A black swan is a highly improbable event with threeprincipal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries amassive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation thatmakes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Theastonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. ForNassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything aboutour world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personallives. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans untilafter they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is thathumans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focusedon generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and timeand time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know.We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, toovulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, andnot open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the“impossible.” For years, Taleb has studie

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum draws morevisitors than any other museum in the world—90,000 a day in thesummertime—and the exhibit of air travel posters featured in thisunique companion volume combines arresting, colorful art, rarearchival material, and a unique approach to aeronautical history.The posters—most of them never before published—featurebarnstormers, gliders, and flying boats, the earliest passengerflights, the first luxury-liners, mail carriers, jets, and muchmore. Spanning a century and a half, they combine the popular artand the commerce of their eras, with both explored in theentertaining, informative text by a longstanding National Air andSpace Museum curator. From 19th-century circus impresarios offeringrides in gaudy hot-air balloons to the sleek 21st-centuryairliners, the posters provide a fascinating illustrated history offlight as it evolved from an exotic realm inhabited only byvisionaries and daredevils into our modern world of speedy jets andfrequent flye

Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition insearch of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought forcompetitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled fordifferentiation. Yet in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on resultsin nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over ashrinking profit pool. In a book that challenges everything youthought you knew about the requirements fro strategic success, W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne contend that while most companiescompete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasinglyunlikely to create profitable growth in the future. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more then ahundred years and thirty industries, Kim and Mauborgne argue thattomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battlingcompetitors, but by creating “blue ocean” of uncontested marketspace ripe for growth. Such strategies moves—termed “valueinnovation”-create powerful leaps in value for both th

With a new Afterword by the author and a new Foreword by MarkCuban In this commanding big-picture analysis of what went wrong incorporate America, Alex Berenson, a top financial investigativereporter for The New York Times, examines the common threadconnecting Enron, Worldcom, Halliburton, Computer Associates, Tyco,and other recent corporate scandals: the cult of the number. Every three months, 14,000 publicly traded companies report salesand profits to their shareholders. Nothing is more important inthese quarterly announcements than earnings per share, the lodestarthat investors—and these days, that’s most of us—use to judge thehealth of corporate America. earnings per share is the number forwhich all other numbers are sacrificed. It is the distilled truthof a company’s health. Too bad it’s often a lie. Alex Berenson’s The Number provides a comprehensiv, brutallyfactual overview of how Wall Street and corporate America losttheir way during the great bull market tha

Now in a striking new hardcover edition, Fooled by Randomnessis the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you thinkabout business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader,renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, andNew York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written amodern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luckand skill. This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceiveand deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdropof the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken forskill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness providescaptivating insight into one of the least understood factors in allour lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the authortackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation ofthe influence of happenstance on our lives. The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whomhave grasped, in their own way, the significance

Go from being a good manager to an extraordinary leader. If you read nothing else on leadership, read these 10 articles.We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articleson leadership and selected the most important ones to help youmaximize your own and your organization's performance. HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership will inspire you to: - Motivate others to excel - Build your team's self-confidence in others - Provoke positive change - Set direction - Encourage smart risk-taking - Manage with tough empathy - Credit others for your success - Increase self-awareness - Draw strength from adversity

With corporate scandals dominating the headlines on aregular basis, business ethics are more important than ever. Thisamusing primer highlights everything an aspiring CEO should knowabout maintaining integrity in corporate America. You llfind: - Guidance on making fair and honest business decisions - A quiz to test your own ethics - Advice on promoting ethical behavior - Simple lessons for making your workplace a positiveenvironment - And much, much more. It's the perfect gift for office newbies, seasoned executives,and college graduates everywhere!

Andrew Grove is President of Intel, America's leadingmanufacturer of computer chips. However, the management techniqueshe unveils in this bestselling and user-friendly guide are equallyapplicable for sales managers, accountants, consultants, eventeachers--anyone whose job entails getting a group of people toproduce something of value.

An international sensation—and still the talk of the relevantblogosphere—this Wall Street Journal and New York Times businessbestseller examines the "power" in numbers. Today more than ever,number crunching affects your life in ways you might not evenimagine. Intuition and experience are no longer enough to make thegrade. In order to succeed—even survive—in our data-based world,you need to become statistically literate. Cutting-edge organizations are already crunching increasinglylarger databases to find the unseen connections among seeminglyunconnected things to predict human behavior with staggeringlyaccurate results. From Internet sites like Google and Amazon thatuse filters to keep track of your tastes and your purchasinghistory, to insurance companies and government agencies that everyday make decisions affecting your life, the brave new world of thesuper crunchers is happening right now. No one who wants to stayahead of the curve should make another keystroke without readingIan Ayre

在线阅读本书 Under Andy Grove’s leadership，Intel has become the worlds largestchip maker and one of the most admired companies in the world．Inonly the Paranoid Survive, Grove reveals his strategy of focusingon a new way of measuring the nightmare moment every leaderdreads——when massive change occurs and a company must，yirtuallyovernight adapt or fall by the wayside．Grove calls such a moment aStrategic Inflection Point，which can be set off by almostanything:mega-competition, a change in regulations, or a seeminglymodest change in technology. When a Strategic Inflection Pointhits, the ordinary rules of business go out the window. Yetman-aged right, a Strategic Inflection Point can be and opportunityto win in the marketplace and emerge stronger than ever. Groveunderscores his message by examining his own record of success andfailure, including how he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw,which threatened Intel's reputation in 1994, and how he has dealtwith the explosions in growt

Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the answer to the global crisis ofbusiness and American-style capitalism. Out of the ashes of conventional business models arises a set ofcompanies using their power not only for profits and sustainablegrowth but also social good. If you think business corporations are doomed to be lumbering,bloated, and corrupt, think again. Based on an extraordinary three-year investigation, interviewingmore than 350 key people at major companies around the world,Rosabeth Moss Kanter provides encouraging and astounding evidencethat this assumption is completely outdated. The businesses thatare agile, keeping ahead of the curve in terms of market changesand customer needs, are the businesses that are also progressive,socially responsible human communities. Take IBM. When the tsunami and earthquake struck Asia, IBM didn’tjust cut a check for relief funds and call it a day. The companyused its technological expertise and skilled people to create whatgovernment and relief agencies could not: infor

In today's world, yesterday's methods just don't work. In Getting Things Done , veteran coach and management consultantDavid Allen shares the breakthrough methods for stress-freeperformance that he has introduced to tens of thousands of peopleacross the country. Allen's premise is simple: our productivity isdirectly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our mindsare clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effectiveproductivity and unleash our creative potential. In GettingThings Done Allen shows how to:

"This is not another 'how to start your own business' book,but rather one man's struggle to find meaning and fulfillment inwork, latching onto elephants when needed, but mostly flying solowithout a net." -Booklist Social philosopher and international business guru, CharlesHandy provides a firsthand account of how we got here and where weare headed. Handy takes us on his life's journey, looking back tosuch topics as his childhood and education and how they prepared(or, rather, did not prepare) him for a career in business; thechanging nature of organizational life within the context of theold economy and the new; the great variety of capitalism around theworld; and, through it all, his struggle to find meaning andfulfillment in work. This book is both a poignant personal memoirand a deep reflection on the past and future of world capitalism,with all its possibilities and pitfalls.

The coauthor of the international bestseller Execution hascreated the how-to guide for solving today's toughest businesschallenge: creating profitable growth that is organic,differentiated, and sustainable. For many, growth is about "home runs"—the big bold idea, the nextnew thing, the product that will revolutionize the marketplace.While obviously attractive and lucrative, home runs don't happenevery day and frequently come in cycles. Products like Kevlar, Teflon, and the Dell business model forselling personal computers may be once-in-a-decade phenomena. Asurer and more consistent path to profitable revenue growth isthrough "singles and doubles"—small day-to-day wins and adaptationto changes in the marketplace that build the foundation forsubstantially increasing revenues. The impact of singles anddoubles can be huge. They are not only the basis for sustainedrevenue growth but, in fact, the foundation for home runs. Singlesand doubles provide the discipline of execution, an absolutene

Most of us think of leaders as courageous risk takers,orchestrators of major events-in a word, heroes. Yet while suchfigures are inspiring and admirable, Harvard Business SchoolProfessor Joseph Badaracco argues that their larger-than-lifeaccomplishments are simply not what makes the world work. Whatdoes, he says, is the sum of millions of small yet consequentialdecisions that men and women working far from the limelight makeevery day: how a line worker for a pharmaceutical company respondswhen he discovers a defect in a product's safety seal; how amanager deals with a valued employee suspected of stealing; how atrader handles a transaction error that will cost a clientmoney.Badaracco calls them "quiet leaders"-people who chooseresponsible, behind-the-scenes action over public heroism toresolve tough leadership challenges. These individuals don't fitthe stereotype of the bold and gutsy leader, and they don't wantto. What they want is to do the "right thing" for theirorganizations, their coworkers, and t

From America’s most authoritative source: the quintessentialprimer on understanding and managing your money Money courses through just about every corner of our lives andhas an impact on the way we live today and how we’ll be able tolive in the future. Understanding your money, and getting it towork for you, has never been more important than it is today, asmore and more of us are called upon to manage every aspect of ourfinancial lives, from managing day-to-day living expenses toplanning a college savings fund and, ultimately, retirement. FromThe Wall Street Journal, the most trusted name in financial andmoney matters, this indispensable book takes the mystery out ofpersonal finance. Start with the basics, learn how they work, andyou’ll become a better steward of your own money, today and in thefuture. Consider The Wall Street Journal Complete Personal FinanceGuidebook your cheat sheet to the finances of your life. This bookwill help you: ? Understand the nuts and bolts

Knowledge has become the most important factor in economiclife. It is the chief ingredient of what we buy and sell, the rawmaterial with which we work. Intellectual capital--not naturalresources, machinery, or even financial capital--has become the oneindispensable asset of corporations. Intellectual Capital is a groundbreaking book, visionaryin scope and practical in applications, that offers powerful newways of looking at what companies do and how to lead them. It isthe first book to show how to turn the untapped, unmapped knowledgeof an organization into its greatest competitive weapon. Intellectual Capital cuts through the vague rhetoric of"paradigm shifts" to show how the Information Age economy reallyworks--and how to make it work for you and your business. Readerswill learn how to discover and map the human, structural, andcustomer capital that embody the knowledge assets of a corporation;how successful companies manage their intellectual capital toimprove performance; how intellectual capital

The companion to the blockbuster bestseller, Getting Things Done . Since its publication in 2001, Getting ThingsDone has become, as Time magazine put it, "the definingself-help business book" of the decade. Having inspired millions ofreaders around the world, it clearly spoke to an urgent need in anincreasingly time-pressured society. Now, in the highly anticipatedsequel Making It All Work , Allen unlocks the full power ofhis methods across the entire span of life and work. WhileGetting Things Done functioned as an essential tool kit, Making It All Work is an invaluable road map, providing bothbearings to help you determine where you are in life and directionson how to get to where you want to go.

The Accidental Millionaire is the memoir of Gary Fong, would-be slacker who revolutionized wedding photography, inventor of popular photography aids, entrepreneur, contrarian, bon vivant and a man who really, really didn't want to become a doctor. A first-generation Chinese-American, Gary was raised in one of Los Angeles' least-desirable neighborhoods and was forced to deal―in his own quirky and often very funny way―with the burdens of poverty, crime and his parents' relentless aspirations. These issues almost overwhelmed him until he had a dramatic epiphany. Spotting a bumper sticker that read "Since I gave up hope, I feel much better," Gary promptly did just that. He stopped trying and started succeeding. At turns hilarious, insightful and instructive, The Accidental Millionaire is Horatio Alger-meets-David Sedaris. Turning the traditional self-help principles upside down, The Accidental Millionaire disdains the goal-oriented approaches of traditional self-help philosophies. Sometimes not k

True leadership isn't a matter of having a certain job ortitle. In fact, being chosen for a position is only the first ofthe five levels every effective leader achieves. To become morethan "the boss" people follow only because they are required to,you have to master the ability to invest in people and inspirethem. To grow further in your role, you must achieve results andbuild a team that produces. You need to help people to developtheir skills to become leaders in their own right. And if you havethe skill and dedication, you can reach the pinnacle ofleadership-where experience will allow you to extend your influencebeyond your immediate reach and time for the benefit ofothers. The 5 Levels of Leadership are: 1. Position - People follow because they have to. 2. Permission - People follow because they want to. 3. Production - People follow because of what you have done forthe organization. 4. People Development - People follow because of what you havedone for them personall

Using a straightforward rational-choice approach, ProfessorRamseyerexplores the impact that law had on various markets inJapanese historyand the effect that those markets had on economicgrowth. In doing so,he applies an economic logic to markets in adifferent world in a differenthistorical period with a differentpolitical regime and a different legalsystem. He looks hardest atthose markets that have most often strucktraditional observers as"exploitative" (e.g., the markets for indenturedservants and forsexual services). Within those markets, he focuses on thewayparticipants handled informational asymmetries in thecontractingprocess. Ramseyer finds that Japanese courts generally definedimportant prop-erty rights clearly, and that Japanese marketsgenerally protected an indi-vidual's control over his or her ownlabor. As a result, that the Japaneseeconomy grew at relativelyefficient levels follows directly from standardeconomic theory. Healso concludes that the legal system usually pro-moted mutuallyadva

Get Rich, Don't Bitch Today, more than ever before, wealth is something every woman hasthe power to create. Yet Jean Chatzky constantly hears all theexcuses why women can’t and don’t master their money. Now, shereveals the secrets and the strategies she created to take controlof her own money–strategies through which she gained her “moneyconfidence.” It’s time for you to find yours! In Make Money, Not Excuses Jean shares these valuablelessons: ? Where to start ? How to get over your “I’m not smart enough to deal with money”feelings ? Why being a “good-enough investor” will make more money for youin the long-term (while trying to be a “great investor” will driveyou crazy) ? How (and where) to save your money ? Why women make better investors––and higher returns––thanmen ? How to track where you’re overspending ? How to pay off your debt Jean is unsurpassed in her ability to explain money and investingin

A hands-on, interactive guide to managing your monday andbuilding your financial future Many of the worksheets in this book are available online and can besaved, printed, and recalculated at any time. Go to:WSJ.com/BookTools Understanding your money, and getting it to work for you, is moreimportant today than it ever was, because you alone are responsiblefor every aspect of your financial life, from managing yourday-to-day living expenses to planning a college savings fund and,ultimately, retirement. The sooner you start taking control of yourfinancial life the better, and there’s no greater authority onfinancial matters than The Wall Street Journal . Thisworkbook takes the mystery out of personal finance and addressesevery topic you’ll need to master, from building a solid financialbase to growing your financial assets. Worksheets, charts, andstep-by-step instructions throughout help you do the math and workthrough the basics, making it quick and easy to organize your cashand eventually build wealth.

Peter Guber Chairman of the Board and CEO, Sony Pictures Yet another profound and powerful tool in the Robbins arsenal of self-awareness. It has been an enormous source of strength and insight for me both personally and professionally. Pat Riley NBA "Coach of the Decade" Anthony Robbins is the "ultimate coach" for that special breed of men and women who will never settle for less than they can be. Dr. Barbara De Angelis author, #1 bestsellers How to Make Love All the Time and Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know Required reading for anyone committed to increasing the quality of their life. Stephen R. Covey author of The New York Times #1 Bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Tony Robbins is one of the great influencers of this generation. Scott DeGarmo Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, Success magazine Astonishing credibility...every page bursts with well-researched and immediately practical guidelines for concentra