Management & Strategy

It unifies the field, drawing from industry sources as well as relevant research from disparate disciplines, as well as documenting industry practices and implementation details. Successful hardcover version published in April 2004.

CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr.'s memoir about the extraordinary turnaround of IBM and his transformation of the company into the industry leader of the computer age - the great American business story of our time.

This thought-provoking book considers organizational sales performance at a high, strategic level, offering specific guidance in managing the entire organization's sales function. The authors introduce and apply a practical checklist-based scoring system.

Talks about the relationship between people, science, and technology. Here, the author, who is a world famous French sociologist, sets out his own ideas about Actor Network Theory and its relevance to management and organization theory. He contends that the word 'social', has become laden with assumptions to the point where it has become misnomer.

The benefits of mindfulness include better performance, heightened creativity, deeper self-awareness, and increased charisma-not to mention greater peace of mind.This book gives you practical steps for building a sense of presence into your daily work routine. It also explains the science behind mindfulness and why it works and gives clear-eyed warnings about the pitfalls of the fad.This volume includes the work of:Daniel GolemanEllen LangerSusan DavidChristina CongletonThis collection of articles includes "e;Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity,"e; an interview with Ellen Langer by Alison Beard; "e;Mindfulness Can Literally Change Your Brain,"e; by Christina Congleton, Britta K. Holzel, and Sara W. Lazar; "e;How to Practice Mindfulness Throughout Your Work Day,"e; by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter; "e;Resilience for the Rest of Us,"e; by Daniel Goleman; "e;Emotional Agility: How Effective Leaders Manage Their Thoughts and Feelings,"e; by Susan David and Christina Congleton; "e;Don't Let Power Corrupt You,"e; by Dacher Keltner; "e;Mindfulness for People Who Are Too Busy to Meditate,"e; by Maria Gonzalez; "e;Is Something Lost When We Use Mindfulness as a Productivity Tool?"e; by Charlotte Lieberman; and "e;There Are Risks to Mindfulness at Work,"e; by David Brendel.How to be human at work. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.

A leader's singular job is to get results. But even with all the leadership training programs and "e;expert"e; advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. One reason, says Daniel Goleman, is that such experts offer advice based on inference, experience, and instinct, not on quantitative data. Now, drawing on research of more than 3,000 executives, Goleman explores which precise leadership behaviors yield positive results. He outlines six distinct leadership styles, each one springing from different components of emotional intelligence. Each style has a distinct effect on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and, in turn, on its financial performance. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction. And coaching leaders develop people for the future. The research indicates that leaders who get the best results don't rely on just one leadership style; they use most of the styles in any given week. Goleman details the types of business situations each style is best suited for, and he explains how leaders who lack one or more of these styles can expand their repertories. He maintains that with practice leaders can switch among leadership styles to produce powerful results, thus turning the art of leadership into a science.The Harvard Business Review Classics series offers you the opportunity to make seminal Harvard Business Review articles a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world-and will have a direct impact on you today and for years to come.

Managing Your Scarcest ResourcesBusiness leaders know that the key to competitive success is smart management of scarce resources. That's why companies allocate their financial capital so carefully. But capital today is cheap and abundant, no longer a source of advantage. The truly scarce resources now are the time, the talent, and the energy of the people in your organization--resources that are too often squandered. There's plenty of advice about how to manage them, but most of it focuses on individual actions. What's really needed are organizational solutions that can unleash a company's full productive power and enable it to outpace competitors.Building off of the popular Harvard Business Review article "e;Your Scarcest Resource,"e; Michael Mankins and Eric Garton, Bain & Company experts in organizational design and effectiveness, present new research into how you can liberate people's time, talent, and energy and unleash your organization's productive power. They identify the specific causes of organizational drag--the collection of institutional factors that slow things down, decrease output, and drain people's energy--and then offer a pragmatic framework for how managers can overcome it. With practical advice for using the framework and in-depth examples of how the best companies manage their people's time, talent, and energy with as much discipline as they do their financial capital, this book shows managers how to create a virtuous circle of high performance.

Game-changing disruptions will likely unfold on your watch. Be ready.In Dual Transformation, Scott Anthony, Clark Gilbert, and Mark Johnson propose a practical and sustainable approach to one of the greatest challenges facing leaders today: transforming your business in the face of imminent disruption. Dual Transformation shows you how your company can come out of a market shift stronger and more profitable, because the threat of disruption is also the greatest opportunity a leadership team will ever face. Disruptive change opens a window of opportunity to create massive new markets. It is the moment when a market also-ran can become a market leader. It is the moment when business legacies are created.That moment starts with the core dual transformation framework:Transformation A: Repositioning today's business to maximize its resilience, such as how Adobe boldly shifted from selling packaged software to providing software as a service.Transformation B: Creating a new growth engine, such as how Amazon became the world's largest provider of cloud computing services.Capabilities link: Fighting unfairly by taking advantage of difficult-to-replicate assets without succumbing to the "e;sucking sound of the core."e;Anthony, Gilbert, and Johnson also address the characteristics leaders must embrace: courage, clarity, curiosity, and conviction. Without them, dual transformation efforts can founder.Building on lessons from diverse companies, such as Adobe, Manila Water, and Netflix, and a case study from Gilbert's firsthand experience transforming his own media and publishing company, Dual Transformation will guide executives through the journey of creating the next version of themselves, allowing them to own the future rather than be disrupted by it.

Why do so many world-changing insights come from people with little or no related experience? Charles Darwin was a geologist when he proposed the theory of evolution. And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs.Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory and offers examples of how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.Clayton M. Christensen, bestselling author of The Innovator's Dilemma, has described The Medici Effect as "e;one of the most insightful books about managing innovation I have ever read. Its assertion that breakthrough principles of creativity occur at novel intersections is an enduring principle of creativity that should guide innovators in every field."e;Now with a new preface and a discussion guide, and a foreword by Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile, The Medici Effect is a timeless classic that will help you reach your innovative peak.

One key responsibility of product designers and UX practitioners is to conduct formal and informal research to clarify design decisions and business needs. But theres often mystery around product research, with the feeling that you need to be a research Zen master to gather anything useful. Fact is, anyone can conduct product research. With this quick reference guide, youll learn a common language and set of tools to help you carry out research in an informed and productive manner.This book contains four sections, including a brief introduction to UX research, planning and preparation, facilitating research, and analysis and reporting. Each chapter includes a short exercise so you can quickly apply what youve learned.Learn what it takes to ask good research questionsKnow when to use quantitative and qualitative research methodsExplore the logistics and details of coordinating a research sessionUse softer skills to make research seem natural to participantsLearn tools and approaches to uncover meaning in your raw dataCommunicate your findings with a framework and structure

Projects are the engines that drive innovation from idea to commercialization. In fact, the number of projects in most organizations today is expanding while operations is shrinking. Yet, since many companies still focus on operational excellence and efficiency, most projects faillargely because conventional project management concepts cannot adapt to a dynamic business environment. Moreover, top managers neglect their company's project activity, and line managers treat all their projects alikeas part of operations. Based on an unprecedented study of more than 600 projects in a variety of businesses and organizations around the globe, Reinventing Project Management provides a new and highly adaptive model for planning and managing projects to achieve superior business results.

What makes a hit a hit? In Hit Makers, Atlantic Senior Editor Derek Thompson puts pop culture under the lens of science to answer the question that every business, every producer, every person looking to promote themselves and their work has asked. Drawing on ancient history and modern headlines - from vampire lore and Brahms's Lullaby to Instagram - Thompson explores the economics and psychology of why certain things become extraordinarily popular. With incisive analysis and captivating storytelling, he reveals that, though blockbuster films, Internet memes and number-one songs seem to have come out of nowhere, hits actually have a story and operate by certain rules. People gravitate towards familiar surprises: products that are bold and innovative, yet instantly comprehensible. Whether he is uncovering the secrets of JFK and Barack Obama's speechwriters or analysing the unexpected reasons for the success of Fifty Shades of Grey, Thompson goes beyond the cultural phenomena that make the news by revealing the desires that make us all human. While technology might change, he shows, our innate preferences do not, and throughout history hits have held up a mirror to ourselves. From the dawn of Impressionist art to the future of Snapchat, from small-scale Etsy entrepreneurs to the origin of Star Wars, Derek Thompson tells the fascinating story of how culture happens - and where genius lives.

How to Innovate and ExecuteLeaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally different management challenges. The real problem for leaders is doing both, simultaneously. How do you meet the performance requirements of the existing businessone that is still thrivingwhile dramatically reinventing it? How do you envision a change in your current business model before a crisis forces you to abandon it?Innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan expands the leaders innovation tool kit with a simple and proven method for allocating the organizations energy, time, and resourcesin balanced measureacross what he calls the three boxes: Box 1: The presentManage the core business at peak profitability Box 2: The pastAbandon ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit innovation Box 3: The futureConvert breakthrough ideas into new products and businessesThe three-box framework makes leading innovation easier because it gives leaders a simple vocabulary and set of tools for managing and measuring these different sets of behaviors and activities across all levels of the organization. Supported with rich company examplesGE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hasbro, IBM, United Rentals, and Tata Consultancy Servicesand testimonies of leaders who have successfully used this framework, this book solves once and for all the practical dilemma of how to align an organization on the critical but competing demands of innovation.

Discover how to banish stress and negativity, rediscover your best self and become an inspirational leader starting now. Inspirational leaders: Target strengths, not weaknesses Have a dream Manage energy, not time Put happiness before successBased on cutting edge research, and with truly actionable advice, The Positive Leader shows you how.Former Chairman of Microsoft Europe, Jan Mhlfeit, turns the lessons hes learnt from his years at the coalface of leadership into a how to guide for busy managers. Academic studies have shown that a positive mind-set results in 31% higher levels of productivity.*The Positive Leader gives you a four-point approach to becoming a happier and more inspirational leader. Discover and work to your strengths Identify your mission and vision Become a Chief Energy Officer Lead yourself to happiness * Positive Intelligence, Shawn Anchor, Harvard Business Review, Jan/Feb 2012

DISCOVER THE ART OF COMMUNICATIVE LEADERSHIP: HOW TO REALLY LISTEN SO YOU CAN WIN AND HOLD THE TRUST OF YOUR STAKEHOLDERS. Leaders often say I communicate when, in fact, they mean I tell. Yet being able to really listen is the key to growth and results. The Listening Leader provides a clear framework for taking action to implement a communicative leadership style By actively listening to your organisation and external stakeholders you will be able to better navigate todays VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) economy and digitally transparent world; make a genuine difference to the performance of your organization; better respond to the expectations and needs of their stakeholders and dramatically increase your competitiveness in the market. BECOME A GREAT LEADER, IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE AND SUCCEED IN BUSINESS BY COMMUNICATING AND LISTENING MORE EFFECTIVELY. If everything seems going too fast, its all too hard, then grab this book, go off to a quiet corner, read some and youll feel calmer: it reconnects the decent ones among us to things we always knew, but here is the hugely powerful evidence weve been right, and the clear ways we can do it even better. Lets hope the bad guys dont get anywhere near a copy. Anne Scoular, Former diplomat and international banker; psychologist and writer; Co-Founder of Meyler CampbellIt might be an inconvenient truth for some: successful leaders have to be more than great managers. Communicative leadership, as shown in this excellent book, leads you there. Joachim Faber, Chairman Deutsche Brse AG (German Stock Exchange).

FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT STRESS. If you re like most people, you probably think that stress is an inevitable part of life. The truth is: it s not. In a groundbreaking 30-year study, Dr. Derek Roger has discovered that everything we think we know about stress and how we should manage it is just plain wrong. STRESS IS A CHOICE. It is not a natural response to the pressures of work. It s a choice that you make, consciously or not, to worry and fret and agonize over the work you need to do instead of just doing it. WORK DOESN T HAVE TO BE STRESSFUL FOR YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL. This book offers a radically different approach to stress. It s about being resilient. Flexible. Mentally awake and in the moment. It s about changing your mindset to keep things in perspective instead of adding fuel to the fire with negative thoughts. The techniques you ll find in this book are powerful, practical, and proven to work without stress.

Distribute Actionable, Timely BI with Microsoft SQL Server 2016 and Power BI Drive better, faster, more informed decision making across your organization using the expert tips and best practices featured in this hands-on guide. Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2016, Fourth Edition, shows, step-by-step, how to distribute high-performance, custom analytics to users enterprise-wide. Discover how to build BI Semantic Models, create data marts and OLAP cubes, write MDX and DAX scripts, and share insights using Microsoft client tools. The book includes coverage of self-service business intelligence with Power BI. Understand the goals and components of successful BI Build data marts, OLAP cubes, and Tabular models Load and cleanse data with SQL Server Integration Services Manipulate and analyze data using MDX and DAX scripts and queries Work with SQL Server Analysis Services and the BI Semantic Model Author interactive reports using SQL Server Data Tools Create KPIs and digital dashboards Implement time-based analytics Embed data model content in custom applications using ADOMD.NET Use Power BI to gather, model, and visualize data in a self-service environment

Branding. Dubbed by many the marketing buzzword of the late 90s, everyone knows that building your product or service into a bona fide brand is the only way to cut through the clutter in today's insanely crowded marketplace.The only question is, how do you do it?Learn the laws of branding in the branding bible: The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. Brilliant, bold, and mercifully brief, this is the definitive work on branding, distilling the complex principles and theories espoused in other long-winded, high-priced professional marketing tomes into 22 quick and easy-to-listen-to vignettes. Pairing the brand-blazing strategies from the world's best -- like Coca-Cola, Xerox, and Starbucks -- with the world-renowned marketing savvy of bestselling author, Al Ries, and his daughter Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding builds on the huge international success of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and provides the expert insight you seek on business's hottest topic in less time than an airplane ride.Find out:Why you will fail to create a brand through advertising, sales promotion, public relations or fancy packagingHow to define your category. . . even if you're not first to marketHow overbranding equals underwhelmingWhy good old-fashioned publicity may be the missing link in the brand-building processWhy giving your brand the right name is perhaps more important than the brand itselfAnd perhaps most important of all:How to own a word in the mind of the consumer.Smart and accessible, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding provides the ammo you need to dominate your category and turn your product or service into a world-class brand.

Research shows that successful businesses are those where employees are really engaged - how do they achieve this? Complex organisation initiatives or something more personal? In today's world of work, with all its jargon, processes, KPIs and technology, we have forgotten a simple truth: the power of authentic, two-way, human conversations to build relationships, trust, and engagement. This book comes from 30 years of learning from world-class organisations, tried and tested leadership coaching techniques and emergent thinking on neuroscience and employee behaviour. The result is a simple guide to why, when and how to hold five critical conversations with people you manage, which - with a little courage and authenticity - have been proven to dramatically improve trust, relationships, motivation and performance at work. Try them!

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are urged to avoid the two biggest branding mistakes they can makefirst, investing in building their brand in ways that copycat big-name companies, and second, struggling to build a brand sensitive to everyone and anyone, rather than focusing on those who are spending with them.Led by Dan S. Kennedy, with the support of Forrest Walden and Jim Cavale, the co-founders of Iron Tribe Fitness, and other marketing/branding vets including Bill Gough, the number-one marketing adviser to Allstate agents; Steve Adams, CEO of a chain of 21 retail stores and an e-commerce business, and Nick Nanton, of the Dicks-Nanton Celebrity Branding Agency, entrepreneurs learn how to develop and gain profit from their personal or business brandwithout corporate-sized investment. Mastering Kennedys branding truths and utilizing proven direct-response advertising and marketing methods, entrepreneurs create their own brand tribecustomers who believe in, buy, and promote their brand. Truths and tactics are illustrated with case studies, examples and insights from other well-known brands.

Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like-there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

From Design Thinking to Design DoingInnovators today are told to run loose and think lean in order to fail fast and succeed sooner. But in a world obsessed with the new, where cool added features often trump actual customer needs, its the consumer who suffers. In our quest to be more agile, we end up creating products that underwhelm.So how does a company like Nest, creator of the mundane thermostat, earn accolades like beautiful and revolutionary and a $3.2 billion Google buyout? What did Nest do differently to create a household product that people speak of with love?Nest, and companies like it, understand that emotional connection is critical to product development. And they use a clear, repeatable design process that focuses squarely on consumer engagement rather than piling on features for features sake.In this refreshingly jargon-free and practical book, product design expert Jon Kolko maps out this process, demonstrating how it will help you and your team conceive and build successful, emotionally resonant products again and again.The key, says Kolko, is empathy. You need to deeply understand customer needs and feelings, and this understanding must be reflected in the product. In successive chapters of the book, we see how leading companies use a design process of storytelling and iteration that evokes positive emotions, changes behavior, and creates deep engagement. Here are the four key steps:1. Determine a product-market fit by seeking signals from communities of users.2. Identify behavioral insights by conducting ethnographic research.3. Sketch a product strategy by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights.4. Polish the product details using visual representations to simplify complex ideas.Kolko walks the reader through each step, sharing eye-opening insights from his fifteen-year career in product design along the way.Whether youre a designer, a product developer, or a marketer thinking about your companys next offering, this book will forever change the way you think aboutand createsuccessful products.

As seen on Oprahs Super Soul SundayThe bestselling book, now with a new preface by the authorsAt once a bold defense and reimagining of capitalism and a blueprint for a new system for doing business, Conscious Capitalism is for anyone hoping to build a more cooperative, humane, and positive future.Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue that both business and capitalism are inherently good, and they use some of todays best-known and most successful companies to illustrate their point. From Southwest Airlines, UPS, and Tata to Costco, Panera, Google, the Container Store, and Amazon, todays organizations are creating value for all stakeholdersincluding customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment.Read this book and youll better understand how four specific tenetshigher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, and conscious culture and managementcan help build strong businesses, move capitalism closer to its highest potential, and foster a more positive environment for all of us.

'Infuriating... Wilkin's main claim is that the super-rich have discovered 'secret' ways of both making and preserving their fortunes... like [Capital author Thomas] Piketty, Wilkin has a love-hate relationship with capitalism. He takes the view that most billionaires are rich because, one way or another, they have found ways to rig the market.' The TimesWhat does it take to make a fortune? Hard work? Great ideas? Intelligence? Business acumen? Or something else entirely? Spanning centuries and continents, from the Ancient World to the 21st century, Wealth Secrets of the 1% uncovers the economic principles that enable a fortunate few to get really rich. Witty, provocative and immaculately researched, it is essential and revelatory reading at a time when 1% of the world's population owns half of its wealth.'Clever [and] entertaining, with a distinctly satirical edge' Daily Mail'Illuminating [and] eye-opening... sure to make libertarian heads explode' Kirkus Reviews'What makes this book different is that Sam Wilkin is an inside man' Daily Telegraph'No one gets really rich reading how-to-get-rich handbooks...Wilkin offers up the real scoop in Wealth Secrets of the One Percent, a delicious - and insight-packed - send-up of the genre.' Toomuch.com

A large number of managers - especially in these difficult times - feel completely overwhelmed. Their inboxes are overflowing, they constantly struggle to finish their to-do lists and they stay at work longer than they would like to, leaving little time for the things that really matter.Luckily there is a way for managers to enjoy work and build a successful and fulfilling career without stress or long hours.In his bestselling book The 80/20 Principle, Richard Koch showed readers how to put the 80/20 Principle - the idea that 80 per cent of results come from just 20 per cent of effort - into practice in their personal lives. Now he demonstrates the few things you need to do in the workplace to multiply the results you achieve.By applying the strategies outlined in The 80/20 Manager, you will:- Put in fewer hours than your colleagues yet never be short of time- Learn to focus only on the issues that really matter, and ignore those that don't- Achieve exceptional results by working less hard- Feel successful every day

MEET YOUR GOALS-ON TIME AND ON BUDGET.How do you rein in the scope of your project when you've got a group of demanding stakeholders breathing down your neck? And map out a schedule everyone can stick to? And motivate team members who have competing demands on their time and attention?Whether you're managing your first project or just tired of improvising, this guide will give you the tools and confidence you need to define smart goals, meet them, and capture lessons learned so future projects go even more smoothly.The HBR Guide to Project Management will help you:Build a strong, focused teamBreak major objectives into manageable tasksCreate a schedule that keeps all the moving parts under controlMonitor progress toward your goalsManage stakeholders' expectationsWrap up your project and gauge its success

Whos pulling for you? Whos got your back? Whos putting your hat in the ring? Odds are this person is not a mentor but a sponsor. Mentors can build your self-esteem and provide a sounding boardbut theyre not your ticket to the top.If youre interested in fast-tracking your career, what you need is a sponsora senior-level champion who believes in your potential and is willing to advocate for you as you pursue that next raise or promotion.In this powerful yet practical book, economist and thought leader Sylvia Ann Hewlettauthor of ten critically acclaimed books, including the groundbreaking Off-Ramps and On-Rampsshows why sponsors are your proven link to success. Mixing solid data with vivid real-life narratives, Hewlett reveals the two-way street that makes sponsorship such a strong and mutually beneficial alliance. The seven-step map at the heart of this book allows you to chart your course toward your greatest goals.Whether youre looking to lead a company or drive a community campaign, Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor will help you forge the relationships that truly have the power to deliver you to your destination.

Most organizational change initiatives fail spectacularly (at worst) or deliver lukewarm results (at best). In his international bestseller Leading Change, John Kotter revealed why change is so hard, and provided an actionable, eight-step process for implementing successful transformations. The book became the change bible for managers worldwide.Now, in A Sense of Urgency, Kotter shines the spotlight on the crucial first step in his framework: creating a sense of urgency by getting people to actually see and feel the need for change.Why focus on urgency? Without it, any change effort is doomed. Kotter reveals the insidious nature of complacency in all its forms and guises.In this exciting new book, Kotter explains: How to go beyond "e;the business case"e; for change to overcome the fear and anger that can suppress urgency Ways to ensure that your actions and behaviors -- not just your words -- communicate the need for change How to keep fanning the flames of urgency even after your transformation effort has scored some early successesWritten in Kotter's signature no-nonsense style, this concise and authoritative guide helps you set the stage for leading a successful transformation in your company.

If you want to be as successful as Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, or Michael Dell, read their autobiographical advice books, right? Wrong, says Roger Martin in The Opposable Mind. Though following best practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger: By emulating what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is different.Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming entirely new and superior ones. Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as AG Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of the Institute for One World Health, and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Martin shows how integrative thinkers are relentlessly diagnosing and synthesizing by asking probing questions including: What are the causal relationships at work here? and What are the implied trade-offs?Martin also presents a model for strengthening your integrative thinking skills by drawing on different kinds of knowledge including conceptual and experiential knowledge.Integrative thinking can be learned, and The Opposable Mind helps you master this vital skill.