habit” and “You can coach someone in ten minutes or less. And in today’s busy world, you have to be able to coach in ten minutes or less.”. --“Coaching should be a daily, informal act, not an occasional, formal ‘It’s Coaching Time!’ event.”. Stanier’s humor sneaks up on you! The author says there’s a huge difference between coaching for performance—and coaching for development. “Call them forward to learn, improve and grow, rather than to just get something sorted out.”. A gargantuan fan of questions—versus answers—he quotes Nancy Willard: “Answers are closed rooms; and questions are open doors that invite us in.”. “CUT THE INTRO AND ASK THE QUESTION” is another shot over the bow. These seven essential coaching questions will help you coach others, and as Stanier perceptively writes, “Focus on the real problem, not the first problem.”. There are dozens and dozens of more gems in this fresh, easy-to-read format (plus almost 50 full-page quotations—all PowerPoint-worthy)."
"I've been a life coach for 4 years and I didn't have any confidence about working with clients because I never knew what to say."
"Below is a text message I received from one of my employees who observed me using the questioning techniques (she didn't know about the book at the time). "Cendie, I wanted to tell you that I’ve noticed and want to emulate how you ask question in a way that really requires reflective thinking."
"Stanier takes an intuitive rather than a didactic approach to coaching, encouraging direct and transparent questions to allow a client to engage in their own quick and effective problem-solving."
"If leaders and managers would invest their time into learning and practicing the questions and techniques in this book we would have a new growth revolution."
"This book by far is the best coaching book I have ever had the pleasure to read."
"So every once in awhile a business book will come around that is a game changer, and when it does I take the time to write a review."
"Early in my studies I realized that the quality of my own leadership and coaching for executives will depend a lot on my ability to be a great listener and to ask powerful questions."
Best Motivational Management & Leadership
From the author: “For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration. TIM FERRISS has been called “a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk” by The New York Times .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I have hereditary cholesterol problems and my forays into a ketogenic lifestyle dropped my particle count from ~1950 to ~1225. There are many other great things that have come as a result of my exposure to Tim's podcast, too many to list here. This is supposedly a "recipe book" (according to page xvi in the Foreword). A few guests on his podcast have amazing things to say about meditation (Sam Harris, Naval Ravikant, Kevin Rose, etc.). But there is no central place to which you can turn to find out the collected wisdom of the many guests who have delved into this topic. In fact, there's not even one central place in the book that gives a list of the commonalities between the guests. They have the discipline to turn down the good, so that they can pursue (and achieve) the great. It might teach the tactics and routines and habits of world-class performers, but there's FAR TOO MUCH here to make it valuable in showing YOU how to achieve those heights."
"This book suffers from the expectations of his previous work--Tim is honest about presenting "Tools of Titans" as sort of a glimpse of his journals/notes from his life's work, but this book loses nearly everything we've come to expect. It's WebMD with a clouded personality...it's a bit like a bound website without the hyperlinking. He's shown he's capable of completely rethinking a problem or a lifestyle or a way of doing things, and this book isn't like that at all."
"It was worth the price especially after 200+free episodes of the podcast which I enjoy every week."
"Pros- you can open up to any page and find a life lesson. - it has life lessons from over one hundred industry leaders."
"I ordered this book yesterday, and it showed up on my door step today. The book is laid out in a format that is easy to navigate should you want to go back to reference again."
Best Business Negotiating
A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. Those who have benefited from these techniques include business clients generating millions in additional profits, MBA students getting better jobs, and even parents dealing with their kids. Never Split the Difference provides a gripping, behind-the-scenes recounting of dramatic scenarios from the gang-infested streets of Haiti to a Brooklyn bank robbery gone horribly wrong, revealing the negotiation strategies that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.”—Adam Grant, Wharton Professor and New York Times bestselling author of originals and give and take. In these pages, you will find the techniques for getting the deal you want.”—Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The author begins the book by relating his experience at a prestigious seminar at Harvard University. The author discovered that the same techniques used in life and death situations could be generalized--they "made great sense intellectually, and they worked everywhere...In the twenty years I spent at the Bureau we’d designed a system that had successfully resolved almost every kidnapping we applied it to." NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE is not just about tricky negotiation tactics, or ways to "outwit" your adversary in battle. This also means careful listening, or what the author calls, the martial art of "Tactical Empathy." Each chapter in NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE begins with a real-life example from the author's involvement with hostage negotiations. The book's title reflects the author's position that compromise, or "Splitting the Difference" is actually a lazy way to conclude a negotiation. Instead of taking the easy way, Chris recommends working relentlessly to see "what is really motivating the other side." All in all, I found NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE to be an impressive book, filled with practical knowledge, tips, and just plain WISDOM about how to deal with people."
"I've taken approximately 20 hours of graduate study in negotiation and conflict resolution. You will be best aided by these books by taking a chapter at a time and practice the ideas and techniques."
"MAIN CONCEPT: Tactical empathy: “This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person.”. IS IT FUN TO READ: Finished it in a day. The book’s full of riveting life-and-death hostage negotiations, and Voss spins a damn good yarn. But it makes all kinds of sense: letting your adversary say a solid “no” gives them a feeling of safety, security and control -- a great starting point to a negotiation. -- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer; Speaking Coach, KNP Communications; author, The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible."
Best Business Planning & Forecasting
One of Wall Street Journal 's. Best Ten Works of Nonfiction in 2012 New York Times Bestseller “Not so different in spirit from the way public intellectuals like John Kenneth Galbraith once shaped discussions of economic policy and public figures like Walter Cronkite helped sway opinion on the Vietnam War…could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade .”. — New York Times Book Review "Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century ." 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. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read. Baseball, weather forecasting, earthquake prediction, economics, and polling: In all of these areas, Silver finds predictions gone bad thanks to biases, vested interests, and overconfidence.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Longer review: I'm an applied business researcher and that means my job is to deliver quality forecasts: to make them, persuade people of them, and live by the results they bring. But we're not very good at it, and fall prey to cognitive biases and other systemic problems such as information overload that make things worse. However, we are simultaneously learning more about how such things occur and that knowledge can be used to make predictions better -- and to improve our models in science, politics, business, medicine, and so many other areas. For example, on p. 162: "What happens in systems with noisy data and underdeveloped theory - like earthquake prediction and parts of economic and political science - is a two-step process. Second, this noise pollutes journals, blogs, and news accounts with false alarms, undermining good science and setting back our ability to understand how the system really works." Of course this makes the book fascinating to generalists, geeks, and breadth thinkers, but perhaps more importantly, I think it serves well to develop reusable intuition across domains. The third non-fitting audience will be experts who desire depth in one of the book's many topic areas; it's not a technical treatise for them and I can confidently predict grumbling in some quarters."
"The anecdotes and exposition are fantastic, and I wish we could make this book required reading for, say, everyone in the country. This kind of pundit chatter, as Silver notes, tends to be insanely inaccurate. Weather prediction has gotten lots better over the last fifty years, due to highly sophisticated, large-scale supercomputer modeling. Nate Silver made a living playing online poker for a few years. When the government tightened the rules, the less savvy players ("fish") stopped playing, and he found he couldn't make money any more. Rational employees may have less career risk when they "bet with the consensus" than when they buck a trend: this may increase herding effects and makes bubbles worse. Note: Nate pointedly does not claim that one can make money on Intrade by betting based on FiveThirtyEight probabilities. But he stresses that Intrade prices are themselves probably heavily informed by poll-based models like the ones on FiveThirtyEight. Climate prediction: prima facie case for anthropic warming is very strong (greenhouse gas up, temperature up, good theoretical reason for former causing latter). But lots of good reason to doubt accuracy of specific elaborate computer models, and most scientists admit uncertainty about details."
"I do not teach statistics for a living, but I was able to follow Nate Silver's hypotheses, explanations, and formulas; his reasoning was clear."
Best Business Pricing
Praise for Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms "Ron Baker is the most prolific and best writer when it comes to pricing services. Ron Baker's most recent offering is ambitious in scope, exploring topics that include economic theory, customer orientation, value identification, service positioning, and pricing strategy. He is on a radical crusade to align the interests of service providers with those of their customers by having lawyers, accountants, and consultants charge based on the value they provide, rather than the effort it takes. It is richly illustrated by the successes of firms that have embraced value-based pricing to make their services not only more cost-effective for their customers, but more profitable as well. Implementing Value Pricing demonstrates a superior model to price for professional services: selling intellectual capital with pricing based on the results and value it creates, not the cost or time it took to formulate. Driven by theory and the actual experiences of many firms, Implementing Value Pricing features seven appendixes available for download on the companion website containing checklists, strategies, sample forms, and case studies, and discusses: With case studies from firms that have profitably implemented these specific ideas, Implementing Value Pricing is a practical guide for how and why to implement a business model change, create more value, and unlock the tremendous competitive power hidden in the intellectual capital of every professional firm.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"We are talking about going from the model where you are selling time to a model where you are giving the client the freedom to placing a value on the outcome of what they will receive from you. If any of you hesitated or had to re-read this last sentence then get this book and convince yourself that this radically different approach to doing business is something that you should have done a long time ago. You are no longer a Professional Service Firm, selling services and time, you are now a Professional Knowledge Firm, creating "value" for your customers and giving them an upfront fixed price that they can count on and budget for. Then consider that your customer is determined to get the lowest price for your services, while you are striving to get the highest price possible, so there is no common ground here."
"On a trip to China I had the opportunity to read from start to finish Ron Baker's Implementing Value Pricing book. The "theories" outlined in this prose are radical and very intelligently conveyed, allowing the reader to grasp these concepts in a methodical manner. As a person with a CI (continuous improvement) ideology of how to approach business (and life), I was enamored with the blend of rational and sensible concepts as delivered by Mr. Baker. Our goal is to make our value proposition (at premium prices) so that our Customers see us as a necessity in their business and highly dependent on the value we bring to the table."
"The idea of value creation as a measure of company plus customer profit, and how to apply this concept to define price, is applicable to anyone who uses their brain to make money. So if you missed that one entirely, if you're new to Ron's work, or if you're a professional looking to radically rethink how you and your company create value, get this book."
"The book takes you through a useful, logical path of reasoning: defining the problem with hourly billing (even considering the positives and the history behind it), why consumers buy anything, and replaces your current knowledge of what you believe is possible with pricing a customer based on services and gives you tools, processes, ideas, and case studies to help you visualize and reason through / unlearn what you currently know about time-sheets."
Best Production & Operations
With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited. “The Phoenix Project is a must read for business and IT executives struggling with the growing complexity of IT.” —Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO, Red Hat, Inc. "This book is a gripping read that captures brilliantly the dilemmas that face companies which depend on IT, and offers real-world solutions. Today, our constraints aren't robots inside our factories, but it's how we manage technologies like Tomcat and Java that power our most critical projects and applications. This book continues the journey that began with Shewhart, Deming, Ohno and Dr. Goldratt, and shows us how to diminish our modern constraints to help the business win." "This insightful walk through the pain and success of business will trigger deja vu for anyone who has ever run afoul of their complete reliance in their IT organization.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is a story told in a similar fashion to Lencioni's, "Five Disfunctions," or Eli Goldratt's, "The Goal"."
"This is essentially reading if you're in development, operations, working on moving to a dev ops model."
"It's also very valuable as a tool for illustrating to management or business people the value of DevOps as a tool/philosophy and, perhaps more importantly, as a way to demonstrate what pathologically sick organizations look like. Even if a reading of the book by management doesn't result in a full organization wide DevOps buy-in it just might result in positive change as readers inevitably see some correlation between the bad behaviors, cargo culture and politics in Parts Unlimited and their own organization."
"Is the subject matter interests you this book is great."
"With the exception of a couple of cartoonish personalities (and you'll know which ones I'm talking about), the character development was pretty good, especially for the protagonist."
"After taking a training class, instructor mentioned this book."
"If anyone ever wants to know just how difficult this world is all they have to do is read this book."
"I had first read The Goal more than a dozen years ago, and while it's not the best literature, it is one of the best business novels I've encountered and a good way of explaining the theory of constraints."
Best Project Management
Years of PMP exam preparation experience, endless hours of ongoing research, interviews with project managers who failed the exam to identify gaps in their knowledge, and a razor-sharp focus on making sure project managers don't waste a single minute of their time studying are THE reasons this book is the best-selling PMP exam preparation guide in the world. Rita was the founder of RMC Project Management, a project management training, consulting and speaking firm helping companies use project management tools and techniques to complete projects faster, cheaper, better, and with fewer resources.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Bottom line - I passed the PMP exam on my first try 3 days ago, and while Rita's 8th edition book was the most valuable source for my study, I didn't feel comfortable having it as my sole source outside the PMBOK. Rita Mulcahy's 8th edition. Andy Crowe's 5th edition. PMBOK guide 5th edition. Free practice questions online and iPad apps. My take on Rita's Book: Pros. - Goes beyond the processes and ITTOs and actually discusses and shows how PMI's framework can make a PM better prepared, more effective, and more knowledgeable. The Andy Crowe book offered end of chapter questions, but also a 200 question "final exam"."
"I also bought Head First PMP, McGraw-Hill's PMP Certification Mathematics with CD-ROM and I also signed up for a 20 day pass on PMStudy to rake practice test (yeah over kill, but it all paid off in the end). 2) Buy Rita's book and read as much as you can. 3) Get McGraw-Hill's PMP Certification Mathematics with CD-ROM to help with the math section (take the practice test on the CD-ROM) 1-2 days before the test. Take the first test to see where you are, study study study the knowledge areas where you are weak take exam 2 if you get less than 80 go back to Rita's book! 5) I LOVED Head First PMP but if you don't have time to study everything I would say to buy this book as a companion to Rita's book. 6) Make sure your referencing the PMBOK 5 (Most Important). During the exam (make sure your doing good on time before you follow these directions). 1) If you believe in prayer (PRAY) - You also do not need to tell anyone your taking the test, just in case........(I told my family I was doing some "me" team building time for a few hours!)."
Best Quality Control & Management
Written in the parable style of The One Minute Manager, Raving Fans uses a brilliantly simple and charming story to teach how to define a vision, learn what a customer really wants, institute effective systems, and make Raving Fan Service a constant feature--not just another program of the month. 1 cassette / 90 minutes. Read by Rick Adamson, Kate Borger, and John Mollard.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Great book for any one in customer service or education!"
"Overall I give the book 4/5 stars because I believe the need to learn the concept of raving fans outweighs the boredom I experienced at times as I read the book. The book would have received 5 stars, however, I have to deduct one star for the many pages of character conversations that should have been omitted from the book."
"Every new employee gets a copy of this book."
"A lot of what he wrote was true in the industrys today and his observations were right on when it came to us as consumers and our acceptance of sub par service from the waiter to the CEO of some of the largest companies in the US today."
"In deed they are ... yet the book needed to be written and read to "remind us" that they are common sense."
Best Strategy & Competition
These approaches have been honed from over three decades of advising tens of thousands of CEOs and executives and helping them navigate the increasing complexities (and weight) that come with scaling up a venture. The goal of this book is to help you turn what feels like an anchor into wind at your back -- creating a company where the team is engaged; the customers are doing your marketing; and everyone is making money. Scaling Up shows business leaders how to get their organizations moving in sync to create something significant and enjoy the ride. “Verne’s tools and techniques have been key to scaling up Benetton to become the #1 international fashion brand in India. Scaling Up is that business book. Verne’s tools and techniques have been critical to helping us drive and manage this growth during my 20 years as CEO ― and ultimately to freeing me up as the founder to pursue other interests.” -- Scott Tannas, founder and Vice Chairman, Western Financial Group; senator, Canadian Parliament. “Scaling up a significant business requires precisely the kind of discipline and focus detailed in Verne’s practical and ‘how-to’ driven book.” -- Scott Farquhar, co-founder and CEO, Atlassian. “Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up is one of the finest business books you'll ever read. Whether you're an entrepreneur who wants to scale up, a CEO who wants to take his business to the next level, or a non-profit executive who wants to leave a legacy, this book will be life-changing.” -- Tan Yinglan, Author of Way of the VC – Top Venture Capitalists on Your Board, Chinnovation – How Chinese Innovators are Changing the World and New Venture Creation - Entrepreneurship For The 21st Century - An Asian Perspective.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book was great for our organization."
"Verne's insight is superb, fresh view, clear direction, a lot of new books, you are in good hands!"
"Most businesses in the world turnover less than $1 million and if you want to make it to the 4% this book has solid advice from an experienced entrepreneur on how to become part of the 4%."
"I have read a lot of business books, literally thousands, and I would put this book in my top 10 for sure."
"Excelente teory, dificult to achieve in practice."
"Great book."
"A good book for start ups in both business and other organizations."
"Book is to the point, full of tools to use and real business examples to follow."
Best Systems & Planning
How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Standards: Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The Comparisons: The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? At the heart of the findings about these companies' stellar successes is what Collins calls the Hedgehog Concept, a product or service that leads a company to outshine all worldwide competitors, that drives a company's economic engine and that a company is passionate about.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Finally, a book from Jim Collins on Good to Great for Social Sectors which should be read by everybody working in social enterprises and organization, who are not operating as businesses and companies in their field, but who want to contribute their very best in the interest of people's rights and wellbeing around the world."
"Yet the proof is in the results that these level 5 leaders have achieved, for example Fannie Mae's CEO David Maxwell who exemplified these qualities and grew the company 3.8 times the general stock market."
"Good to Great is a marvelous description of what makes companies elevate themselves in the minds of their customers and their other constituencies."
"An interesting read, but I'm not sure his conclusions are sound--info is fairly anecdotal and correlational, not causal."
"Practical - because the Great companies' analysis indicates duplicateable concepts and steps which are universal in any field by aspiring Level 5 leaders. Encouraging - Some of the toughest decisions made by Level 5 leaders are being made by leaders aspiring to attain the Level 5 mentality."
"The book is based on a huge amount of research and has great examples to underpin their conclusions."
"If you work in government, non-profit or higher education, I recommend the companion monograph for the Social Sectors, which helps apply these business-focused concepts in a more meaningful way."
"Just a great, thorough book."
Best Leadership Training
The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller that changed the way millions communicate. The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan , and Al Switzler are cofounders of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Enter the book Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. I heard Joseph Grenny, one of the authors speak on this topic recently at the leadership summit and got a lot out of his session. Christians and church staffs are notorious for avoiding crucial conversations. This is why churches often split, people leave hurt and visions never move forward. When in reality, because of what is at stake (salvation) and because of the calling of Jesus, we should do a better job of having crucial conversations. Individuals who are the most influential—who can get things done and at the same time build on relationships—are those who master their crucial conversations. The mistake most of us make in our crucial conversations is we believe that we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. This is one of, if not the main reason, most conversations stop and things do not move forward. If you are a boss and want honest feedback and conversation, people can't fear for their jobs or that you will yell at them. Recently, there has been a lot of writing online about pastors abusing people, creating a culture of fear, yelling at staff members, elders and volunteers and it blows my mind. One of the ironies of dialogue is that, when talking with those holding opposing opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. But, in conversations, if we give the impression that something has been decided or that we aren't open to suggestions, we will kill discussion. If you find yourself pushing your ideas, you aren't having a good dialogue and instead are simply giving out orders. That may be your leadership style, but it won't accomplish a healthy team environment and in the end, your church or business will never reach its full potential. When a crucial conversation ends, there must be clear expectations and guidance moving forward."
"I'm on my second read- you will probably need to read it at least twice, and perhaps twice a year."
"I encounter crucial conversations all the time, this is why I purchased this book for guidance."
"This is a great book and I highly recommend it."
"Good listen."
"This is one of the best conversations books ever!"
"This is an excellent read."
"Surely, one can argue that not all negotiations are high stakes or emotional but whenever a difference of opinion is involved, one has to make an effort to come to a mutually satisfactory solution. And that is what the book is about - the authors come up with fancy names for negotiation methods which all boil down to one thing - finding a compromise, being able to understand and empathize with the other side, avoid bullying, and staying focused. Using established concepts would’ve completely eliminated this problem, but then the book couldn’t claim that it had “revolutionized the way millions of people communicate.”. Finally, the examples."