Business Books - Page 4

Who Moved My Cheese : An Amazing Way To Deal With Change In Your Work And In Your Life

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1469 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Who Moved My Cheese? Is a simple parable that reveals profound truths about change. It is an amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a "Maze" and look for "Cheese" to nourish them and make them happy.

"Cheese" is a metaphor for what you want to have in life -- whether it is a good job, a loving relationship, money, a possession, health, or spiritual peace of mind. And "The Maze" is where you look for what you want -- the organization you work in, or the family or community you live in.

The characters are faced with unexpected change. Eventually, one of them deals with it successfully, and writes what he has learned from his experience on the maze walls.

When you come to see "The Handwriting on the Wall," you can discover for yourself how to deal with change, so that you can enjoy less stress and more success (however you define it) in your work and in your life.

Written for all ages, the story takes a little over an hour to listen to, but its unique insights can last a lifetime.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

Kerry Patterson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 142 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

For when things get crucial 5 out of 5 stars.
37 of 37 people found this review helpful.

We all face situations in life where things are tense and saying the right things is critical. This is what the authors call a "crucial conversation," as opposed to a casual discussion. Crucial conversations happen between two or more people when opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong. Whether you are approaching a boss who is breaking his or her own policies, critiquing a colleague's work, or talking to a team member who isn't keeping commitments, keeping the conversation productive can be very difficult.

The main technique the authors teach is the talent of dialogue. This is the free flow of meaning between two or more people. People who use this technique are able to find a way to get all relevant information from themselves and others out in the open and make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool. These people try hard to ensure that all ideas find their way into the forum; and as this "pool of shared meaning" grows, it helps people by exposing them to more accurate and relevant information so they can make better decisions.

The book also offers a series of tools for understanding how we think about and prepare for problem situations. They posit that people must learn the skills of talking, listening and acting together, and must remember that successful dialogue, "Starts with heart." They suggest you begin high-risk discussions with the right motives, and then stay focused no matter what happens by knowing what you want. Never lose sight of the fact that the only person you can directly control is yourself. To stay focused on what you really want, pay attention to your motives whenever you find yourself moving toward silence or violence. Clarifying what you don't want will help you find healthy options to bring you to dialogue.

Another important factor they teach in the development of better dialogue is the ability to know when safety is at risk. Recognizing when the brain is beginning to disengage from a situation and moving away from healthy dialogue is a skill that must be learned to improve communication. When a dialogue is safe, you can say anything.

Since dialogue calls for a free flow of meaning, fear can kill the flow of meaning. To reduce fear, the authors say those involved in the dialogue must learn to look at content and conditions, to watch for safety problems, watch out for outbreaks of stressed behavior, and recognize when things are moving toward silence or violence. Learning techniques to make a dialogue safe helps everyone contribute his or her meaning to it. Once these things are learned, turning them into habits is what will make them useful when they are needed most.

I think the skills taught in Crucial Conversations are pertinent to everyone who needs to communicate better, and the light-hearted, engaging tone the authors use gets their points across clearly. By breaking down the tactful steps that must be taken along the way to a successful dialogue, the authors help us to develop better strategies for getting what we want.

Another book I love and recommend strongly for dealing with difficult people and stressful situations is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.

Editorial Review:

This book gives people the tools to handle life's most difficult and important conversations.

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Free Will & Determinism

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 401 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Long, repetitive, unorganized, and too philosophical for its own good 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

[..............]

This is an interesting idea, and deserves some thought. Unfortunately, Taleb immediately sets the tone of his book as a pseudo-intellectual examination of the human approach to life and wealth. He writes about an obscure historical story of King Croesus and Solon. Solon tells Croesus to not be so proud of his riches, because times can change, and his riches can disappear quickly. Voila, Solon turns out to be right - Croesus loses a battle to King Cyrus and loses everything he owns. Taleb celebrates this story's moral as one of his book's finest points: "it ain't over till it's over." My response is: "huh!? no shit."

Taleb then launches into a discussion of how everyone in the world is "fooled by randomness." He writes chapter upon chapter of pseudo-philosophical discourse on how we leave ourselves open to large risks, often without understanding them.

Throughout the entire book, there are really only two points that I remember, or that I considered worth noting:

1. Understanding and braving a certain risk is vastly different from blindly pushing ahead and ignoring the downside of your actions. Taleb makes a point that many people are unfortunately ignorant of various risks and are hence surprised by certain outcomes of their decisions. He describes a "mistake" as something that can be decided before an action's outcome is known. Just because an outcome is positive, that doesn't mean the decision to take the action wasn't a mistake. In other words, Taleb clearly separates decisions and their outcomes.

2. There is a problem with induction. Often we make generalizations based on data that seem complete but aren't. His example is that of a "black swan." Those who observed swans everywhere but in Australia came to a conclusion that all swans are white. However, once a black swan was discovered in Australia, this theory turned out to be false.

These two points are excellent and can serve as good food for discussion. However, Taleb's thesis, combined with these ideas, does not require 300 pages of numerous tangents and irrelevant quotations. At times, Taleb's writing seems simply like a collection of favorite sayings from other big-name authors.

In the last part of the book, Taleb writes about how he himself is also "fooled by randomness" and is not entirely logical about various things. While it's admirable of him to admit his own shortcomings, the reader does not need 80 pages of self-searching.

[.........................]

Pros:
+ an interesting view on investment and risk
+ contains a few thoughtful discussions (see 2 points above)

Cons:
- unorganized; has too many tangents and irrelevant quotations
- very repetitive, could be cut down to 50-100 pages
- written with an annoying "better-than-thou" attitude (note how one of the tags for this book is "humility" - hah!)
- has too much self-searching and too many references to how Taleb was exercising or spending time in the gym when he thought of something exciting

Editorial Review:

“[Taleb is] Wall Street’s principal dissident. . . . [Fooled By Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church.”
–Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker

Finally in paperback, the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about the markets and the world.This book is about luck: more precisely how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences.

Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of business–Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, iconoclastic, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in all of our lives.

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 283 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not the best I've read 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I love Suze Orman and as a 26 year old woman I was more that excited about learning how to control my own destiny by learning all I could about my money. The problem....I would like to enjoy it before I retire. Suze should change all the names of her books to. " Suffer now, Retire rich part 1, 2, 3 and 4" because that's the philosphy of her books. I am more interested in learning techniques that can produce results in 3-5 years. 35 years is too long to reap the harvest. This book has it's place but it didn't help me much.

Editorial Review:

Why is it that women, who are so competent in all other areas of their lives, cannot find the same competence when it comes to matters of money?

Suze Orman investigates the complicated, dysfunctional relationship women have with money in this groundbreaking new book. With her signature mix of insight, compassion, and soul-deep recognition, she equips women with the financial knowledge and emotional awareness to overcome the blocks that have kept them from making more out of the money they make. At the center of the book is The Save Yourself Plan—a streamlined, five-month program that delivers genuine long-term financial security. But what’s at stake is far bigger than money itself: It’s about every woman’s sense of who she is and what she deserves, and why it all begins with the decision to save yourself.

The Goal

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 316 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Revised third edition!

Alex Rogo is the manager of a failing manufacturing plant who receives an ultimatum from corporate headquarters: Turn the situation around in three months or the plant will be scrapped. With help from a mysterious mentor, Rogo discovers a revolutionary new way to do business—a way for people in any field of endeavor to increase productivity, profitability, and personal fulfillment.

A business book disguised as a novel, a love story about the manufacturing process, and an exhilarating adventure in human potential, The Goal is changing how America does business. First published in 1984, it became an underground bestseller; today it's used by thousands of companies and taught in hundreds of business schools. Includes the author's personal story, "My Saga."

This third edition includes case study interviews. Professional readers recreate interviews that David Whitford, Editor at Large with Fortune Small Business, conducts with the author Eli Goldratt and with business professionals from General Motors, Thomson-Shore, Security Federal Banks and others who put the principles of The Goal into action.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 238 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas “stick.”

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”

In this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds–from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony–draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures)–the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of “the Mother Teresa Effect”; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas–and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.


From the Hardcover edition.

Debt Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About

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Editorial Review:

Are you getting deeper and deeper into debt while they make bigger and bigger profits? Not after you read...Debt Cure$ "They" Don't Want You To Know About!

In this new book, Kevin Trudeau blows the lid off the banking and credit card industries, exposing the greatest rip off of our citizens in this nation's history. The credit card industry is one of the most profitable industries in this country, but they don't want you to know it. You can fight back! You can apply Kevin's solutions to your debt problems, and keep more money in your pocket today. You can learn how to use credit to build wealth! Read Debt Cure$ and cure your debt forever.

You will learn:
- How the credit lending business is rigged against you!
- How the financial industry wants to keep you in debt!
- How the banks and credit card companies are making obscene profits off of you and how you can change that!
- How to reduce or possible totally eliminate your debt!
- How you could cut your payments in half!
- How to correct your credit with two magic words!
- How to improve your credit virtually overnight!
- How to get free money that you never have to pay back!
- Find out why the financial industry wants to keep you in debt.
- Turn bad debt into good credit.
- Create wealth through financial health.

Power of Less, the: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential

Leo Babauta

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

This book is great -- but zen habits is great AND free 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

First, let me say this: The content in this book is worth 5 stars. Leo is the absolute best at making anyone realize what is important in the world, and act on it. If you've had it with other self-empowerment books, the kind that use phrases like "thrive off of synergy" and "discover the true version of yourself" and "unlock the millionaire within you" and other absurdities that clog the self-improvement industry of books, then The Power of Less will be an absolute relief. The general mantra is easy to swallow and understand: focus your efforts on one thing and you will be more effective.

The book is simple and direct with little fluff. It's aimed at everyone, not just the big-time business managers and the yuppie type. As a student and writer, I find that 7 Habits and Getting Things Done and the like, while they're great, just don't feel like they're aimed at me. The Power of Less is, though. And it's undiluted greatness. There's no New Age-y stuff in here, nothing really abstract. Just solid, practical approaches to the problems that everyone faces.

Here's the one catch, though: at least 85-90% of the content in this book is fundamentally equivalent to what's been posted on his blog, Zen Habits (zenhabits dot net). Leo's techniques rely on simplicity so much that there are really only so many ways you can spin it.

There are a lot of reasons to buy this book: it goes a little bit deeper in its explanations, it is a great summary and introduction to everything on Leo's site, it supports Leo after all of the hard work he has put in to helping your average Joe like me make his life and his world a little bit better, and it introduces his ideas in a logical order.

But you can get explanations the same fundamental approaches and set of tips for free on Zen Habits, so if you're looking to pinch pennies while still taking serious steps forward in your life, you might instead just want to go through his site.

This review is not a knock on the book at all. It's just a reminder that there's a free digital alternative. That's a tip Leo himself would approve of.

Editorial Review:

With the countless distractions that come from every corner of a modern life, it’s amazing that we’re ever able to accomplish anything. The Power of Less demonstrates how to streamline your life by identifying the essential and eliminating the unnecessary – freeing you from everyday clutter and allowing you to focus on accomplishing the goals that can change your life for the better.

The Power of Less will show you how to:

• Break any goal down into manageable tasks
• Focus on only a few tasks at a time
• Create new and productive habits
• Hone your focus
• Increase your efficiency

By setting limits for yourself and making the most of the resources you already have, you’ll finally be able work less, work smarter, and focus on living the life that you deserve.

Now, Discover Your Strengths

Donald O. Clifton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 342 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Based on a Gallup study of over two million people who have excelled in their careers, NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGTHS uses a revolutionary programme to help readers discover their distinct talents and strengths. The product of a twenty-five year, multi-million pound effort to identify the most prevalent human talents, the StrengthsFinder programme introduces thirty-four talents or "themes" and reveals how they can best be translated into personal and career success. Each copy of the CD contains a unique pin number that gives the reader access to the StrengthsFinder Profile, a Web-based interview that analyses people's instinctive reactions and immediately presents them with their five most dominant strengths. Once listeners know which of the thirty-four talent themes dominates their personality, they can make practical applications at three levels: as an individual, as a manager and within an organisation. Readers learn what kind of environments will allow them to flourish; how managers can better cultivate their employers' talents; and how almost all organisations inhibit the talents of their people and need to change.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

Mark Reiter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 209 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What’s holding you back? Your hard work is paying off. You are doing well in your field. But there is something standing between you and the next level of achievement. Perhaps one small flaw–a behavior you barely even recognize–is the only thing that’s keeping you from where you want to be.

Who can help? Marshall Goldsmith is an expert at helping global leaders overcome their sometimes unconscious annoying habits and attain a higher level of success. His one-on-one coaching comes with a six-figure price tag. But, in this audiobook, you get Marshall’s great advice without the hefty fee!

What is the solution? The Harvard Business Review asked Goldsmith, “What is the most common problem faced by the executives that you coach?” Inside, he answers this question by discussing not only the key beliefs of successful leaders, but also the behaviors that hold them back. He addresses the fundamental problems that often come with success–and offers ways to attack these problems. Goldsmith outlines twenty habits commonly found in the corporate environment and provides a systematic approach to helping you achieve a positive change in behavior.