Business – Let's Read

Brave New Work

71

RECOMMENDATION Bureaucracy impedes productivity, fosters dissatisfaction among the workforce and accrues “organizational debt.” Business consultant Aaron Dignan recognizes the misunderstanding at the heart of most organizations: trying to treat...

Boom

150

RECOMMENDATION Journalist Michael Shnayerson provides a gripping, thorough backgrounder on the contemporary art market as he narrates the growth of the art world and competition among its leading players. He tracks the careers of major dealers...

Strategy For The Corporate Levels

136

RECOMMENDATION This overview of corporate strategy has the strengths of a good textbook. It moves through core concepts for developing strategy on the corporate level a step at a time, provides definitions and explains the underlying principles...

The Trusted Advisor

146

RECOMMENDATION Being trusted by their clients separates successful advisors and consultants from the corporate consigliores. But how does a qualified advisor become trusted? Authors David H. Maister, Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford provide...

What Great Brands Do

113

RECOMMENDATION Sound brand building has never been more important. Branding professional Denise Lee Yohn explains the differences between conventional branding and what she terms the “brand-as-business” strategy, a more enlightened and effective...

Learning to Succeed

137

Practices and products that once put your organization at the top of your industry might now provide for only its basic survival. Global and virtual competition, rapid innovation and relentless change mean leaders and employees need to learn...

Leading Up

111

When leaders lack solutions to challenging problems, they need brave subordinates, clients or vendors who will challenge them and help them think in a fresh way. Wharton Business School professor Michael Useem calls this process “leading up.” He...

The Lost Art of Closing

116

Sales impresario Anthony Iannarino believes many salespeople don’t know how to have productive conversations with clients, even though sellers’ words make or break sales. The typical salesperson might say, “What’s it going to take to get you to...

The Alchemy Of Growth

117

RECOMMENDATION Growth in business today is like alchemy, as business leaders try to turn everyday metals into gold. Authors Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley and David White, who are McKinsey consultants or alumni, explain that growth can transform...

Blue Ocean Shift

118

Review In the mid-2000s, strategists around the globe bandied about the terms “blue ocean” and “red ocean” to describe their market position. The international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne became...

Growth Gamble

105

Some senior executives are so eager for growth that they gamble their company’s riches on new business initiatives that will probably fail. Researchers estimate that the failure rate for company-spawned business initiatives is as high as 99%...

101 Tips for Telecommuters

105

RECOMMENDATION Debra A. Dinnocenzo has written a friendly, informal and sometimes humorous book for people who are or want to become telecommuters. Using her firsthand experiences, the author covers a broad range of tricky issues that...