Here are the 48 best business books of 2019 according to Google. Find your new favorite book from the local library with one click.
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1. Loonshots
by: Safi Bahcall Release date: Mar 19, 2019 Number of Pages: 304 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
* Instant WSJ bestseller * Translated into 18 languages * #1 Most Recommended Book of the year (Bloomberg annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs) * An Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Inc., Newsweek, Strategy + Business, Tech Crunch, Washington Post Best Business Book of the year * Recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Sid Mukherjee, Tim Ferriss Why do good teams kill great ideas? Loonshots reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing new ideas to rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice. Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how a new kind of science can help us become the initiators, rather than the victims, of innovative surprise. Over the past decade, researchers have been applying the tools and techniques of this new science—the science of phase transitions—to understand how birds flock, fish swim, brains work, people vote, diseases erupt, and ecosystems collapse. Loonshots is the first to apply this science to the spread of breakthrough ideas. Bahcall distills these insights into practical lessons creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries can use to change our world. Along the way, readers will learn how chickens saved millions of lives, what James Bond and Lipitor have in common, what the movie Imitation Game got wrong about WWII, and what really killed Pan Am, Polaroid, and the Qing Dynasty. “If The Da Vinci Code and Freakonomics had a child together, it would be called Loonshots.” —Senator Bob Kerrey
2. Range
by: David Epstein Release date: May 28, 2019 Number of Pages: 352 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The #1 New York Times bestseller that has all America talking: as seen/heard on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, Morning Joe, CBS This Morning, The Bill Simmons Podcast, Rich Roll, and more. “Fascinating. . . . If you’re a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you.” —Bill Gates “The most important business—and parenting—book of the year.” —Forbes “Urgent and important. . . an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about improving performance.” —Daniel H. Pink Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see. Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.
3. Nine Lies About Work
by: Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall Release date: Apr 02, 2019 Number of Pages: 304 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Forget what you know about the world of work You crave feedback. Your organization’s culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. Your competencies should be measured and your weaknesses shored up. Leadership is a thing. These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they’re lies. As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies–distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking–that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact. They cause dysfunction and frustration, ultimately resulting in workplaces that are a pale shadow of what they could be. But there are those who can get past the lies and discover what’s real. These freethinking leaders recognize the power and beauty of our individual uniqueness. They know that emergent patterns are more valuable than received wisdom and that evidence is more powerful than dogma. With engaging stories and incisive analysis, the authors reveal the essential truths that such freethinking leaders will recognize immediately: that it is the strength and cohesiveness of your team, not your company’s culture, that matter most; that we should focus less on top-down planning and more on giving our people reliable, real-time intelligence; that rather than trying to align people’s goals we should strive to align people’s sense of purpose and meaning; that people don’t want constant feedback, they want helpful attention. This is the real world of work, as it is and as it should be. Nine Lies About Work reveals the few core truths that will help you show just how good you are to those who truly rely on you.
4. Kochland
by: Christopher Leonard Release date: Aug 13, 2019 Number of Pages: 704 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * WINNER OF THE J ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD * FINANCIAL TIMES’ BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * NPR FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019 * FINALIST FOR THE FINACIAL TIMES/MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF 2019 * KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOKS OF 2019 “Superb…Among the best books ever written about an American corporation.” —Bryan Burrough, The New York Times Book Review Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how one of the biggest private companies in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America. The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and US Steel combined. Koch is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food to the chemicals that make our pipes to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. But few people know much about Koch Industries and that’s because the billionaire Koch brothers have wanted it that way. For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy, with a view toward very, very long-term profits. He’s a genius businessman: patient with earnings, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop a reverence for free-market ruthlessness, and a master disrupter. These strategies made him and his brother David together richer than Bill Gates. But there’s another side to this story. If you want to understand how we killed the unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, stalled progress on climate change, and how our corporations bought the influence industry, all you have to do is read this book. Seven years in the making, Kochland “is a dazzling feat of investigative reporting and epic narrative writing, a tour de force that takes the reader deep inside the rise of a vastly powerful family corporation that has come to influence American workers, markets, elections, and the very ideas debated in our public square. Leonard’s work is fair and meticulous, even as it reveals the Kochs as industrial Citizens Kane of our time” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Private Empire).
5. The Man Who Solved the Market
by: Gregory Zuckerman Release date: Nov 05, 2019 Number of Pages: 384 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm–and made $23 billion doing it. Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor–Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros–can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance’s signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars. Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that’s sweeping the world. As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump’s victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit. The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It’s also a story of what Simons’s revolution means for the rest of us.
6. Invisible Women
by: Caroline Criado Perez Release date: Mar 12, 2019 Number of Pages: 432 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women, diving into women’s lives at home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more. Built on hundreds of studies in the US, the UK, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, unforgettable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.
7. The Ride of a Lifetime
by: Robert Iger Release date: Sep 23, 2019 Number of Pages: 272 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The CEO of Disney, one of TIME’s most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life.
8. Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?
by: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic Release date: Feb 19, 2019 Number of Pages: 240 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Look around your office. Turn on the TV. Incompetent leadership is everywhere, and there’s no denying that most of these leaders are men. In this timely and provocative book, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic asks two powerful questions: Why is it so easy for incompetent men to become leaders? And why is it so hard for competent people–especially competent women–to advance? Marshaling decades of rigorous research, Chamorro-Premuzic points out that although men make up a majority of leaders, they underperform when compared with female leaders. In fact, most organizations equate leadership potential with a handful of destructive personality traits, like overconfidence and narcissism. In other words, these traits may help someone get selected for a leadership role, but they backfire once the person has the job. When competent women–and men who don’t fit the stereotype–are unfairly overlooked, we all suffer the consequences. The result is a deeply flawed system that rewards arrogance rather than humility, and loudness rather than wisdom. There is a better way. With clarity and verve, Chamorro-Premuzic shows us what it really takes to lead and how new systems and processes can help us put the right people in charge.
9. Firefighting
by: Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner, Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Release date: Apr 16, 2019 Number of Pages: 240 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
“Should be required reading for all policy makers.” —Warren Buffett From the three primary architects of the American policy response to the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, a magnificent big-picture synthesis–from why it happened to where we are now. In 2018, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and Hank Paulson came together to reflect on the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis ten years on. Recognizing that, as Ben put it, “the enemy is forgetting,” they examine the causes of the crisis, why it was so damaging, and what it ultimately took to prevent a second Great Depression. And they provide to their successors in the United States and the finance ministers and central bank governors of other countries a valuable playbook for reducing the damage from future financial crises. Firefighting provides a candid and powerful account of the choices they and their teams made during the crisis, working under two presidents and with the leaders of Congress.
10. Zucked
by: Roger McNamee Release date: Feb 07, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
This is the dramatic story of how a noted tech venture capitalist, an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg and investor in his company, woke up to the serious damage Facebook was doing to our society and set out to try to stop it. If you had told Roger McNamee three years ago that he would soon be devoting himself to stopping Facebook from destroying democracy, he would have howled with laughter. He had mentored many tech leaders in his illustrious career as an investor, but few things had made him prouder, or been better for his fund’s bottom line, than his early service to Mark Zuckerberg. Still a large shareholder in Facebook, he had every good reason to stay on the bright side. Until he simply couldn’t. Zucked is McNamee’s intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world’s most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing. It’s a story that begins with a series of rude awakenings. First there is the author’s dawning realization that the platform is being manipulated by some very bad actors. Then there is the even more unsettling realization that Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are unable or unwilling to share his concerns, polite as they may be to his face. And then comes Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence of one horrific piece of news after another about the malign ends to which the Facebook platform has been put. To McNamee’s shock, Facebook’s leaders still duck and dissemble, viewing the matter as a public relations problem. Now thoroughly alienated, McNamee digs into the issue, and fortuitously meets up with some fellow travellers who share his concerns, and help him sharpen its focus. Soon he and a dream team of Silicon Valley technologists are charging into the fray, to raise consciousness about the existential threat of Facebook, and the persuasion architecture of the attention economy more broadly – to our public health and to our political order. Zucked is both an enthralling personal narrative and a masterful explication of the forces that have conspired to place us all on the horns of this dilemma. This is the story of a company and its leadership, but it’s also a larger tale of a business sector unmoored from normal constraints, at a moment of political and cultural crisis, the worst possible time to be given new tools for summoning the darker angels of our nature and whipping them into a frenzy. This is a wise, hard-hitting, and urgently necessary account that crystallizes the issue definitively for the rest of us.
11. Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
by: Mike Isaac Release date: Sep 03, 2019 Number of Pages: 416 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, Fortune, Bloomberg, Sunday Times A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice “If you want to understand modern-day Silicon Valley, you need to read this book.” —John Carreyrou, New York Times best-selling author of Bad Blood Hailed as the definitive book on Uber and Silicon Valley, Super Pumped is an epic story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history. Backed by billions in venture capital dollars and led by a brash and ambitious founder, Uber promised to revolutionize the way we move people and goods through the world. What followed would become a corporate cautionary tale about the perils of startup culture and a vivid example of how blind worship of startup founders can go wildly wrong.
12. The Third Pillar
by: Raghuram Rajan Release date: Feb 26, 2019 Number of Pages: 464 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award From one of the most important economic thinkers of our time, a brilliant and far-seeing analysis of the current populist backlash against globalization. Raghuram Rajan, distinguished University of Chicago professor, former IMF chief economist, head of India’s central bank, and author of the 2010 FT-Goldman-Sachs Book of the Year Fault Lines, has an unparalleled vantage point onto the social and economic consequences of globalization and their ultimate effect on our politics. In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how these three forces–the state, markets, and our communities–interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane. The “third pillar” of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That’s not just myopic, Rajan argues; it’s dangerous. All economics is actually socioeconomics – all markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. As he shows, throughout history, technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Eventually, a new equilibrium is reached, but it can be ugly and messy, especially if done wrong. Right now, we’re doing it wrong. As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally. Instead, Rajan offers a way to rethink the relationship between the market and civil society and argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest. Rajan is not a doctrinaire conservative, so his ultimate argument that decision-making has to be devolved to the grass roots or our democracy will continue to wither, is sure to be provocative. But even setting aside its solutions, The Third Pillar is a masterpiece of explication, a book that will be a classic of its kind for its offering of a wise, authoritative and humane explanation of the forces that have wrought such a sea change in our lives.
13. Trillion Dollar Coach
by: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle Release date: Apr 16, 2019 Number of Pages: 240 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The team behind How Google Works returns with management lessons from legendary coach and business executive, Bill Campbell, whose mentoring of some of our most successful modern entrepreneurs has helped create well over a trillion dollars in market value. Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt. In addition, this business genius mentored dozens of other important leaders on both coasts, from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to educators to football players, leaving behind a legacy of growing companies, successful people, respect, friendship, and love after his death in 2016. Leaders at Google for over a decade, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle experienced firsthand how the man fondly known as Coach Bill built trusting relationships, fostered personal growth—even in those at the pinnacle of their careers—inspired courage, and identified and resolved simmering tensions that inevitably arise in fast-moving environments. To honor their mentor and inspire and teach future generations, they have codified his wisdom in this essential guide. Based on interviews with over eighty people who knew and loved Bill Campbell, Trillion Dollar Coach explains the Coach’s principles and illustrates them with stories from the many great people and companies with which he worked. The result is a blueprint for forward-thinking business leaders and managers that will help them create higher performing and faster moving cultures, teams, and companies.
14. Be Fearless
by: Jean Case Release date: Jan 08, 2019 Number of Pages: 272 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Be Fearless is researched-based call to action for those seeking to live extraordinary lives and bring about transformational change. LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER Weaving together storytelling, practical tips and inspiration, the book will teach you how to put the five fearless principles to work so that you too can spark the sorts of remarkable breakthroughs that can impact the world. Philanthropist, investor, and technology pioneer Jean Case brings to life the five Be Fearless principles common to the people and organizations that bring about transformational change. When National Geographic Chairman Jean Case set out to investigate the core qualities of great change makers, past and present, from inventors to revolutionaries, she found five surprising traits they all had in common. These weren’t wealth, privilege, or even genius. What all of these exceptional men and women shared was that they had chosen to make a “big bet,” take bold risks, learn from their failures, reach beyond their bubbles, and let urgency conquer fear. Throughout Be Fearless, Jean vividly illustrates these principles through storytelling—from her own transformational life experiences, to Jane Goodall’s remarkable breakthroughs in understanding and protecting chimpanzees, to celebrity chef José Andrés’ decision to be a “first responder” and take his kitchen to the sites of devastating hurricanes to feed the hungry, to Madame C.J. Walker’s vision to build a hair care empire that would employ thousands across the country, and more. She shares new insights to stories you might think you know—like Airbnb’s tale of starting from scratch to transform the hospitality industry, to John F. Kennedy’s history-making moonshot—and gems from changemakers you’ve never heard of.
15. The Making of a Manager
by: Julie Zhuo Release date: Mar 19, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller! Congratulations, you’re a manager! After you pop the champagne, accept the shiny new title, and step into this thrilling next chapter of your career, the truth descends like a fog: you don’t really know what you’re doing. That’s exactly how Julie Zhuo felt when she became a rookie manager at the age of 25. She stared at a long list of logistics–from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching–and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports’ careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations? Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager. The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including: * How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included) * When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway * How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss * Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answers Whether you’re new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.
16. Digital Minimalism
by: Cal Newport Release date: Feb 05, 2019 Number of Pages: 304 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestseller “Newport is making a bid to be the Marie Kondo of technology: someone with an actual plan for helping you realize the digital pursuits that do, and don’t, bring value to your life.”–Ezra Klein, Vox Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It’s the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world. In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives. Digital minimalists are all around us. They’re the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don’t feel overwhelmed by it. They don’t experience “fear of missing out” because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction. Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don’t go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions. Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day “digital declutter” process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control. Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.
17. The Anxious Triumph
by: Donald Sassoon Release date: Jun 27, 2019 Number of Pages: 800 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
‘A magnum opus, an accessible and genuinely global history … This is a book for today and tomorrow’ Financial Times Capitalist enterprise has existed in some form since ancient times, but the globalization and dominance of capitalism as a system began in the 1860s when, in different forms and supported by different political forces, states all over the world developed their modern political frameworks: the unifications of Italy and Germany, the establishment of a republic in France, the elimination of slavery in the American south, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, the emancipation of the serfs in Tsarist Russia. This book magnificently explores how, after the upheavals of industrialisation, a truly global capitalism followed. For the first time in the history of humanity, there was a social system able to provide a high level of consumption for the majority of those who lived within its bounds. Today, capitalism dominates the world. With wide-ranging scholarship, Donald Sassoon analyses the impact of capitalism on the histories of many different states, and how it creates winners and losers by constantly innovating. This chronic instability, he writes, ‘is the foundation of its advance, not a fault in the system or an incidental by-product’. And it is this instability, this constant churn, which produces the anxious triumph of his title. To control or alleviate such anxieties it was necessary to create a national community, if necessary with colonial adventures, to develop a welfare state, to intervene in the market economy, and to protect it from foreign competition. Capitalists needed a state to discipline them, to nurture them, and to sacrifice a few to save the rest: a state overseeing the war of all against all. Vigorous, argumentative, surprising and constantly stimulating, The Anxious Triumph gives a fresh perspective on all these questions and on its era. It is a masterpiece by one of Britain’s most engaging and wide-ranging historians.
18. Human Compatible
by: Stuart Russell Release date: Oct 08, 2019 Number of Pages: 352 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
“The most important book on AI this year.” –The Guardian “Mr. Russell’s exciting book goes deep, while sparkling with dry witticisms.” –The Wall Street Journal “The most important book I have read in quite some time” (Daniel Kahneman); “A must-read” (Max Tegmark); “The book we’ve all been waiting for” (Sam Harris) A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking book, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines. He describes the near-term benefits we can expect, from intelligent personal assistants to vastly accelerated scientific research, and outlines the AI breakthroughs that still have to happen before we reach superhuman AI. He also spells out the ways humans are already finding to misuse AI, from lethal autonomous weapons to viral sabotage. If the predicted breakthroughs occur and superhuman AI emerges, we will have created entities far more powerful than ourselves. How can we ensure they never, ever, have power over us? Russell suggests that we can rebuild AI on a new foundation, according to which machines are designed to be inherently uncertain about the human preferences they are required to satisfy. Such machines would be humble, altruistic, and committed to pursue our objectives, not theirs. This new foundation would allow us to create machines that are provably deferential and provably beneficial.
19. Boom
by: Michael Shnayerson Release date: May 21, 2019 Number of Pages: 464 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world-for contemporary art-is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes. The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers-the tastemakers who back emerging artists and steer them to success, often to see them picked off by a rival. Dealers operate within a private world of handshake agreements, negotiating for the highest commissions. Michael Shnayerson, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writes the first ever definitive history of their activities. He has spoken to all of today’s so-called mega dealers-Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher, and Iwan Wirth-along with dozens of other dealers-from Irving Blum to Gavin Brown-who worked with the greatest artists of their times: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and more. This kaleidoscopic history begins in the mid-1940s in genteel poverty with a scattering of galleries in midtown Manhattan, takes us through the ramshackle 1950s studios of Coenties Slip, the hipster locations in SoHo and Chelsea, London’s Bond Street, and across the terraces of Art Basel until today. Now, dealers and auctioneers are seeking the first billion-dollar painting. It hasn’t happened yet, but they are confident they can push the price there soon.
20. The Big Nine
by: Amy Webb Release date: Mar 05, 2019 Number of Pages: 336 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
A call-to-arms about the broken nature of artificial intelligence, and the powerful corporations that are turning the human-machine relationship on its head. We like to think that we are in control of the future of “artificial” intelligence. The reality, though, is that we–the everyday people whose data powers AI–aren’t actually in control of anything. When, for example, we speak with Alexa, we contribute that data to a system we can’t see and have no input into–one largely free from regulation or oversight. The big nine corporations–Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple–are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate financial gain. In this book, Amy Webb reveals the pervasive, invisible ways in which the foundations of AI–the people working on the system, their motivations, the technology itself–is broken. Within our lifetimes, AI will, by design, begin to behave unpredictably, thinking and acting in ways which defy human logic. The big nine corporations may be inadvertently building and enabling vast arrays of intelligent systems that don’t share our motivations, desires, or hopes for the future of humanity. Much more than a passionate, human-centered call-to-arms, this book delivers a strategy for changing course, and provides a path for liberating us from algorithmic decision-makers and powerful corporations.
21. Coders
by: Clive Thompson Release date: Mar 26, 2019 Number of Pages: 448 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Hello, world. Facebook’s algorithms shaping the news. Self-driving cars roaming the streets. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code–and coders are the ones who built it for us. From acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson comes a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today, computer programmers, in a book that interrogates who they are, how they think, what qualifies as greatness in their world, and what should give us pause. They are the most quietly influential people on the planet, and Coders shines a light on their culture. In pop culture and media, the people who create the code that rules our world are regularly portrayed in hackneyed, simplified terms, as ciphers in hoodies. Thompson goes far deeper, dramatizing the psychology of the invisible architects of the culture, exploring their passions and their values, as well as their messy history. In nuanced portraits, Coders takes us close to some of the great programmers of our time, including the creators of Facebook’s News Feed, Instagram, Google’s cutting-edge AI, and more. Speaking to everyone from revered “10X” elites to neophytes, back-end engineers and front-end designers, Thompson explores the distinctive psychology of this vocation–which combines a love of logic, an obsession with efficiency, the joy of puzzle-solving, and a superhuman tolerance for mind-bending frustration. Along the way, Coders thoughtfully ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy. Programmers shape our everyday behavior: When they make something easy to do, we do more of it. When they make it hard or impossible, we do less of it. Thompson wrestles with the major controversies of our era, from the “disruption” fetish of Silicon Valley to the struggle for inclusion by marginalized groups. In his accessible, erudite style, Thompson unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first coders — brilliant and pioneering women, who, despite crafting some of the earliest personal computers and programming languages, were later written out of history. Coders introduces modern crypto-hackers fighting for your privacy, AI engineers building eerie new forms of machine cognition, teenage girls losing sleep at 24/7 hackathons, and unemployed Kentucky coal-miners learning a new career. At the same time, the book deftly illustrates how programming has become a marvelous new art form–a source of delight and creativity, not merely danger. To get as close to his subject as possible, Thompson picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding skills as he reckons, in his signature, highly personal style, with what superb programming looks like. To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. With Coders, Thompson gives a definitive look into the heart of the machine.
22. Catch and Kill
by: Ronan Farrow Release date: Oct 15, 2019 Number of Pages: 464 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
One of the Best Books of the Year Time * NPR * Washington Post * Bloomberg News * Chicago Tribune * Chicago Public Library * Fortune * Los Angeles Times * E! News * The Telegraph * Apple * Library Journal In this newly updated edition of the “meticulous and devastating” (Associated Press) account of violence and espionage that spent months on the New York Times Bestsellers list, Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost – from Hollywood to Washington and beyond. In 2017, a routine network television investigation led to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move, and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability, and silence victims of abuse. And it’s the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in AutobiographyIndie Bound #1 BestsellerUSA Today BestsellerWall Street Journal Bestseller
23. The Prosperity Paradox
by: Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, Karen Dillon Release date: Jan 15, 2019 Number of Pages: 368 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Clayton M. Christensen, the author of such business classics as The Innovator’s Dilemma and the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life, and co-authors Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon reveal why so many investments in economic development fail to generate sustainable prosperity, and offers a groundbreaking solution for true and lasting change. Global poverty is one of the world’s most vexing problems. For decades, we’ve assumed smart, well-intentioned people will eventually be able to change the economic trajectory of poor countries. From education to healthcare, infrastructure to eradicating corruption, too many solutions rely on trial and error. Essentially, the plan is often to identify areas that need help, flood them with resources, and hope to see change over time. But hope is not an effective strategy. Clayton M. Christensen and his co-authors reveal a paradox at the heart of our approach to solving poverty. While noble, our current solutions are not producing consistent results, and in some cases, have exacerbated the problem. At least twenty countries that have received billions of dollars’ worth of aid are poorer now. Applying the rigorous and theory-driven analysis he is known for, Christensen suggests a better way. The right kind of innovation not only builds companies—but also builds countries. The Prosperity Paradox identifies the limits of common economic development models, which tend to be top-down efforts, and offers a new framework for economic growth based on entrepreneurship and market-creating innovation. Christensen, Ojomo, and Dillon use successful examples from America’s own economic development, including Ford, Eastman Kodak, and Singer Sewing Machines, and shows how similar models have worked in other regions such as Japan, South Korea, Nigeria, Rwanda, India, Argentina, and Mexico. The ideas in this book will help companies desperate for real, long-term growth see actual, sustainable progress where they’ve failed before. But The Prosperity Paradox is more than a business book; it is a call to action for anyone who wants a fresh take for making the world a better and more prosperous place.
24. Game-Time Decision Making: High-Scoring Business Strategies from the Biggest Names in Sports
by: David Meltzer Release date: Jul 16, 2019 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Make business decisions with the confidence and clarity as the world’s best sports coaches. When the pressure is on, great coaches remain laser-focused, confident, and fully in charge of their roster. They’re the same way when it comes to developing strategies and game plans to succeed. In short, they always win because they have a superior decision-making process. Game-Time Decision Making provides everything you need to up your decision-making game and build a championship-level business. It takes you step by step through the process of: •Putting together an all-pro team with diverse skillsets•Building a positive mindset that will overwhelm the competition •Developing a keen awareness of “the playing field”•Learning from failures so you never make the same mistake twice •Creating both offensive and defensive strategies for branding and marketing When you have everything in place to make quick, accurate calls in the toughest of situations, you have what you need to dominate your industry. Game-Time Decision Making is a proven playbook for positioning yourself for success. From creating and utilizing the best tactics and strategies to leading your company through times of change, this is your playbook for total business success.
25. Unlocking the Customer Value Chain
by: Thales S. Teixeira, Greg Piechota Release date: Jan 01, 2019 Number of Pages: 352 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
“Based on six years of research, Harvard Business School professor Thales Teixeira shows how and why industries are disrupted, and what established companies can do to respond — as well as what potential startups must master if they hope to gain a competitive edge. As it turns out, there is a pattern to disruption in an industry, whether the disruptor is Uber, Airbnb or a dozen other startups that have shaken up incumbents and threatened the status quo. For disruptors to pose a threat to an industry, they have to successfully break the link in choosing, purchasing or consuming a product or service. Upstarts, Teixeria shows, do not attempt to compete with or overtake a reigning incumbent company entirely. Instead, they work to peel away a portion of the consumer decision-making process, the way Birchbox offered women a new way to sample new beauty products from a variety of cosmetics and fragrance companies, without having to go to the Revlon or Estee Lauder store. Zipcar doesn’t attempt to compete head to head with GM, but rather to offer people who need transportation an alternative way to get around, without owning a car themselves, or being responsible for fuel, maintenance, or insurance. In a penetrating narrative filled with case studies and stories, Teixeira shows us how startups successfully disrupt industries — and what industry leaders must to avoid being disrupted and protect their domain”–
26. Girl, Stop Apologizing
by: Rachel Hollis Release date: Jan 01, 2019 Number of Pages: 240 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Bestselling author of Girl, Wash Your Face and founder of TheChicSite.com Rachel Hollis urges women to stop apologizing for their desires, hopes, and dreams and instead to go after them with passion and confidence.
27. Stillness Is the Key
by: Ryan Holiday Release date: Oct 01, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller & Wall Street Journal Bestseller In The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, bestselling author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead. All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness–to be steady while the world spins around you. In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history’s greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus. Holiday also examines figures who exemplified the power of stillness: baseball player Sadaharu Oh, whose study of Zen made him the greatest home run hitter of all time; Winston Churchill, who in balancing his busy public life with time spent laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate managed to save the world from annihilation in the process; Fred Rogers, who taught generations of children to see what was invisible to the eye; Anne Frank, whose journaling and love of nature guided her through unimaginable adversity. More than ever, people are overwhelmed. They face obstacles and egos and competition. Stillness Is the Key offers a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever.
28. What It Takes
by: Stephen A. Schwarzman Release date: Sep 17, 2019 Number of Pages: 384 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Blackstone chairman, CEO, and co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman, a long-awaited book that uses impactful episodes from Schwarzman’s life to show readers how to build, transform, and lead thriving organizations. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, philanthropist, executive, or simply someone looking for ways to maximize your potential, the same lessons apply. People know who Stephen Schwarzman is—at least they think they do. He’s the man who took $400,000 and co-founded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion (as of January 2019). He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state. He’s the billionaire philanthropist who founded Schwarzman Scholars, this century’s version of the Rhodes Scholarship, in China. But behind these achievements is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact, and live a life of consequence. Folding handkerchiefs in his father’s linen shop, Schwarzman dreamed of a larger life, filled with purpose and adventure. His grades and athleticism got him into Yale. After starting his career in finance with a short stint at a financial firm called DLJ, Schwarzman began working at Lehman Brothers where he ascended to run the mergers and acquisitions practice. He eventually partnered with his mentor and friend Pete Peterson to found Blackstone, vowing to create a new and different kind of financial institution. Building Blackstone into the leading global financial institution it is today didn’t come easy. Schwarzman focused intensely on culture, hiring great talent, and establishing processes that allow the firm to systematically analyze and evaluate risk. Schwarzman’s simple mantra “don’t lose money” has helped Blackstone become a leading private equity and real estate investor, and manager of alternative assets for institutional investors globally. Both he and the firm are known for the rigor of their investment process, their innovative approach to deal making, the diversification of their business lines, and a conviction to be the best at everything they do. Schwarzman is also an active philanthropist, having given away more than a billion dollars. In philanthropy, as in business, he is drawn to situations where his capital and energy can be applied to drive transformative solutions and change paradigms, notably in education. He uses the skills learned over a lifetime in finance to design, establish, and support impactful and innovative organizations and initiatives. His gifts have ranged from creating a new College of Computing at MIT for the study of artificial intelligence, to establishing a first-of-its-kind student and performing arts center at Yale, to enabling the renovation of the iconic New York Public Library, to founding the Schwarzman Scholars fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing—the single largest philanthropic effort in China’s history from international donors. Schwarzman’s story is an empowering, entertaining, and informative guide for anyone striving for greater personal impact. From deal making to investing, leadership to entrepreneurship, philanthropy to diplomacy, Schwarzman has lessons for how to think about ambition and scale, risk and opportunities, and how to achieve success through the relentless pursuit of excellence. Schwarzman not only offers readers a thoughtful reflection on all his own experiences, but in doing so provides a practical blueprint for success.
29. Company of One
by: Paul Jarvis Release date: Jan 01, 2019 Number of Pages: 249 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
What if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career was not to create and scale a new start-up, but rather, to be able to work for yourself, determine your own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? Suppose the better–and smarter–solution is simply to remain small? This book explains how to do just that. Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth. In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.
30. I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition
by: Ramit Sethi Release date: May 14, 2019 Number of Pages: 352 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The groundbreaking NEW YORK TIMES and WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER that taught a generation how to earn more, save more, and live a rich life—now in a revised 2nd edition. Buy as many lattes as you want. Choose the right accounts and investments so your money grows for you—automatically. Best of all, spend guilt-free on the things you love. Personal finance expert Ramit Sethi has been called a “wealth wizard” by Forbes and the “new guru on the block” by Fortune. Now he’s updated and expanded his modern money classic for a new age, delivering a simple, powerful, no-BS 6-week program that just works. I Will Teach You to Be Rich will show you: • How to crush your debt and student loans faster than you thought possible • How to set up no-fee, high-interest bank accounts that won’t gouge you for every penny • How Ramit automates his finances so his money goes exactly where he wants it to—and how you can do it too • How to talk your way out of late fees (with word-for-word scripts) • How to save hundreds or even thousands per month (and still buy what you love) • A set-it-and-forget-it investment strategy that’s dead simple and beats financial advisors at their own game • How to handle buying a car or a house, paying for a wedding, having kids, and other big expenses—stress free • The exact words to use to negotiate a big raise at work Plus, this 10th anniversary edition features over 80 new pages, including: • New tools • New insights on money and psychology • Amazing stories of how previous readers used the book to create their rich lives Master your money—and then get on with your life.
31. Talking to Strangers
by: Malcolm Gladwell Release date: Sep 10, 2019 Number of Pages: 400 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers—and why they often go wrong. A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
32. The Economists’ Hour
by: Binyamin Appelbaum Release date: Sep 03, 2019 Number of Pages: 448 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
In this “lively and entertaining” history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists’ Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists’ Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists’ Hour is a reckoning — and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography
33. The Moment of Lift
by: Melinda Gates Release date: Apr 23, 2019 Number of Pages: 224 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she’s met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention—from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace.” — President Barack Obama “The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage. It changed how I think about myself, my family, my work, and what’s possible in the world. Melinda weaves together vulnerable, brave storytelling and compelling data to make this one of those rare books that you carry in your heart and mind long after the last page.” — Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Dare to Lead “Melinda Gates has spent many years working with women around the world. This book is an urgent manifesto for an equal society where women are valued and recognized in all spheres of life. Most of all, it is a call for unity, inclusion and connection. We need this message more than ever.” — Malala Yousafzai “Melinda Gates’s book is a lesson in listening. A powerful, poignant, and ultimately humble call to arms.” — Tara Westover, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Educated A debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women’s empowerment. “How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.” For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book—to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.” Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention—from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world—and ourselves. Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another. When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.
34. Seeing Around Corners
by: Rita McGrath Release date: Sep 03, 2019 Number of Pages: 256 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
The first prescriptive, innovative guide to seeing inflection points before they happen—and how to harness these disruptive influences to give your company a strategic advantage. Paradigmatic shifts in the business landscape, known as inflection points, can either create new, entrepreneurial opportunities (see Amazon and Netflix) or they can lead to devastating consequences (e.g., Blockbuster and Toys R Us). Only those leaders who can “see around corners”–that is, spot the disruptive inflection points developing before they hit–are poised to succeed in this market. Columbia Business School Professor and corporate consultant Rita McGrath contends that inflection points, though they may seem sudden, are not random. Every seemingly overnight shift is the final stage of a process that has been subtly building for some time. Armed with the right strategies and tools, smart businesses can see these inflection points coming and use them to gain a competitive advantage. Seeing Around Corners is the first hands-on guide to anticipating, understanding, and capitalizing on the inflection points shaping the marketplace.
35. Reboot
by: Jerry Colonna Release date: Jun 18, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
One of the start-up world’s most in-demand executive coaches—hailed as the “CEO Whisperer” (Gimlet Media)—reveals why radical self-inquiry is critical to professional success and healthy relationships in all realms of life. Jerry Colonna helps start-up CEOs make peace with their demons, the psychological habits and behavioral patterns that have helped them to succeed—molding them into highly accomplished individuals—yet have been detrimental to their relationships and ultimate well-being. Now, this venture capitalist turned executive coach shares his unusual yet highly effective blend of Buddhism, Jungian therapy, and entrepreneurial straight talk to help leaders overcome their own psychological traumas. Reboot is a journey of radical self-inquiry, helping you to reset your life by sorting through the emotional baggage that is holding you back professionally, and even more important, in your relationships. Jerry has taught CEOs and their top teams to realize their potential by using the raw material of their lives to find meaning, to build healthy interpersonal bonds, and to become more compassionate and bold leaders. In Reboot, he inspires everyone to hold themselves responsible for their choices and for the possibility of truly achieving their dreams. Work does not have to destroy us. Work can be the way in which we achieve our fullest self, Jerry firmly believes. What we need, sometimes, is a chance to reset our goals and to reconnect with our deepest selves and with each other. Reboot moves and empowers us to begin this journey.
36. 21 Letters on Life and Its Challenges
by: Charles Handy Release date: Jun 27, 2019 Number of Pages: 208 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Charles Handy is one of the giants of contemporary thought. His books on management – including Understanding Organizations and Gods of Management – have changed the way we view business. His work on broader issues and trends – such as Beyond Certainty and The Second Curve – has changed the way we view society. In his new book, Handy builds on a life’s work to glimpse into the future and see what challenges and opportunities the next generation faces. How will people cope with change in a world where the old certainties no longer apply? What goals will and should they set themselves? How will they find purpose and fulfilment in their lives? Clear-eyed and optimistic by turns, he sets out the questions that everyone needs to ask themselves, and points us in the direction of the answers.
37. IBM
by: James W. Cortada Release date: Mar 05, 2019 Number of Pages: 752 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
A history of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was “Big Blue, ” an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. Cortada, a historian who worked at IBM for many years, describes IBM’s technology breakthroughs, including the development of the punch card (used for automatic tabulation in the 1890 census), the calculation and printing of the first Social Security checks in the 1930s, the introduction of the PC to a mass audience in the 1980s, and the company’s shift in focus from hardware to software. He discusses IBM’s business culture and its orientation toward employees and customers; its global expansion; regulatory and legal issues, including antitrust litigation; and the track records of its CEOs. The secret to IBM’s unequalled longevity in the information technology market, Cortada shows, is its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies.
38. The Enlightened Capitalists
by: James O’Toole Release date: Feb 26, 2019 Number of Pages: 592 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
An expert on ethical leadership analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices—from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and jeans maker Levi Strauss to such modern-day entrepreneurs Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell. Today’s business leaders are increasingly pressured by citizens, consumers, and government officials to address urgent social and environmental issues. Although some corporate executives remain deaf to such calls, over the last two centuries, a handful of business leaders in America and Britain have attempted to create business organizations that were both profitable and socially responsible. In The Enlightened Capitalists, James O’Toole tells the largely forgotten stories of men and women who adopted forward-thinking business practices designed to serve the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and the natural environment. They wanted to prove that executives didn’t have to make trade-offs between profit and virtue. Combining a wealth of research and vivid storytelling, O’Toole brings life to historical figures like William Lever, the inventor of bar soap who created the most profitable company in Britain and used his money to greatly improve the lives of his workers and their families. Eventually, he lost control of the company to creditors who promptly terminated the enlightened practices he had initiated—the fate of many idealistic capitalists. As a new generation attempts to address social problems through enlightened organizational leadership, O’Toole explores a major question being posed today in Britain and America: Are virtuous corporate practices compatible with shareholder capitalism?
39. The 100X Leader
by: Jeremie Kubicek, Steve Cockram Release date: Mar 26, 2019 Number of Pages: 256 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Become the leader others want to follow Forget everything you know about motivating others and building a harmonious workplace. If you want to get the best out of people, you must be willing to fight. But, that doesn’t mean you become a dominator, nor does coddling others work. The best leader you’ve ever had in your life was a liberator—someone willing to fight for your highest good, even at a personal cost. Inside, global leadership experts Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram explain what made that leader so unique, how to become that person yourself, and how to share the same gift with others. Be one of the few that people actually want to follow Learn the lost art of leadership—the intentional calibration of support and challenge for everyone you lead, your team and your family Become a multiplication master as you learn to bring the best out of people for their highest good and that of the whole team Overhaul entire cultures by focusing on the transformation and empowerment of sub-culture leaders The 100x Leader will help you become—and build—leaders worth following.
40. Tim Cook
by: Leander Kahney Release date: Apr 16, 2019 Number of Pages: 320 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Journalist Leander Kahney reveals how CEO Tim Cook has led Apple to astronomical success after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011. The death of Steve Jobs left a gaping void at one of the most innovative companies of all time. Jobs wasn’t merely Apple’s iconic founder and CEO; he was the living embodiment of a global megabrand. It was hard to imagine that anyone could fill his shoes–especially not Tim Cook, the intensely private executive who many thought of as Apple’s “operations drone.” But seven years later, as journalist Leander Kahney reveals in this definitive book, things at Apple couldn’t be better. Its stock has nearly tripled, making it the world’s first trillion dollar company. Under Cook’s principled leadership, Apple is pushing hard into renewable energy, labor and environmentally-friendly supply chains, user privacy, and highly-recyclable products. From the massive growth of the iPhone to lesser-known victories like the Apple Watch, Cook is leading Apple to a new era of success. Drawing on access with several Apple insiders, Kahney tells the inspiring story of how one man attempted to replace someone irreplaceable, and–through strong, humane leadership, supply chain savvy, and a commitment to his values–succeeded more than anyone had thought possible.
41. Alpha Girls
by: Julian Guthrie Release date: Jan 01, 2019 Number of Pages: 304 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
“Alpha Girls is reporter Julian Guthrie’s powerful account of five women pioneers in the field of venture capital who bucked the system and found ways to survive and thrive in the cutthroat, high-stakes, male-dominated world of Silicon Valley”–Provided by publisher.
42. Big Business
by: Tyler Cowen Release date: Apr 09, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
An against-the-grain polemic on American capitalism from New York Times bestselling author Tyler Cowen. We love to hate the 800-pound gorilla. Walmart and Amazon destroy communities and small businesses. Facebook turns us into addicts while putting our personal data at risk. From skeptical politicians like Bernie Sanders who, at a 2016 presidential campaign rally said, “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” to millennials, only 42 percent of whom support capitalism, belief in big business is at an all-time low. But are big companies inherently evil? If business is so bad, why does it remain so integral to the basic functioning of America? Economist and bestselling author Tyler Cowen says our biggest problem is that we don’t love business enough. In Big Business, Cowen puts forth an impassioned defense of corporations and their essential role in a balanced, productive, and progressive society. He dismantles common misconceptions and untangles conflicting intuitions. According to a 2016 Gallup survey, only 12 percent of Americans trust big business “quite a lot,” and only 6 percent trust it “a great deal.” Yet Americans as a group are remarkably willing to trust businesses, whether in the form of buying a new phone on the day of its release or simply showing up to work in the expectation they will be paid. Cowen illuminates the crucial role businesses play in spurring innovation, rewarding talent and hard work, and creating the bounty on which we’ve all come to depend.
43. Legacy
by: Thomas Harding Release date: Jan 01, 2019 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
44. Leadershift
by: John C. Maxwell Release date: Feb 05, 2019 Number of Pages: 288 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Internationally recognized leadership expert John C. Maxwell teaches readers how to shift their leadership to keep innovating, improving, and influencing others in today’s fast-paced world. Change is so rapid today that leaders must do much more than stay the course to be successful. If they aren’t nimble and ready to adapt, they won’t survive. The key is to learn how to leadershift. In Leadershift, John C. Maxwell helps leaders gain the ability and willingness to make leadership changes that will positively enhance their organizational and personal growth. He does this by sharing the eleven shifts he made over the course of his long and successful leadership career. Each shift changed his trajectory and set him up for new and exciting achievements, ultimately strengthening and sustaining his leadership abilities and making him the admired leadership expert he is today. Among those leadershifts are the Adaptive Shift from Plan A to Option A, the Production Shift from Ladder Climbing to Ladder Building, and the Influence Shift from Positional Authority to Moral Authority. Maxwell gives specific guidance to readers about how to make these shifts in their own lives. Each one requires them to change the way they think, act, and ultimately lead so they can be successful in a world that never remains the same.
45. Leading Loyalty
by: Sandy Rogers, Leena Rinne, Shawn Moon Release date: Apr 16, 2019 Number of Pages: 240 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
In business, if people merely like you, you’re in trouble. They need to love you! Learn how building loyalty and modeling great customer service behavior to develop frontline teams is the key to building raving fans. To thrive in today’s economy, it’s not enough for customers to merely like you. They have to love you. Win their hearts and they will not only purchase more—they’ll talk you up to everyone they know. But what turns casual customers into passionate promoters? What makes people stick with you for the long haul? The industry experts at FranklinCovey set out to unlock the mysteries of gaining the customer’s loyalty. In an extensive study that involved 1,100 stores and thousands of people, they isolated examples that stood out in terms of revenues and profitability. They found that these “campfire stores” burned brighter than the rest thanks to fiercely loyal customers and the employees who delight in making their customers’ lives easier. Now Fierce Loyalty reveals the principles and practices of these everyday service heroes—the customer-facing employees who cultivate bonds and lift revenues through the roof. Full of eye-opening examples and practical tools, Fierce Loyalty helps you infuse empathy, responsibility, and generosity into every interaction and: Make warm, authentic connections Ask the right questions Listen to learn Discover the real job to be done Take ownership of the customer’s issue Follow up and strengthen the relationship Share insights openly and kindly Surprise people with unexpected extras Model, teach, and reinforce these essential behaviors through weekly team huddles It’s time to invest in building loyalty. Even small improvements mean a big boost to your bottom line…and improves your business overall.
46. Rituals for Work
by: Kursat Ozenc, Margaret Hagan Release date: Apr 09, 2019 Number of Pages: 272 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Experience the transformative power of creative rituals in the workplace Rituals for Work shows us how creative rituals can make our personal and business lives more meaningful and rewarding. Rituals are powerful tools: they reinforce good habits, motivate personal and professional achievement, create a common bond between co-workers and build shared values; they can transform an organization’s culture and provide a foundation to achieve common goals. Focusing on real-world examples, this book takes a practical approach to the power and benefits of workplace rituals. This insightful guide presents 50 creative rituals, from business and management to design and personal development. Specific case studies highlight the use of rituals and their positive impact to real-world organizations, while vivid visuals allow us to feel their energy and emotion. A ritual is only effective when its purpose is clearly defined. This book goes beyond simple analysis to provide actual recipes for individual rituals designed to promote specific habits, change negative behaviors, and instill values. Each ritual can be adapted to achieve a multitude of goals and tailored to fit your organization or team’s specific needs. ● Change behaviors, form positive habits, and assign meaning to shared goals ● Build shared values, foster innovation, and encourage strong teamwork ● Deal with conflicts effectively and engage others to work on resolutions ● Learn the fundamental concepts of ritual-building and share your knowledge with your team An informative and inspirational resource for executives, managers, team leaders, and employees of every level, Rituals for Work provides a blueprint for building a culture of engagement, innovation, and shared purpose for organizations of all sizes, across industries.
47. Talent Keepers
by: Christopher Mulligan, Craig Taylor Release date: Apr 16, 2019 Number of Pages: 192 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
Achieve higher levels of workforce engagement and retain more employees A strong U.S. economy with record-low unemployment rates and the shift to Millennials—now the largest generation in the workforce—are driving specific challenges for organizations to engage and retain employees. Engaged employees don’t just happen, they are nurtured by organizations with great cultures and strong leadership. Talent Keepers puts a new spin on a systematic approach to employee engagement and retention with precise tactics that have achieved proven results. This book includes research-based methods of engaging employees, beginning the moment they are hired. With six client case studies that focus on how the organization put an engagement plan into practice and achieved success, readers will come away with specific, actionable strategies they can begin implementing immediately in their organization. • Put an engagement plan into action • Find actionable strategies • Implement ways to retain your best employees • Achieve success starting today If you’re a top leader looking to engage and retain your best performers, Talent Keepers has you covered.
48. Unplugged
by: Steve Bucholz, Tom Roth Release date: Mar 04, 2019 Number of Pages: 282 Find in Library Read Review Google Preview |
This book begins with a question: What takes the human energy out of an organization and how to get it back? Unplugged is about understanding what happens to employees when they lose their way amidst change, when they become unplugged from purpose, connection, direction, meaning, and value. When they, in a word, lose their energy. The book provides a fresh look at engagement as a choice employees make based on how they perceive the change and on how much discretionary energy they will give to the endeavor. Various factors contribute to employees unplugging. They include experiencing change as loss, repetitive change leading to fatigue and/or apathy, becoming overwhelmed because of additional workload, low work satisfaction, and feeling poorly led.
Last updated on October 17, 2021