Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Business & Careers

It's very likely that best practices - ideas, processes, and strategies that are commonplace in your industry - are actually hurting your business. Although best practices can help businesses operate more competitively and efficiently, they are often outdated, harmful, and a hindrance to innovation. In Breaking Bad Habits, Freek Vermeulen, a strategy professor at London Business School, offers the tools to identify bad practices, eliminate them from your organization, and then move on to create new sources of innovation and growth by outthinking your competitors.

Go ahead, be skeptical about big data. The author was - at first. When the term "big data" first came on the scene, best-selling author Tom Davenport ( Competing on Analytics, Analytics at Work) thought it was just another example of technology hype. But his research in the years that followed changed his mind. Now, in clear, conversational language, Davenport explains what big data means - and why everyone in business needs to know about it.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as the “godmother of alternative comedy”, Beth Lapides, creator of LA’s long-running UnCabaret, delivers a funny and heartfelt meditation on the power of decisions, the place for regret, and the space for grace in the Recorded Books Original So You Need to Decide. This series of intimate conversations with a diverse group of comedians, writers, and cultural icons revolves around five universal experiences: family, work, love, moving, and spirituality.

Whether you want to reset your career, strike out on your own, or just ignite more joy in what you do, this Illuminating book shows you how to create a working life that reveals meaning while rewriting our collective future. When we connect with something larger than ourselves, we enjoy the fruits of our labour as well as the journey - the sweat and the struggle. It's the unyielding commitment to a purpose that gives shapers their shimmer. The benefits of this shine are plentiful: enhanced well-being, more community engagement, a healthier economy, and better work for all.

Based on the success story of a small Seattle coffee shop, this little book is a tasty brew of sound principles and instructive anecdotes. As the coffee shop owner looks for ways to retain his customer base, a consultant helps him focus on what really matters. Authors Yerkes and Decker, renowned for their consulting and business savvy, have done their homework and turned Beans into "a business fable taken from real life".

You subscribe to the basic idea that business can do more than make money, but you're not sure how to act on that conviction or how to share it with the rest of your organization. The Conscious Capitalism Field Guide - the authoritative follow-up to the best-selling book Conscious Capitalism, by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, and leadership expert Raj Sisodia - gives you the tools for sharing and implementing the principles of higher purpose and conscious business throughout your organization.

The lesson seems so basic. Yet time after time, good companies stumble and lose their stride - just when they were poised for rapid growth. Why? Because their leaders treated hiring as a tedious chore. They posted an ad hoc ad. Took the first person with the right skills. Hired for immediate needs, rather than future flourishing. In Hire Smart from the Start, Dave Carvajal distills lessons gained from 20 years in the trenches, building out and staffing two enormously successful Internet startups and helping firms like Tumblr, and Shutterstock land the talent they need to reach their greatest potential.

While obvious on the surface, understanding the subtle difference between a life journey to "somewhere" and a life journey to "somewhere you desire to be" will determine how satisfied you are with your life and the decisions you make along the way. Jackson and Grimes share a novel approach to this subject. In this book, they show you that it is really how we make important decisions that will determine how happy we are.

In this vital guide, Beckwith discusses the four keys necessary for successful marketing in the service industry - what he calls the "invisible touch". With real-life examples, he explains strategies for setting the correct price, creating a recognized brand, designing appealing packaging, and building lasting relationships with clients.

John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid show us how to look beyond mere information to the social context that creates and gives meaning to it. Arguing elegantly for the important role that human sociability plays, even - perhaps especially - in the digital world, The Social Life of Information gives us an optimistic look beyond the simplicities of information and individuals.

The latest edition of this Wall Street Journal best-seller offers 26 simple strategies - from A to Z - that managers can use to address their employees' real concerns and keep them engaged. The fifth edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes many more international examples, reflecting the fact that Love 'Em or Lose 'Em is available in 22 languages, from Albanian and Arabic to Thai and Turkish. Its message is truly one that spans continents and cultures.

The focus is on the major courses taught in the core curriculum at any one of the top 50 business schools in the United States. We begin with an overview of the MBA core curriculum then proceed systematically through each of the major courses taught at America's top business schools - from accounting, finance, and marketing to economics, organizational behavior, and strategy.

In this course, we'll examine the lives and careers of successful men and women who seized the opportunities offered by the vibrant and open economy that has ensued. We'll examine how each of these individuals found the necessary resources - both economic and personal - to achieve greatness in the business arena. In doing so, we hope not only to arrive at a better understanding of American business history in general, but also to commune with its greatest visionaries - its Masters of Enterprise.

There is a mountain of hype around positive thinking. But have you noticed that positive thinking doesn’t, well, work? That's because positivity is just an emotion, and at the end of the day it doesn't change the reality of the situations we face. The Simple Shift turns positive thinking on its head and transforms it into something practical - a way of adopting beliefs that can change the way you see reality and make major obstacles into easily resolvable issues.

After speaking to companies such as Merck, Land O'Lakes, and Cargill, and 2,000 audiences across the world, Damian Mason, successful businessman, agriculturalist, podcaster, and writer, wants to help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals and live a better life. While other business books claim to tell you how to reach success, they fall short because they don't address the fact that success is different for each of us. Do Business Better helps you define success on your terms, then shows you how to achieve it.  

What happens when three powerhouse women get together for a candid late-night conversation about the challenges of launching and scaling a business? Destiny unfolds, and a movement of female empowerment begins to take shape. Be…is our labor of love to you. It’s a collaborative synergy of wisdom from our individual journeys to success, paired with stories from women who courageously overcame personal and professional challenges in life and business. Change starts with a deliberate shedding of our self-limiting beliefs.

From the best-selling coauthor of the business classic The Wisdom of Teams comes an all-new exploration of the modern workplace, and how leaders and managers must embrace it for success. Katzenbach and Khan examine how two distinct factions together form the bigger picture for how organizations actually work: the more defined "formal" organization of a company - the management structure, performance metrics, and processes - and the "informal" - the culture, social networks, and ad hoc communities that spring up naturally....

This audiobook aims to demystify leadership and outlines a specific regimen that will empower you to build your leadership skills. Kaplan tells real-life stories from his own experience of working with various types of leaders seeking to improve their effectiveness and make their organizations more successful. He asks probing questions, provides exercises, and suggests concrete follow-up steps that will help you develop your skills, create new habits, and move you toward reaching your unique leadership potential.

If you want your business or organization to run well, this leadership book, adapted from the Official Army Leadership Manual, is the book for you. There are three keys to being a leader: be, know, do. Who a leader is (including values, such as loyalty and integrity), what a leader knows (about the world, about herself or himself), and what a leader does (actions) are all vitally important.

About 97 percent of a rocket's fuel is used in the first three feet of its launch. The same is true in launching a new business, product, or service. Those first few steps are absolutely critical. Scott Duffy has developed a practical approach for turning your big idea into a thriving venture by focusing on the crucial period immediately before, during, and after opening your doors (literally or online). His approach is based on his experiences working with top entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins and Richard Branson, who taught him how to balance the two key sides of entrepreneurship.