Showing titles in Decision-Making & Problem Solving

In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem, and in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what Taleb calls the "antifragile" is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish. Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner.

Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond.

Let's face it: We all know people who are irrational. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, it never works. So what's the solution? How do you talk to someone who's out of control? What can you do with a boss who bullies, a spouse who yells, or a friend who frequently bursts into tears? In his book Just Listen, Mark Goulston shared his best-selling formula for getting through to the resistant people in your life. Now he brings his communication magic to the most difficult group of all - the downright irrational.

Raise your hand if you've ever shopped online, made a financial decision, or pondered taking a job offer. What do all these have in common? They all require critical thinking. From deciding how to spend your money to where you want to work, critical thinking is essential for making choices that pay off. Applying critical thinking empowers you to assess your situation and make beneficial choices.

With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even great challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting.

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York's skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed best seller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind - that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie.

Pivotal offers a powerful antidote to the dizzying spinning and relentless chaos overwhelming countless organizations (and individuals) today. Through tools that enable you to discern genuine opportunities from mere distractions, you can create stability in both your professional and personal life. The concept of stability is akin to a basketball player executing a pivot. While one foot moves in a circular motion, the other remains anchored to the ground.

Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.

Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to - and approach for - overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy”.

Ben Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.

Exploring a wide range of everyday topics - from credit card debt and household budgeting to holiday sales - Ariely and Kreisler demonstrate how our ideas about dollars and cents are often wrong and cost us more than we know. Mixing case studies and anecdotes with tangible advice and lessons, they cut through the unconscious fears and desires driving our worst financial instincts and teach us how to improve our money habits.

Tommy Mello, the Home Service Millionaire, shares what inspired him and how you can learn from his experiences. He quotes from his favorite successful business gurus and explains what it takes to get to the top. He teaches you his method for training and inspiring employees, teaching accountability, and improving performance for any size business. A lively discussion of what it takes to succeed.

The Safety Effect will help you replicate the conditions shared by Google's most effective teams. Psychological safety is the primary driver of team effectiveness at Google, more important than seniority, individual team member performance, and hundreds of other variables. When we work in a psychologically safe workplace, we comfortably share ideas for improvement, ask for help when we need it, and celebrate our successes.

The secret to business success is intuition. It's not just a matter of following you hunches. It's about following the right hunches. Being able to sense people's inner thoughts and needs helps you say and do the things needed to quickly reach your goals and achieve success. Many people know this, but many also believe that a good sense of intuition is something that you're just born with - not something that you can develop and train.

Overthinking isn't a personality trait. It's the sneakiest form of fear. It steals time, creativity, and goals. It's the most expensive, least productive thing companies invest in without even knowing it. And it's an epidemic. When New York Times best-selling author Jon Acuff changed his life by transforming his overthinking, he wondered if other people might benefit from what he discovered. He commissioned a research study to ask 10,000 people if they struggle with overthinking too, and 99.5 percent said, "Yes!"

The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems. The topics range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain.

Creativity. Innovation. Success. That's Disney Imagineering. It was the Imagineers who brought Walt Disney's dreams to life. Now you can tap into the principles of Imagineering to make your personal and professional dreams come true. Even if you're not building a theme park, the Imagineering Pyramid can help you plan and achieve any creative goal. Lou Prosperi designed the pyramid from the essential building blocks of Disney Imagineering. He teaches you how to apply the pyramid to your next project, how to execute each step efficiently and creatively, and most important, how to succeed.

In Joel's Schwartzberg's 10-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across - one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail - is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.

The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company.