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:

In his bestselling first book, Getting Things Done ,veteran coach and management consultant David Allen presented hisbreakthrough methods to increase efficiency. Now "the personalproductivity guru" ( Fast Company ) shows readers how toincrease their ability to work better, not harder—every day. Basedon Allen’s highly popular e-newsletter, Ready for Anything offers readers 52 ways to immediately clear your head forcreativity, focus your attention, create structures that work, andtake action to get things moving. With wit, inspiration, and know-how, Allen shows readers how tomake things happen—with less effort and stress, and lots moreenergy, creativity, and effectiveness. Ready for Anything isthe perfect book for anyone wanting to work and live at his or hervery best.

"Oh, screw it, let's do it." That's the philosophy that has allowed Richard Branson, inslightly more than twenty-five years, to spawn so many successfulventures. From the airline business (Virgin Atlantic Airways), tomusic (Virgin Records and V2), to cola (Virgin Cola), to retail(Virgin Megastores), and nearly a hundred others, ranging fromfinancial services to bridal wear, Branson has a track recordsecond to none. Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageousautobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time.When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friendsdecided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's callit just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own"rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a globalpresence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, andminimal bureaucracy. Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, andcola are good examples--were started in the face of

An Apple Store customer asks for the latest iPhone in blackbut suddenly changes to white when he sees others choosing it. Acitizen of a former communist country picks~ a drink at random;soda is soda, he says. A young man and woman decide tomarry--knowing that they'll meet for the first time on theirwedding day. In THE ART OF CHOOSING, Columbia University profes- sor SheenaIyengar, a leading expert on choice, asks fascinating questions:Are our choices innate or created by culture? Why do we sometimeschoose against our best interests? How much control do we reallyhave? What's the relationship between choice and freedom? Drawingon her award-winning, discipline: spanning research, thisremarkable book illuminates the joys and challenges ofchoosing--and shows us how we can choose better, one choice at atime.

Practical ideas from the best brains in Business A sharp, jargon-free guide to the core curriculum of an MBAprogram, MBA in a Book shows how to master the big ideas ofbusiness and use them in a practical way to build and enhancecareer success. “In the world of business, ideas matter. . . . Some of the sharpestminds in the business world give perceptive looks into innovation,marketing, finance, strategy, and leadership, providingstimulating, useful perspectives on these core topics.” —Larry Bossidy, retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell Internationaland coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting ThingsDone Great business thinkers such as Michael Porter, Rosabeth Kanter,and Bill George of Harvard Business School; Paul Argenti of theTuck School at Dartmouth; Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale; Peter Sengeof MIT; the entrepreneur and inventor Dean Kamen; and the financialinnovator Michael Milken are just a few of the best brains inbusiness, providing the intellectual nourishment that will help youplay

Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun clothof America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dimestore in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largestretailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king ofthe late twentieth century, Sam never lost the commontouch. Here, finally, inimitablewords. Genuinely modest, but always sure if hisambitions and achievements. Sam shares his thinking in acandid, straight-from-the-shoulder style. In a story rich with anecdotes and the "rules of the road" of bothMain Street and Wall Street, Sam Walton chronicles the inspiration,heart, and optimism that propelled him to lasso the AmericanDream.

It’s not good enough to want it. You’ve got to know how to get it. Real estate titan, bestselling author, and TV star Donald J. Trump is the man to teach you the billionaire mind-set–how to think about money, career skills, and life. Here is crucial advice on investing in real estate from the expert, everything from dealing with brokers to renovating to assessing the value of property, buying and selling, and securing a mortgage. Trump will show you how to cut costs, decide how much risk to assume in your investments, and divide up your portfolio. He’ll also teach you how to impress anyone, how to correct or criticize someone effectively, and how to know if your friends are loyal–everything you need to know to get ahead. And once you’ve earned your money, you’ve got to learn to spend it well. Trump presents his consumer guide to the best things in life, from wine to golf clubs to engagement rings. Check out the billionaire lifestyle–how they shop and what they buy. Even if you’re not s

There will come a time when you must decide to lead the lifesomeone else has chosen for you…or the life you want. According to legend, when a young boy asked the great Renaissanceartist Michelangelo why he was working so hard hitting the block ofmarble that would eventually become his greatest sculpture, David,the artist replied, “Young man, there is an angel inside this rock,and I am setting him free.” In The Angel Inside, the renownedconsultant and career coach Chris Widener uses Michelangelo’s wordsto explore the hidden potential that exists within us all. In this unforgettable tale, Tom Cook, a disillusioned Americanbusinessman, has traveled to Italy looking for direction in hislife. In Florence, the last city on his tour, Tom meets amysterious old man who opens his eyes to the art and life ofMichelangelo and reveals what the artist’s work can teach him—andall of us—about the power of following your passion. Among the lessons that Tom learns over the course of the ne

In Seduced by Success, Robert J. Herbold, the former Chief Operating Officer of Microsoft, shows you how to avoid the nine traps of success-the “legacy practices” that almost felled such giants as General Motors, Kodak and Sony. Herbold, a 26-year-veteran of Procter & Gamble who lived through each trap, gives you proven tactics for preventing arrogance, bloat, and neglect while capitalizing on your accomplishments, sustaining your momentum, and retaining your position in the marketplace. The nine traps every successful organization must avoid are Neglect: Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model Pride: Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated Boredom: Clinging to Your Once-Successful Branding Complexity: Ignoring Your Business Processes Bloat: Rationalizing Your Loss of Speed and Agility Mediocrity: Letting Your Star Employees Languish Lethargy: Getting Lulled into a Culture of Comfort Timidity: Not Confronting Turf Wars and Obstructionists

The Remarkable discoveries about what drives and sustainssuccessful women leaders. Based on five years of proprietary research, How Remarkable WomenLead speaks to you as no other book has, with its hopeful outlookand unique ideas about success. It's the new "right stuff" ofleadership, raising provocative issues such as whether feminineleadership traits (for women and men) are better suited for ourfast-changing, hyper-competitive, and increasingly complexworld. The authors, McKinsey Company consultants Joanna Barsh andSusie Cranston, establish the links between joy, happiness, anddistinctive performance with the groundbreaking model of CenteredLeadership. The book's personal stories and related insights show you themagic that happens when you put the five elements of CenteredLeadership–meaning, framing, connecting, engaging, andenergizing–to work. They include: How Alondra de la Parra built on her strengths and passions toinfuse her life with meaning and make her way in the

We find ourselves engaged in various kinds of negotiationsevery day, from trying to land a new account or win a promotion atwork, to buying a house or a car, or bargaining down a cell phonebill, or settling a dispute with a friend or spouse. In thisgroundbreaking book, negotiation expert Ed Brodow shows us how tosettle conflicts amicably to reach a win-win solution everytime. Using the no-nonsense, results-oriented boot camp approach,Brodow drills readers on the basic skills needed to master the artof negotiation. After completing Brodow’s basic training program,you will have learned how to: · Conquer your fear of confrontation and overcome the negativebehaviors that hold you back · Identify and develop your personal negotiation style · Assess the other side’s strengths and weaknesses · Get the other side to make concessions without giving up any ofyour goals · Master the art of listening to understand the other side’sposition and strengthen your own

In a book that looks at the power of collaboration, the authorsdefine eight archetypes of leaders and followers and then explainhow readers can take 60 different cases of successful collectivebehavior and apply them to their own organizations.

Tom Hopkins carries the standard as a master sales trainer andis recognized as the world’s leading authority on sellingtechniques and salesmanship. Over 3,000,000 people on five continents have attended Tom’shigh-energy live seminars. Tom personally conducts 75 seminars eachyear traveling throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, NewZealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Tom Hopkins is a distinguished charter member of the NationalSpeakers Association and was among the first to receive itsprestigious Council of Peers Award for Excellence. Tom’s talent ofteaching in a creative and entertaining style has brought him atremendous following, as well as constant demand for appearances atregional and national conventions each year. Tom Hopkins has been the subject of countless articles inpublications such as U.S. News and World Report, The New YorkTimes, The Los Angeles Times, Personal Selling Power, Peoplemagazine, Selling magazine, Entrepreneur magazine, and TheWashington Post.

Forget everything you think you know about strength, strategyand success. This brilliant adaptation of the ancient masterpieceThe Art of War shows women how to use Sun Tzu’s philosophy to winin every aspect of life. Would you like to transform your weaknesses into strengths?Succeed at work without compromising your ethics? Integrate yourstyle and personal philosophy into every action you take? If so,this book is for you. In The Art of War for Women, bestsellingauthor Chin-Ning Chu brings the eternal wisdom ofphilosopher-general Sun Tzu to women looking to gain a betterunderstanding of who they are – and, more importantly, who theywant to be. In the West, when we think of war, we imagine battle, casualties,brutality. But Sun Tzu, the man who wrote the Art of War some 2,500years ago, was Chinese, and the Chinese think of war differentlythan we do in the West. In their view, war does not revolve aroundfighting. It is about determining the most efficient way of gainingvictory w

Technological advances and the global marketplace are changingthe way we live and work. Doing the work you love is the critical factor to personal fulfillment and economic success. Noone understands this more than Laurence G. Boldt, whose Zen andthe Art of Making a Living helped many carve out new andrewarding career paths. But how do you find the courage to startthe search for a new career? And how do you tap into your own bestresources to discover what you want to do and what you’re good at?This remarkable guide offers simple yet profound strategies to helpyou answer those questions by focusing on four key elements to besought in any life’s work: Integrity, Service, Enjoyment, andExcellence. Boldt has reduced the quest for meaningful work to itsessence and will lead you to an understanding of what you could andshould be doing with your life.

Business revolves around making decisions, often riskydecisions, usually with incomplete information and too often inless time than we need. Executives at every level, in everyindustry, are confronted with information overload, less leeway formistakes, and a business environment that changes rapidly. In lightof this increased pressure and volatility, the old-fashioned waysof making decisions–depending on intuition, common sense, andspecialized expertise–are simply no longer sufficient. Distillingover thirty years of groundbreaking research, WinningDecisions , written by two seasoned business advisers and worldleaders in behavioral decision studies, is a comprehensive,one-of-a-kind guide to the proven methods of making criticalbusiness decisions confidently, quickly–and correctly. Decision-making is a business skill which managers often take forgranted in themselves and others–but it's not as easy as some mightthink. The authors, whose expertise has been sought out by over ahundred companies, includi

In the On-the-Fly Guide to Balancing Work and Life ,Bill Butterworth brings his trusted brand of motivation to an issuethat affects us all, no matter what our jobs or where we stand onthe corporate ladder. As this charming little book makes clear, it is possibleto have it all: success at work and a fulfilling life outside theoffice. Designed to be read in one short plane ride—or over a hotcup of coffee or two—this book is the “Cliff’s Notes” for ahappier, more well-rounded life. Filled with stories about howsuccessful people from all walks of life have integrated their workand home lives and packed with advice on how you can learn to dothe same, the On-the-Fly Guide to Balancing Work and Life will change the way you work—and, more importantly, the way youlive. There’s no telling what you’ll learn when you read on thefly.

Robert E. Lee was a leader for the ages. The man heralded byWinston Churchill as "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived"inspired an out-manned, out-gunned army to achieve greatness on thebattlefield. He was a brilliant strategist and a man of unyieldingcourage who, in the face of insurmountable odds, nearly changedforever the course of history. "A masterpiece—the best work of its kind I have ever read.Crocker's Lee is a Lee for all leaders to study; and to work, quitedeliberatelya, to emulate." — Major General Josiah Bunting III,superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute In this remarkable book, you'll learn the keys to Lee's greatnessas a man and a leader. You'll find a general whose standards forpersonal excellence was second to none, whose leadership wasfounded on the highest moral principles, and whose character wasmade of steel. You'll see how he remade a rag-tag bunch of men intoone of the most impressive fighting forces history has ever known.You'll also discover oth

The authors present important research showing thatcorporatist institutions generate smaller non-competitive wagedifferentials than a decentralized system. A theoreticalexplanation is developed based on the hold-up problem ininvestments, arguing that corporatist institutions solve theproblem by specifying ex ante nominal contracts that remove thenecessity of ex post bargaining over the surplus of an employmentrelationship. The authors also argue that such institutions allowsufficient flexibility to accommodate aggregate shocks, even moreso than decentralized systems. Corporatism or Competition? is thefirst book to bring together the mass of research on comparativewage differences, wage movements and employment behaviour indifferent countries with different institutional frameworks, in anorganized and coherent fashion.

The extraordinary breakthrough management program--heralded byGE, Motorola, and AlliedSignal--that is sweeping corporate Americawith its unprecedented ability to achieve superior financialresults. Six Sigma is the most powerful breakthrough management tool everdevised, promising increased market share, cost reductions, anddramatic improvements in bottom-line profitability for companies ofany size. The darling of Wall Street, it has become the mantra ofFortune 500 boardrooms around the world because it works. What is Six Sigma? It is first and foremost a business processthat enables companies to increase profits dramatically bystreamlining operations, improving quality, and eliminating defectsor mistakes in everything a company does, from filling out purchaseorders to manufacturing airplane engines. While traditional qualityprograms have focused on detecting and correcting defects, SixSigma encompasses something broader: It provides specific methodsto re-create the process itself so that def

“I’ve got the name for our publishing operation. We justsaid we were going to publish a few books on the side at random.Let’s call it Random House.” So recounts Bennett Cerf in thiswonderfully amusing memoir of the making of a great publishinghouse. An incomparable raconteur, possessed of an irrepressible witand an abiding love of books and authors, Cerf brilliantly evokesthe heady days of Random House’s first decades. Part of the vanguard of young New York publishers whorevolutionized the book business in the 1920s and ’30s, Cerf helpedusher in publishing’s golden age. Cerf was a true personality,whose other pursuits (columnist, anthologist, author, lecturer,radio host, collector of jokes and anecdotes, perennial judge ofthe Miss America pageant, and panelist on What’s My Line? )helped shape his reputation as a man of boundless energy andenthusiasm and brought unprecedented attention to his company andto his authors. At once a rare behind-the-scenes account of bookpublishing and

From experts at McKinsey Company's world-renowned growthpractice comes a highly practical, field-tested approach toinitiating and sustaining growth in companies of all sizes. .Growth unleashes benefits beyond the economic. It revitalizesorganizations and invigorates the people in them, creating energy,a sense of purpose, and the glow of being on a winning team. Likethe alchemy of old, it seeks to transform the everyday into theexalted by means that seem little short of magical. Yet growth isoften elusive, achieved at unacceptable costs, or managed in fitsand starts. Based on over three years of research and applicationat high-performing companies around the world, The Alchemy ofGrowth is a comprehensive, practical approach to initiating,achieving, and sustaining profitable growthtoday and tomorrow. Asthe book shows, the secret is to manage business opportunitiesacross three time horizons at once: extending and defending corebusinesses, building new businesses, and seeding options for thefuture. The Alchemy

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to riseeffortlessly to the top, while others are stuck in the same jobyear after year? Have you ever felt you are falling short of yourcareer potential? Have you wondered if some of the things you do–ordon’t do–at work might be hamstringing your ambitions? In The 12Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back, James Waldroop and TimothyButler identify the twelve habits that–whether you are a retailclerk or a law firm partner, work in technology or in a factory–arealmost guaranteed to hold you back. The fact is, most people learn their greatest lessons not fromtheir successes but from their mistakes. The 12 Bad Habits ThatHold Good People Back offers the flip side to Stephen Covey’sapproach in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, zeroing in onthe most common behavior that can impede a career. Based on overtwenty years of research as business psychologists, the authorsclaim that the reasons people fail in their jobs are the sameeverywhere. Only a

One of the most popular and respected style guides ever written,this handbook by a seasoned writer with more than forty years ofexperience offers ten principles and seven axioms that professionalwriters use to express their thoughts clearly and effectively. Thislatest edition is expanded to include an extensive glossary ofAmerican idiomatic expressions, developed to assist users fromother backgrounds and cultures; new chapters with tips onlittle-known facts of usage, such as compound words, hyphenation,numeration, and capitalization; and explanations of technicalproblems encountered in writing and editing with tips and exercisesto help solve them. For anyone faced with the challenges of writtenEnglish, Writing with Precision can help readers write moreclearly, more effectively, and more precisely than they everhave. Previous editions of Writing with Precision have beenselected by the Writer's Digest , McMillan , Fortune , and Reader's Digest book clubs.

Cathie Black is the wise, funny mentor that every woman dreamsof having. She was a pioneer in advertising sales at a time whenwomen didn’t sell; served as president and publisher of thefledgling USA Today ; and, in her current position as thepresident of Hearst Magazines, persuaded Oprah to launch amagazine. In 2006 she was named one of Fortune’s “50 Most PowerfulWomen in American Business” for the seventh consecutive year. Now,in the exuberant, down-to-earth voice that is her trademark, Cathieexplains how she achieved “the 360° life”—a blend of professionalaccomplishment and personal contentment—and how any woman can seizeopportunity in the workplace. No matter where you are in your career, Basic Black offersinvaluable lessons that will help you land the job, promotion, orproject you’re vying for. At the core of the book are Cathie’scandid, personal stories. She walks us through her decision to riskdropping a huge ad agency that handled the USA Today campaign in favor of a small bo