800-CEO-READ New Releases

Accelerate

by Dan Coughlin

(Kaplan Publishing, 304 Pages)

In Accelerate, Coughlin shares the secrets he's learned from a wide array of Fortune 500 corporate executives and top private companies in over 20 different industries, including AT&T, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly & Sons, Marriott, McDonald's, the St. Louis Cardinals, and Toyota, to help accelerate your career, your team and your organization to impact the ultimate shareholder - the consumer.

Accelerate is not filled with business theories and complicated concepts-it is filled with practical suggestions from real-world business situations. Packed with case studies and Acceleration Tips, Accelerate is a must-read for those managers who want to take their organization to the next level or simply want to breathe new life into their own career.

Chasing Cool

by Gene Pressman, Noah Kerner

(Pocket Books, 235 Pages)

Cool isn't just a state of mind, a celebrity fad, or an American obsession -- it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? How do we do what Nike did? How do we get what Target got? How do we infuse this product with that very desirable, nearly unattainable it factor?

In this wide-ranging exploration the authors Noah Kerner, a celebrated marketing maverick, and Gene Pressman, legendary creative visionary and former co-CEO of Barneys New York, have uncovered surprising and universal patterns and trends. They systematically parse the successes and failures of the last few decades -- in music and fashion, magazines and food, spirits and hip-hop culture. Their discoveries are pulled together in this definitive book on the commerce of cool.

Nike and Target endure as relevant brands not because of a shortsighted and gimmicky campaign. A dash of bling and a viral website don't amass long-term value. Brands are effectively developed when companies take substantial risk -- and face the possibility of real failure -- in order to open up the opportunity for real success.

Chasing Cool includes interviews with more than seventy of today's most respected innovators from Tom Ford and Russell Simmons to Ian Schrager and Christina Aguilera. And through this accomplished assemblage, Pressman and Kerner dig beneath the surface and reveal how emphasizing long-lasting relevance trumps a fleeting preoccupation with what's hot and what's not. In a multidimensional, entertaining, and eminently readable book that redefines how to appeal to today's savvy consumer, Kerner and Pressman explore the lessons to be learned by America's ongoing search for the ever-changing concept of cool. Readers will learn how to apply these lessons to their own businesses and creative projects in order to stand out in today's cluttered marketplace.

Truth

by Lynn B. Upshaw

(Amacom Books, 272 Pages)

Consumers today are better informed, better armed to resist marketers, and more skeptical than ever. With thousands of messages bombarding them every day, buyers just want brands they can believe in from companies they can trust. In Truth, marketing expert Lynn Upshaw offers a systematic approach for building customer loyalty and increasing market share. Using real-world examples and engaging stories, he shows companies how they can capitalize on a new kind of competitive advantage and learn to:

• promote more persuasively
• achieve greater returns through integrity in marketing
• replace their pricing strategy with a more convincing value promise
• build stronger customer partnerships
• seize the lead share of credibility in a hypercompetive marketplace.

A revolutionary book that redefines what it means to market, Truth will show companies how to strengthen and build their businesses in a world filled with would-be buyers who are more inclined to doubt than to buy.

Connected

by Daniel Altman

(Farrar Straus & Giroux, 288 Pages)

What if you could look behind the headlines of the global economy to see how it really worked? Instead of listening to pundits, politicians, and protestors, you could see firsthand how everyone from migrant workers to central bank governors lived their lives. Then you could decide for yourself where the big trends were heading.

Now you can. Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy isn’t another polemic for or against globalization. Daniel Altman takes you on a whirlwind journey through more than a dozen cities, gathering points of view from moguls, ministers, and the men and women on the street. At each stop, you’ll hear how the world’s workers played their parts in the events of a single day. Starting with their stories, related in their own words, you’ll take on pressing questions in new ways: Can poor countries become rich too quickly? Can corruption ever be a good thing? Do companies need crises in order to stay competitive? What determines the global economic pecking order? Most important, you’ll learn how the billions of decisions made by individuals can and do change the future.

Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy is part travel guide, part owner’s manual—an absorbing, accessible, and essential road map for every citizen of the global economy in the twenty-first century.

Everything Is Miscellaneous

by David Weinberger

(Henry Holt & Co, 288 Pages)

Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one placethe physical world demanded itbut now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous. In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your childrens teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands as the model for the future in virtually every industry. Finally, he shows how by going miscellaneous, anyone can reap rewards from the deluge of information in modern work and life. From A to Z, Everything Is Miscellaneous will completely reshape the way you thinkand what you knowabout the world.

The Upside

by Adrian Slywotzky

(Random House Inc, 288 Pages)

Today, when your fortunes can literally change overnight, the new strategic imperative is making your moment of maximum risk your moment of maximum opportunity. In The Upside, Adrian Slywotzky provides bold and original ideas for growth breakthroughs as well as the practical tools to use Monday morning, such as

• How to change the odds for your next major initiative and create potential industry breakthroughs, as Toyota did with its expanding universe of Prius vehicles.
• Shape and exploit risk, don’t be shaped by it. Become a knowledge-intensive business and continuallyincrease the knowledge gap between yourself and rivals, as Coach and Tsutaya of Japan have convincingly done.
• A category killer can’t kill what’s not in its category. When basketball legend Bill Russell faced a taller, stronger Wilt Chamberlain, he led the Celtics to victory by inventing a different game. The same thinking lets Target prosper in a Wal-Mart world—and can help you outcompete the “unbeatable” rival in your own industry.
• When you come to a fork in the road—take it! Only a fraction of companies survive when industries experience technological or strategic transitions. To be a survivor, learn the secret that enabled Microsoft to weather the advent of the Internet—the art of the double bet.
• Stuck in a business box? Find the bigger box—and then the biggest.When growth stagnates, capture more of your customer’s dollars through demand innovation and big-box thinking, as companies from Continental AG and Ikea to Procter & Gamble have done.
• Your competitors can also be your greatest enablers of profit. Stop competing yourself to death! The key is knowing when to compete and when to collaborate, as Apple has shown with its revolutionary approach to the music business.

In the 1980s conventional wisdom was that you could have high quality or low cost, but not both—until Japanese makers of cars and electronics showed otherwise. Now, high quality and low cost are required just to enter the marketplace. Today, we face a similar paradox when it comes to risk and reward. Rather than shrink from the high risk so integral to the tumultuous global economy, Adrian Slywotzky shows how it can be your greatest source of growth and future reward.

New Ideas from Dead Ceos

by Todd G. Buchholz

(Harpercollins, 304 Pages)

New Ideas from Dead CEOs uncovers the secrets of success of great CEOs by giving readers an intimate look at their professional and personal lives. Why did Ray Kroc's plan for McDonald's thrive when many burger joints failed? And how, decades later, did Krispy Kreme fail to heed Kroc's hard-won lessons? How did Walt Disney's most dismal day as a young cartoonist radically change his career? When Estée Lauder was a child in Queens, New York, the average American spent $8 a year on toiletries. Why did she spot an opportunity in selling high-priced cosmetics, and why did she pound on Saks's doors? How did Thomas Watson Jr. decide to roll the dice and put all of IBM's chips on computing, when his father thought it could be a losing idea? We learn about these CEOs' greatest challenges and failures, and how they successfully rode the waves of demographic and technological change.

New Ideas from Dead CEOs not only gives us fascinating insights into these CEOs' lives, but also shows how we can apply their ideas to the present-day triumphs and struggles of Sony, Dell, Costco, Carnival Cruises, Time Warner, and numerous other companies trying to figure out how to stay on top or climb back up.

The featured CEOs in this book were not candidates for sainthood. Many of them knew "god" only as a prefix to "dammit." But they were devoted to their businesses, not just to their egos and their personal bank accounts and yachts. Extraordinarily fresh and deeply thoughtful, Todd G. Buchholz's New Ideas from Dead CEOs is a truly enjoyable and fun—yet serious and realistic—look at what we still have to learn and absorb from these decomposing CEOs.

The Flip Side

by Flip Flippen

(Springboard Press, 272 Pages)

Change Starts Here!

"If I asked you what one thing determines your level of ultimate success, what would your answer be? Your talent? Skills? A college degree?"

"Is it possible that something else will define how far you go in life?
Could it be that the things that hold you back-or constrain you-are a far more reliable indicator of your success than any skills or talent you may possess? Would you choose to break free of your personal constraints if I could show you what and where they are? If you answered yes to these questions, then The Flip Side is for you."

What if you learned a way to "flip" your negative thoughts and behaviors into positive action? Educator, psychotherapist and business coach Flip Flippen believes that if we can identify our own personal constraints, we can overcome them once and for all.

In THE FLIP SIDE, you'll discover the top ten "killer constraints" that most of us are confronted with every day-in ourselves, in our bosses, in our families. Learn how to recognize and deal with constraint types such
as:

*BULLDOZERS-they are too dominant, flattening any objections and
ignoring any opinion that doesn't match theirs.

*MARSHMALLOWS-they are overly nurturing, shying away from
conflict at the expense of their own happiness.

*QUICK DRAWS-they are impulsive, and their low self-control
causes them to act before they think.

But here's the good news: each of these constraints can be conquered with a few simple strategies. For anyone who has ever wondered, "How can I accomplish more, both personally and professionally?" and "How can I get better, go further, and be happier?," THE FLIP SIDE has the answer.

Author Bio:
Flip Flippen is the head of The Flippen Group, one of the fastest-growing corporate training companies in the U.S. and the largest educator-training company in North America. He has worked with businesses and individuals all over the world, including baseball legend Nolan Ryan, Wall Street private equity mogul Mark Bourgeois, the FitzBradshaw NASCAR racing team, and some of the largest school districts in the country. In 30 years of coaching couples, families, corporations and individuals Flip has learned invaluable skills that can help people in all aspects of their lives. The Flippen Group's philosophy is simple: "We grow people."

Achieve Leadership Genius

by Susan Fowler, Drea Zigarmi, Richard I. Lyles

(Pearson P T R, 336 Pages)

LEADERSHIP IS NOT A "ONE SIZE FITS ALL" PURSUIT... DIFFERENT SCENARIOS REQUIRE DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES...

• How to lead individuals, teams, organizations, alliances, and above all, yourself
• The five crucial leadership practices that work no matter who you’re leading
• How to handle the unique issues that arise in every leadership context and situation

What does it really take to become a great leader? Commitment, hard work...and a framework for leading that gives you clarity when there's chaos all around you.

That framework exists. It's called Contextual Leadership. This book will help you master it, and put it to work. You'll discover high-level and "micro"-level techniques you need to achieve breakthrough effectiveness. You'll practice them, internalize them, make them yours.

This book draws on more than forty years of research, and the extraordinary personal experience of three renowned leadership consultants.

Its techniques are tested. Proven. They're not a quick fix. But, as thousands of leaders can tell you, they work.

Hundreds and hundreds of leadership books have been published over the years. Almost all of them treat leadership as if "one size fits all": as if leadership skills were "one trick pony" skills that can be applied across any circumstance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Leadership genius depends on your ability to recognize the setting you are leading in. Are you leading a team? Leading one person? Leading yourself? Leading an entire organization? Leading an alliance? Who, what, when, and where you lead determines how you should lead.

This book presents a detailed, practical, and skill-based framework any leader can use to become dramatically more effective.

Another aspect of leadership genius is realizing that within each setting, or context, a leader must also be able to adapt to a wide variety of scenarios. The authors show you how to bring your best to bear in any circumstance, and in every facet of the leadership process: envisioning, initiation, and implementation.

From start to finish, this book addresses both the high level and 'micro' skills that define leadership genius—guiding readers systematically through assessing their current behaviors and moving toward excellence.

• DEVELOP THE ATTRIBUTES OF LEADERSHIP GENIUS
  Skillfully respond to what the context and circumstances demand of you as a leader
• MOVE BEYOND THE LEADERSHIP "QUICK FIX"
  Discover a solid, proven framework for becoming a contextual leader
• MASTER THE FIVE CONTEXTS OF LEADERSHIP
  Lead yourself... lead one-to-one... lead teams, organizations, and alliances
• MASTER THE SKILLS OF ALL FIVE LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
  Prepare, envision, initiate, assess, and respond
• LEVERAGE YOUR LEADERSHIP SUCCESS; MOVE FROM INDIVIDUAL TO ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE
  A new view of leadership and its imperatives

Unstoppable

by Chris Zook

(Perseus Distribution Services, 208 Pages)

Over the next decade, two out of every three companies will face the challenge of their corporate lives: redefining their core business. Buffeted by global competition and facing an uncertain future, more and more executives will realize that they must make fundamental changes in their core even as they continue delivering the goods and services that keep them in business today.

Unstoppable shows these managers how to look deep within their organizations to find undervalued, unrecognized, or underutilized assets that can serve as new platforms for sustainable growth. Drawing on more than thirty interviews with CEOs from companies such as De Beers, American Express, and Samsung, it shows readers how to recognize when the core needs reinvention and how to deploy the "hidden assets" that can be the basis for tomorrow's growth.

Building on the author's previous books, Profit from the Core and Beyond the Core, this book shows how any company in crisis can transform itself to become truly unstoppable.

The Sushi Economy

by Sasha Issenberg

(Gotham, 352 Pages)

From the sea to your plate, the first international tour of sushi’s journey in the global marketplace

One generation ago, sushi’s narrow reach ensured that sports fishermen who caught tuna in most of the world sold the meat for pennies as cat food. Today, the fatty cuts of tuna known as toro are among the planet’s most coveted luxury foods, worth hundreds of dollars a pound and capable of losing value more quickly than any other product on earth. So how has one of the world’s most popular foods gone from being practically unknown in the U.S. to being served in towns all across America, and in such a short span of time? Sushi aficionados and newcomers alike will be surprised to learn the true history, intricate business, and international allure behind this fascinating food.

A riveting combination of culinary biography, behind-the-scenes restaurant detail, and a unique exploration of globalization’s dynamics, journalist Sasha Issenberg traces sushi’s journey from Japanese street snack to global delicacy. THE SUSHI ECONOMY takes you through the stalls of Tokyo’s massive Tsukiji market, where the auctioneers sell millions of dollars of fish each day, and to the birthplace of modern sushi--in Canada. He then follows sushi’s evolution in America, exploring how it became LA’s favorite food. You’re taken behind the sushi bar with the chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose distinctive travels helped to define the flavors of global sushi cuisine, and with a unique sushi chef blazing a path in Texas. Issenberg also delves into the complex economics of the fish trade, following the ups and downs of the hunt for bluefin off New England, the tuna cowboys on the southern coast of Australia who invented the art of tuna ranching, and uncovering the mysterious underworld of pirates, smugglers, and the tuna black market.

Few businesses reveal the complex dynamics of globalization as acutely as the tuna’s journey from the sea to the sushi bar. After traversing the pages of THE SUSHI ECONOMY, you’ll never see the food on your plate — or the world around you — quite the same way again.

I Didn't See It Coming

by Nancy C. Widmann, Elaine J. Eisenman, Amy Dorn Kopelan

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 224 Pages)

How to use smart strategy and political savvy to control and direct your success in business

I Didn't See It Coming provides critical counsel and keen observation on how all employees can develop strategic insights, effective tools, and sharp instincts for reading the room and controlling their own career destiny. Fast trackers, top performers, and managers at every level are often too busy to notice when their jobs are on the line. This insightful guidebook shows readers how to spot the danger signs, see the red flags, and wage a successful campaign to win in business. For anyone in a dicey situation-even if they don't know it yet-this is the ultimate guide for surviving when the time bombs begin ticking.

Nancy C. Widmann (New York, NY) was the first woman president at CBS, Inc. She managed CBS Radio for eight years and was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2005. She serves as an executive coach for senior managers and frequently speaks on corporate politics. Dr. Elaine J. Eisenman (Wellesley, MA) is Dean of Executive Education at Babson College. She holds a doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology and has over 25 years of experience as a consultant, business executive, and board director for both public and privately held companies. Amy Dorn Kopelan (New York, NY) moved upward for 20 years through the executive ranks of ABC Television and managed programming at Good Morning America for nine years. She is President of Bedlam Entertainment, Inc., a conference management company, and founder of COACH ME Inc., which provides group coaching for mid-level managers in Fortune 500 companies.

Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)

by Elliot Aronson, Carol Tavris

(Harcourt, 288 Pages)

Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why the parade of public figures unable to own up when they screw up? Why the endless marital quarrels over who is right? Why can we see hypocrisy in others but not in ourselves? Are we all liars? Or do we really believe the stories we tell?

Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.

Backed by years of research and delivered in lively, energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception—how it works, the harm it can cause, and how we can overcome it.

Revolt in the Boardroom

by Alan Murray

(Harpercollins, 288 Pages)

Throughout the 20th century, American corporations were governed by autocratic, almost unaccountable chief executives. Their word was law and the only check on their power was a board of directors composed of their friends and allies.

Then, in a stunning reversal, a momentous series of firings deposed the heads of some of the world's best-known companies: AIG, Morgan Stanley, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard and Pfizer, just to name a few. Formerly unchallenged CEOs found themselves under fire, often from their own handpicked boards. The number of deposed executives is astonishing. In 2004, the leaders of 600 companies were asked to leave. That number more than doubled in 2005 and reached 1,400 companies in 2006.

Flexing new muscles, directors are assuming new and unfamiliar responsibilities. In Revolt in the Boardroom, Alan Murray reveals the inner workings of the new seat of power. Using the access afforded to him by his influential Wall Street Journal column, Murray tells the story of three seminal board revolts—the now-famous Hewlett-Packard drama, the ousting of Boeing's Harry Stonecipher and the end of the reign one of the world's most autocratic executives, Hank Greenberg at AIG.

Murray goes further to chart the history of the corporation, the rise of governance and the effects of the new power gained by outside institutions like hedge funds and interest groups. Through it all, Murray shows how the job of chief executive has rapidly and permanently changed. Leaders like A. G. Lafley and Jeff Immelt govern instead of rule, build alliances and support instead of dictating direction and pay careful attention to a broader range of stakeholders than ever before.

Revolt in the Boardroom is the first look at the new world of corporate power and the last word on the transformational events of the last two years.

The Dip

by Seth Godin

(Portfolio, 96 Pages)

The best business books change the way you look at something - forever. The Tipping Point, The Long Tail, and Purple Cow are simple books about simple topics . . . but they changed the way millions do their jobs.

Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point - really hard, really not fun. At that point, you might be in a Dip (which will get better if you keep pushing) or a Cul-de-sac (which will never get better, no matter how hard you try). The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it.

According to bestselling business author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to give up on Cul-de-sacs while staying motivated in Dips. Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt - until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons.

This is equally true for entrepreneurs, pop singers, weightlifters, and car salesmen. Today's world rewards the people and organizations that are the best in the world at what they do. If you can be #1 in your niche, you'll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and job security. But you'll never be #1 at anything without picking your shots very carefully.

The Dip is a short, fun-to-read book in the tradition of Fish, packed with powerful ideas and a graph that changes everything. It will forever alter the way people think about quitting - and success.

Seth Godin is the author of the bestsellers Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside!, All Marketers Are Liars, and Small Is the New Big. He is also the editor of The Big Moo and one of the most popular business bloggers in the world (www.SethGodin.com). He lives in Westchester, New York.

One Perfect Day

by Rebecca Mead

(Penguin USA, 288 Pages)

The 160-billion dollar behemoth that is the American wedding industry and the psychology behind the expense, stress, and folly associated with the typical American wedding.

Using the American wedding as a rosetta stone, in One Perfect Day writer Rebecca Mead poses a series of questions that cut to the heart of our national identity. Why, she asks, has the American wedding become an outlandishly extravagant, egregiously expensive, and overwhelmingly demanding production? What is the derivation of the nuptial imperative upon brides and grooms to observe tradition while at the same time using the wedding as a vehicle for expressing their personal style? What does an American wedding tell us about how Americans consume, relate, and live today? One Perfect Day masterfully mixes investigative journalism and social commentary to explore the workings of the wedding industry-an industry that claims to be worth $160 billion to the U.S. economy and which has every interest in ensuring that the American wedding business becomes ever more lavish and complex. Taking us inside the workings of the wedding industry-from the swelling ranks of professional wedding planners to department stores with their online wedding registries to the retailers and manufacturers of wedding gowns to the Walt Disney Company and its Fairytale Weddings program-Rebecca Mead skillfully holds the mirror up to the bride's deepest hopes and fears about her wedding day and dissects the myriad goods and services that will be required for her role within it.

Weddings are no longer a rite of passage, no longer a transition from childhood to adulthood, or an initiation into a sexual or domestic intimacy, nor necessarily a religious ritual. The result of this cultural shift is that the event itself has taken on an ever-increasing momentousness shaped as much by commerce and marketing as by religious observance or familial expectation. The American wedding gives expression to the values and preoccupations of our culture. For better or worse, the way we marry is who we are.

Blessed Unrest

by Paul Hawken

(Viking, 352 Pages)

One of the world’s most influential environmentalists reveals a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity

Blessed Unrest tells the story of a worldwide movement that is largely unseen by politicians or the media. Hawken, an environmentalist and author, has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location, but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s needs worldwide.

Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of this movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries-old history. The culmination of Hawken’s many years of leadership in these fields, it will inspire, surprise, and delight anyone who is worried about the direction the modern world is headed. Blessed Unrest is a description of humanity’s collective genius and the unstoppable movement to re-imagine our relationship to the environment and one another. Like Hawken’s previous books, Blessed Unrest will become a classic in its field— a touchstone for anyone concerned about our future.

Weird Ideas That Work

by Bob Sutton

(Free Press, 240 Pages)

Creativity, new ideas, innovation -- in any age they are keys to success, but in today's whirlwind economy they are essential for survival itself. Yet, as Robert Sutton explains, the standard rules of business behavior and management are precisely the opposite of what it takes to build an innovative company. We are told to hire people who will fit in; to train them extensively; and to work to instill a corporate culture in every employee. In fact, in order to foster creativity, we should hire misfits, goad them to fight, and pay them to defy convention and undermine the prevailing culture. Weird Ideas That Work codifies these and other proven counterintuitive ideas to help you turn your workplace from staid and safe to wild and woolly -- and creative. Stanford professor Robert Sutton is an authority on innovation and a popular speaker. In Weird Ideas That Work he draws on extensive research in behavioral psychology to explain how innovation can be fostered in hiring, managing, and motivating people; building teams; making decisions; and interacting with outsiders. Business practices like "hire people who make you uncomfortable," "reward success and failure, but punish inaction," and "decide to do something that will probably fail, and then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain" strike many managers as strange or even downright wrong. Yet Weird Ideas That Work shows how some of the best teams and companies use these and other counterintuitive practices to crank out new ideas, and it demonstrates that every company can reap sales and profits from such creativity. Weird Ideas That Work is filled with examples of each of Sutton's 11 1/2 practices, drawn from hi- and low-tech industries, manufacturing and services, information and products.

Unlock Behavior, Unleash Profits:

by Leslie Wilk Braksick

(McGraw-Hill, 320 Pages)

It's not enough to have brilliant strategies, efficient processes, and agile people. It's what these people do and don't do that builds success or failure. Backed by 50 years of scientific research, Fortune 500 thought leader Leslie Braksick has revised and updated her landmark book, which provides powerful tools to help you, whether you're an executive, entrepreneur, or manager in any field to unlock behavior and unprecedented profits.

About the Author

Leslie Wilk Braksick, Ph.D. is cofounder, president, and CEO of The Continuous Learning Group, Inc. (CLG), a leader in strategy execution and performance improvement consulting. CLG has a large roster of Fortune 500 clients

Off-ramps and On-ramps

by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

(Harvard Business School Press, 320 Pages)

With talent shortages looming over the next decade, what can companies do to attract and retain the large number of professional women who are forced off the career highway?

By documenting the successful efforts of a group of cutting-edge global companies to retain talented women and reintegrate them if they’ve already left, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps answers this critical question. Working closely with companies such as Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, General Electric and others, author Sylvia Ann Hewlett identifies what works and why. Based on firsthand experience with these companies, along with extensive data that provides the most comprehensive and nuanced portrait of women's career paths, this book documents the actions forward-thinking companies must take to reverse the female brain drain and ensure their access to talent over the long term.

IT And the East

by Bob Hayward, Partha Iyengar

(Perseus Distribution Services, 226 Pages)

The center of gravity in the technology world has shifted east. Today, India and China are churning out some of the world’s best-trained computer science and electrical engineering graduates. In both countries, consumer classes and domestic markets for technology have ballooned. Western high-tech firms are increasingly sourcing their products’ assembly from India and China and the innovation that drives those products. Meanwhile, indigenous Indian and Chinese companies are creating intellectual property and innovations that will compete with those same Western companies.

In IT and the East, James M. Popkin and Partha Iyengar examine the vital questions these developments raise: What’s the long-term impact of high-tech outsourcing? How will innovation be managed in the future? Can Western firms compete in Asian markets while protecting key intellectual property? Will the innovation engine inexorably shift east? What would such a shift mean for Western countries currently driving innovation? The authors also discuss the emerging alliances between Indian and Chinese technology companies and outline the implications for Western businesses.

Filled with extensive interviews with high-level executives, government officials, and academics from around the world, IT and the East is the first book to articulate the challenges that new business scenarios and capabilities in India and China pose for Western technology firms.

What Really Matters

by

(Yale University Press, 320 Pages)

The fundamental question in business and in personal life is the same: What really matters? In this book one of America’s most widely admired business leaders distills a lifetime of experience, including failures as well as successes, to reveal his answers. John Pepper, president, CEO, and chairman of Procter & Gamble for a combined 16 years, underscores the importance of continuous change, innovation, and renewal as prerequisites for growth and sound leadership. In What Really Matters he suggests that a preparedness to alter perspective, rethink assumptions, or change course is central not only to understanding customer needs and keeping costs under control but also to developing talent, organizing global businesses, and supporting communities. While he discusses specific business tactics, he notes that they all center on fundamental tenets: listen to and respect the customer, engender personal accountability and passionate ownership, encourage diversity, and create a vibrant, trusting institution that incorporates employees and their families. In his own years as an executive, Pepper has demonstrated that a profitable business can create and sustain a culture that shapes—and is shaped by—ethical behavior. His profoundly important advice and counsel belong in the lexicon and practice of every leader.

Hidden in Plain Sight

by Erich Joachimsthaler

(Harvard Business School Press, 272 Pages)

Companies must innovate to grow, but they often forget to look beyond their own brands. Take Sony, for example. Its success with consumer innovations like the Walkman blinded it to obvious changes in how, when, and where people wanted their music. Apple capitalized on those changes in demand with the iPod, providing a new way of listening to music and of managing one’s entire music library.

This book explains how you can spot these opportunities that are hidden in plain sight. It introduces the demand-first innovation and growth model that will show you how to become an unbiased observer of people’s consumption and usage behaviors. Refining this skill helps companies generate organic growth through new products, services, solutions, and experiences that truly enhance peoples’ lives. Revealing the innovative processes of such organizations as BMW, Proctor and Gamble, GE Healthcare, and Frito-Lay, Hidden in Plain Sight offers you a new approach to identifying and executing your company’s growth strategy.

The Economic Naturalist

by Robert Frank

(Perseus Books Group, 256 Pages)

The fascinating and playful guide to how economics explains the simple but profound ideas that govern our world.

Why do the keypads on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? Why are round-trip fares from Orlando to Kansas City higher than those from Kansas City to Orlando?

For decades, Robert Frank has been asking his economics students to pose and answer questions like these as a way of learning how economic principles operate in the real world--which they do everywhere, all the time.

Once you learn to think like an economist, all kinds of puzzling observations start to make sense. Drive-up ATM keypads have Braille dots because it's cheaper to make the same machine for both drive-up and walk-up locations. Travelers from Kansas City to Orlando pay less because they are usually price-sensitive tourists with many choices of destination, whereas travelers originating from Orlando typically choose Kansas City for specific family or business reasons.

The Economic Naturalist employs basic economic principles to answer scores of intriguing questions from everyday life, and, along the way, introduces key ideas such as the cost benefit principle, the "no cash left on the table" principle, and the law of one price. There is no more delightful and painless way of learning these fundamental principles.

Bit Literacy

by Mark Hurst

(Good Experience Press, 192 Pages)

Bit Literacy is essential reading for anyone who has experienced "digital overload": the daily flood of e-mail, multiple todo lists, a cluttered desktop, documents in various file formats, and the constant distraction of cell phones and other devices. More than a quick fix or another "how-to" guide, the book offers an entirely new way of attaining productivity that users at any level of expertise can put into action right away. This is "bit literacy," a method for working more productively in the digital age, with less stress. Mark Hurst - who has reached hundreds of thousands of readers through his Good Experience e-mail newsletter, Uncle Mark technology guides, thisisbroken.com, and other websites - has revealed the way to survive, and thrive, in the digital age: "Let the bits go."

"Mark Hurst has written the indispensable guide to the digital era. Instead of a mere 'how-to' guide, Hurst shows what's really going on when we struggle with e-mail and to-do lists. For anyone who has ever used a computer, this will not just wildly increase their productivity (as it has for me!) - it'll also let their ideas fly."
- David Bodanis, author, E=mc² and Passionate Minds

"An informative and clear step-by-step guide on how to turn the ever-increasing avalanche of bits into a force that will propel your life and career."
- Tom Hughes, Chief Design Officer, Idealab

"Mark Hurst is the smartest person thinking about ways technology can make our lives easier rather than harder. If you're willing to give up some of your useless bytes for true knowledge and crowded RAM for zen clarity, then get bit-literate today."
- Douglas Rushkoff, author, Get Back in the Box

"A lot of people feel left out of the whole Internet and computer thing, but realize it could be really valuable for them. Bit Literacy provides the basic skills required for anyone to engage the wave of informational change."
- Craig Newmark, founder, craigslist.org

"Most of us learned how to deal with digital technology in piecemeal fashion. We developed habits that served us well for a time. But for the modern digital age, almost all of our habits are bad. In Bit Literacy, Mark Hurst provides brief, no-nonsense, clear, and unbelievably helpful advice on how to replace those bad habits with good ones. Take his advice and instead of being tyrannized by the overload that comes at you daily, you'll be liberated."
- Barry Schwartz, author, The Paradox of Choice

"The word 'empowerment' should be included in the subtitle of this book, as I believe reading it reduces the hypertension involved in our daily journey through the flotsam and jetsam of life. Bit Literacy helps make the complex clear."
- Richard Saul Wurman, author, Understanding USA

As the founder of Creative Good and Good Experience, and host of the renowned Gel conference (Good Experience Live), Hurst and his companies help organizations work more productively and create better customer experiences. Hurst holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from MIT. He lives in New York City with his wife.

Mobilizing Minds

by Lowell Bryan, Claudia Joyce

(McGraw-Hill, 300 Pages)

A new, forward thinking management strategy for creating wealth and overcoming complexity in today's high-growth global economy

Mobilizing Minds takes a bold stand: companies need to put the same energy and focus into designing their organizations as they have devoted to the design of new products, processes, or entry into new markets.

After years of analysis of the world's highest performing firms, two senior executives at McKinsey have created a 21st-century strategy that shatters the 'complexity frontier'. In the most important book to be published from McKinsey in years, Bryan and Joyce show managers and leaders how to overcome the burdens of corporate bureaucracy with a new organizational model that can generate tens of thousands of dollars of profit per employee by improving how firms mobilize talent, improve worker satisfaction, and leverage their intangible assets.

Shattering the Dilbert syndrome by empowering managers to engage their workers, Mobilizing Minds provides nine principles for rethinking the entire corporation allowing senior executives to unleash a new collaborative environment that gives managers the power to create new teams and drive fresh profit to the bottom line.

Voice Of Authority

by Dianna Booher

(McGraw-Hill, 208 Pages)

One of the world's leading communication experts helps readers find their leadership voice

Dianna Booher has helped thousands of people to develop communication skills. Now she distills years of experience and research into 10 key strategies that will help you elevate your communication to the next level. By examining specific styles that work and don't work, you'll learn how to speak like a leader in every situation. Ten rules including “be clear, be consistent, be thorough, and demonstrate confidence”-give you the language to communicate at your best with colleagues, bosses, and clients.