Business & Economics

Finally, a book that brings the vision of truly good governance down to earth. Ram Charan, expert in corporate governance and best-selling author, packs this book with useful tools and techniques to take boards and their companies to a higher level of performance. Charan puts his finger on a growing problem for boards: the disconnect between directors’ efforts and their results. The added time and attention boards invest is not translating into better governanceâ??that is, governance that adds value to the business.
Boards That Deliver gets beyond the rhetoric of corporate governance reform. It captures the tried-and-true practices used by high-performance boards. In contrast to experts who base prescriptions on number-crunching exercises, Charan identifies the real problems that drain directors’ time and suppress their best judgmentsâ??and explains clearly and succinctly how boards can solve those problems. These battle-tested solutions help boards achieve what rules and regulations alone cannotâ??to get succession right, refine a winning strategy, and design a rational CEO compensation package.

Good governance requires leadership. Boards That Deliver is the no-nonsense guide for directors and CEOs who are rising to the leadership challenge to make their boards a competitive advantage.

In Leaders, retired four-star general Stan McChrystal explores what leadership really means, debunking the many myths that have surrounded the concept. He focuses on thirteen great leaders, showing that the lessons we commonly draw from their lives are seldom the correct ones.

Leaders featured in the book include:

Founders: Walt Disney and Coco Chanel

Zealots: Maximilien Robespierre and Abu Musab Zarkawi

Powerbrokers: Margaret Thatcher and Boss Tweed

And other leaders profiled include geniuses Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein, reformers Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr., and heroes Harriet Tubman and Zheng He.

Ultimately, McChrystal posits that different environments will require different leaders, and that followers will choose the leader they need. Aspiring leaders will be best served not by cultivating a standard set of textbook leadership qualities, but by learning to discern what is required in each situation.

Overcome the Never-Enough Mentality to Walk in True Abundance

Prosperity. It’s one of the most dividing words in the Church. Some pastors use it to tell their congregations that God will make them all rich, rich, rich! Others spurn the word and insist that true Christlikeness is found in forsaking all worldly riches and possessions. The truth is, neither of these extremes is fully right or fully wrong.

In his latest book, Kris Vallotton mines the Scriptures in an eye-opening study of what the Bible really says about money, poverty, riches and wealth.

In it you’ll find keys to
· overcome the never-enough mentality to experience true abundance
· break free from a poverty mindset that reaps lack in your life
· demystify biblical teaching on money so you can discover peace in your finances
· learn the difference between riches and wealth

Kingdom prosperity begins from the inside out. When you learn to cultivate a mindset of abundance, no matter your circumstances, you will begin to experience the wealth of heaven in every area of your life.

Do you face the challenge of building and leading a new team? Revitalizing a stagnant one?

Extreme Teams examines the team practices driving growth in seven of the world’s most cutting-edge firms. They do this by challenging conventional wisdom and doing things differently. The book takes you inside these bold companies and examines the teamwork approaches powering their results, including how:
-Pixar’s teams use rapid-cycle feedback and no-holds debate to transform initially flawed films into billion-dollar hits
-A culture of radical “freedom and responsibility” helps Netflix execute on the next big thing and transform its industry
-Whole Food’s super-autonomous teams embrace tough metrics and friendly competition to drive performance
-Zappos embraces the weirdness and fun that sustains its success

Times change, and so must teams. Designing and managing high-performance teams requires upgrading outdated beliefs and behaviors, and creating in your company the level of intensity and collaboration needed to face down any challenge.

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.