Harvard Business Review Press – serie

This book explores what marketing is and how an enterprise can differentiate itself from others in attracting and retaining customers. The book is organized according to the design of the first-year marketing course in the two-year MBA program at the Harvard Business School. Each chapter of the book is written by HBS faculty and used by MBA students in preparation for classroom participation. The book consists of three parts: the analysis of marketing opportunities, the formulation of marketing strategy, and the execution of that strategy.

"The best sales book of the year" -- strategy+business magazine That gap between your company's sales efforts and strategy? It's real--and a huge vulnerability. Addressing that gap, actionably and with attention to relevant research, is the focus of this book. In Aligning Strategy and Sales, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes equips you to link your go-to-market initiatives with strategic goals. Cespedes offers a road map to articulate strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and that will fuel the behaviors required for profitable growth. Without that alignment, leaders will press for better execution when they need a better strategy, or change strategic direction with great cost and turmoil when they should focus on the basics of sales execution. With thoughtful, clear, and engaging examples, Aligning Strategy and Sales provides a framework for diagnosing and managing the core levers available for effective selling in any organization. It will give you the know-how and tools to move from ideas to action and build a sales effort linked to your firm's unique goals, not a generic selling formula.Cespedes shows how sales efforts affect all elements of value creation in a business, whether you're a start-up seeking to scale or an established firm looking to jump-start new growth. The book provides key insights to optimize your firm's customer management activities and so improve selling and strategy.

You have a new venture in mind. And you've crafted a business plan so detailed it's a work of art. Don't get too attached to it. As John Mullins and Randy Komisar explain in Getting to Plan B, new businesses are fraught with uncertainty. To succeed, you must change the plan in real time as the inevitable challenges arise. In fact, studies show that entrepreneurs who stick slavishly to their Plan A stand a greater chance of failing-and that many successful businesses barely resemble their founders' original idea. The authors provide a rigorous process for stress testing your Plan A and determining how to alter it so your business makes money, solves customers' needs, and endures. You'll discover strategies for: -Identifying the leap-of-faith assumptions hidden in your plan -Testing those assumptions and unearthing why the plan might not work -Reconfiguring the five components of your business model-revenue model, gross margin model, operating model, working capital model, and investment model-to create a sounder Plan B. Filled with success stories and cautionary tales, this book offers real cases illustrating the authors' unique process.Whether your idea is for a start-up or a new business unit within your organization, Getting to Plan B contains the road map you need to reach success.

How to transfer your organization's most important knowledge--before it walks out the door When highly skilled subject matter experts, engineers, and managers leave their organizations, they take with them years of hard-earned, experience-based knowledge--much of it undocumented and irreplaceable. Organizations can thereby lose a good part of their competitive advantage. The tsunami of "boomer" retirements has created the most visible, urgent need to transfer such knowledge to the next generation. But there is also an ongoing torrent of acquisitions, layoffs, and successions--not to mention commonplace promotions and transfers--all of which involve the loss of essential expertise. Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap first addressed this acute loss of knowledge in their groundbreaking book Deep Smarts (2005). Since then, managers have repeatedly asked them for practical, proven techniques that will help transfer those deep smarts--the organization's critical, experience-based knowledge--before it's too late. Now, with coauthor Gavin Barton, the authors share a comprehensive approach to doing just that.Based on original research, numerous interviews with top managers, and a wide range of corporate examples, Critical Knowledge Transfer provides a variety of practical options for identifying your firm's deep smarts and transferring that intelligence from experts to successors. Critical Knowledge Transfer will enable managers to: * Determine the seriousness of their knowledge loss * Identify the deep smarts essential to their business * Utilize proven techniques for transferring knowledge when its loss is imminent * Identify and implement long-term transfer program apprenticeships * Set up individual learning plans for successors * Assess the success of their knowledge transfer initiatives This book is essential reading for anyone managing talent in today's volatile environment.

The information revolution has made for a radically more fluid knowledge environment, and the growth of venture capital has created inexorable pressure towards fast commercialisation of existing technologies Companies that don't use the technologies they develop are likely to lose them. Key features Over the past several years, Hank Chesbrough has done excellent research and writing on the commercialisation of technology and the changing role and context for R&D. This book represents a powerful synthesis of that work in the form of a new paradigm for managing corporate research and bringing new technologies to market Chesbrough impressively articulates his ideas and how they connect to each other, weaving several disparate areas of work R&D, corporate venturing, spinoffs, licensing and intellectual property into a single coherent framework.

Why Not? is a primer for fresh thinking, for problem-solving with a purpose, for bringing the world a few steps closer to the way it should be. Idealistic? Yes. Unrealistic? According to Why Not? authors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, no. Illustrated with examples from every aspect of life, Why Not? offers techniques which will help you take the things we all see, every day, and think about them in a new way. Great ideas are waiting. Why not be the one to discover them?

In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they're "customer-focused," but they don't deliver solutions to customers' thorniest problems. Why? Because they're stymied by the rigid "silos" they're organized around. In Reorganize for Resilience, Ranjay Gulati reveals how resilient companies prosper both in good times and bad, driving growth and increasing profitability by immersing themselves in the lives of their customers. This book shows how resilient organizations cut through internal barriers that impede action, build bridges between warring divisions, and transform former competitors into collaborators. Based on more than a decade of research in a variety of industries, and filled with examples from companies including Cisco Systems, La Farge, Starbucks, Best Buy, and Jones Lang LaSalle, Gulati exploresthe five levers of resilience: * Coordination: Connect, eradicate, or restructure silos to enable swift responses. * Cooperation: Foster a culture that aligns all employees around the shared goals of customer solutions.* Clout: Redistribute power to "bridge builders" and customer champions. * Capability: Develop employees' skills at tackling changing customer needs. * Connection: Blend partners' offerings with yours to provide unique customer solutions.

What distinguishes great leaders? Exceptional leaders capture passion. They lead for real: from the heart, smart and focused on the future, and with a commitment to being their very best. As Annie McKee and Richard Boyatzis have shown in their bestselling books Primal Leadership and Resonant Leadership, they create resonance with others. Through resonance, leaders become attuned to the needs and dreams of people they lead. They create conditions where people can excel. They sustain their effectiveness through renewal. McKee, Boyatzis, and Frances Johnston share vivid, real-life stories illuminating how people can develop emotional intelligence, build resonance, and renew themselves. Reflecting twenty years of longitudinal research and practical wisdom with executives and leaders around the world, this new book is organized around a core of experience-tested exercises. These tools help you articulate your strengths and values, craft a plan for intentional change, and create resonance with others.Practical and inspiring, Becoming a Resonant Leader is your hands-on guide to developing emotional intelligence, renewing and sustaining yourself and your relationships, and taking your leadership to a whole new level. This book is ideal for anyone seeking personal and professional development and for consultants, coaches, teachers, and faculty to use with their clients or students.

We often make small ethical compromises for "good" reasons: We lie to a customer because our boss asked us to. We exaggerate our accomplishments on our resume to get an interview. Temptation blindsides us. And we make snap decisions we regret. Minor ethical lapses can seem harmless, but they instill in us a hard-to-break habit of distorted thinking. Rationalizations drown out our inner voice, and we make up the rules as we go. We lose control of our decisions, fall victim to the temptations and pressures of our situations, taint our characters, and sour business and personal relationships. In Ethics for the Real World, Ronald Howard and Clinton Korver explain how to master the art of ethical decision making by: Identifying potential compromises in your own life Applying distinctions to clarify your ethical thinking Committing in advance to ethical principles Generating creative alternatives to resolve dilemmas Packed with real-life examples, this book gives you practical advice to respond skillfully to life's inevitable ethical challenges. Not only can you make right decisions, you can acquire new habits that will realize the best in yourself and transform your relationships.

"Business Schools Face Test of Faith." "Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?" As these headlines make clear, business education is at a major crossroads. For decades, MBA graduates from top-tier schools set the standard for cutting-edge business knowledge and skills. Now the business world has changed, say the authors of Rethinking the MBA, and MBA programs must change with it. Increasingly, managers and recruiters are questioning conventional business education. Their concerns? Among other things, MBA programs aren't giving students the heightened cultural awareness and global perspectives they need. Newly minted MBAs lack essential leadership skills. Creative and critical thinking demand far more attention.In this compelling and authoritative new book, the authors: * Document a rising chorus of concerns about business schools gleaned from extensive interviews with deans and executives, and from a detailed analysis of current curricula and emerging trends in graduate business education * Provide case studies showing how leading MBA programs have begun reinventing themselves for the better * Offer concrete ideas for how business schools can surmount the challenges that come with reinvention, including securing faculty with new skills and experimenting with new pedagogies Rich with examples and thoroughly researched, Rethinking the MBA reveals why and how business schools must define a better pathway for the future.

You will experience psychological impasse many times in your life. During these times, you have the sensation that you're stuck or paralyzed. You're convinced that something must change, whether in your work or personal life. Though this feeling is normal, you need to move beyond it. Failure to "get unstuck" can put your career and personal life--as well as the healthy functioning of your team or organization--at risk. In Getting Unstuck, business psychologist and researcher Timothy Butler offers strategies for moving beyond a career or personal-life impasse--by recognizing the state of impasse, awakening your imagination, recognizing patterns of meaning in your life, and taking action for change. Drawing on a wealth of stories about individuals who have successfully transitioned out of impasses, Getting Unstuck provides a practical, authoritative road map for moving past your immediate impasse--and defining a meaningful path forward.

Stop Wasting Precious Time and Money You have a complex problem at work, and you know the standard solutions: hire a consultant, enlist a superstar employee, have more meetings about it. In short, spend money and hours to dig your way out. But you've been down this road before--the so-called solution consumes your time, dollars, and resources, and yet the problem still reappears. There is a way out of this cycle. Organizational researchers Tanya Menon and Leigh Thompson, experts in collaboration and creativity, identify five spending traps that lead to this wasteful "action without traction": The Expertise Trap: recycling old solutions on current problems The Winner's Trap: investing additional resources into failing projects The Agreement Trap: avoiding conflict to feel like a team player The Communication Trap: communicating too frequently over too many channels The Macromanagement Trap: assuming your employees don't need your direction Menon and Thompson combine their own research with other findings in psychology to provide strategies to break these unproductive habits and refine your skills as a manager.From shaping problems in new ways and learning from failure through experimentation, to stimulating productive conflict and structuring coordinated conversations, you can escape these traps and discover the value hidden in your organization--without spending a dime.

How to succeed at work and life--in an increasingly unpredictable world In a world where you can no longer plan or predict your way to success, how can you achieve your most important goals? It's a daunting question. But in today's environment, where change is the only constant, it's a question everyone must answer. This is true whether you are an innovator or an entrepreneur, a manager or a newly minted graduate. The first step, say the authors of this book, is this: "Just start." In other words, take action now and learn as you go. Written by a trio of seasoned business leaders, Just Start combines fascinating research with proven practices to deliver a reliable method for helping you advance toward your goals--despite the uncertainty that is all too common today. Babson College President Leonard Schlesinger, organizational learning expert Charles Kiefer, and veteran journalist Paul B. Brown share their own deep and varied experiences and draw from a source where striving amid constant uncertainty actually works: the world of serial entrepreneurship. In this world, people don't just think differently--they act differently, as well.Using this novel approach, Just Start will help you: * Determine the best strategy and tactics when the future is uncertain * Minimize financial risk in every decision you make * Attract like-minded people to what you want to do (and learn why this is important) * Understand why "Act. Learn. Build (so you can) Act again" is the best course of action when facing the unknown So throw out your forecasting tools and shrug off that nagging frustration that comes with constant uncertainty. Just Start distills for you the very essence of what makes people successful in today's volatile environment. This book is your guide to achieving your goals--whether your project is professional or personal, or somewhere in between.

A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Amazon Bestseller Reverse Innovation is the new business idea everyone is talking about. Why? Because it presents the blueprint for scaling growth in emerging markets, and importing low-cost and high impact innovations to mature ones. Innovation is no longer the exclusive domain of the Silicon Valley elite. Reverse Innovation will open your eyes to the fact that the dynamics of global innovation are changing--and if you want your firm to survive, you'd better pay attention. The gap between rich nations and emerging economies is closing. No longer will innovations travel the globe in only one direction, from developed to developing nations. They will also flow in reverse. CEOs of the world's most influential companies agree and have cited Reverse Innovation as their playbook for the next generation of global growth. Authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth explain where, when, and why reverse innovation is on the rise and why the implications are so profound.Learn how to make innovation in emerging markets happen and how such innovations can unlock even greater opportunity throughout the world. You'll follow some of the world's leading companies (including GE, Deere & Company, P&G, and PepsiCo) through stories that illustrate exactly what works and what doesn't. If you're in a Western economy, you need to accept that the future lies far from home. But the idea is not just for Western audiences. If innovation is at the heart of your company or your career, no matter where you practice business, Reverse Innovation is a phenomenon you need to understand. This book will help you do that.

The war for talent is heating up in emerging markets. Without enough "brain power," multinationals can't succeed in these markets. Yet they're approaching the war in the wrong way--bringing in expats and engaging in bidding wars for hotshot local "male" managers. The solution is hiding in plain sight: the millions of highly educated women surging into the labor markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the United Arab Emirates. Increasingly, these women boast better credentials, higher ambitions, and greater loyalty than their male peers. But there's a catch: Attracting and retaining talented women in emerging economies requires different strategies than those used in mature markets. Complex cultural forces -- family-related "pulls," such as daughterly duties to parents and in-laws, and work-related "pushes," such as extreme hours and dangerous commutes -- force women to settle for dead-end jobs, switch to the public sector, or leave the workforce entirely.In Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid analyze these forces and present strategies for countering them, including: * Sustaining ambition through stretch opportunities and international assignments * Combating cultural bias by building an infrastructure for female leadership (networks, mentors, sponsors) * Introducing flexible work arrangements to accommodate family obligations * Providing safe transportation, such as employer-subsidized taxi services Drawing on groundbreaking research, amplified with on-the-ground examples from companies as diverse as Google, Infosys, Goldman Sachs, and Siemens, this book is required reading for all companies seeking to strengthen their talent pipeline in these rich and expanding markets.

Named one of 100 Leadership & Success Books to Read in a Lifetime by Amazon Editors Confronted by omnipresent threats of job loss and change, even the brightest among us are anxious. In response, we're hunkering down, blocking ourselves from new challenges. This response hurts us and our organizations, but we fear making ourselves even more vulnerable by committing mistakes while learning something new. In Flying Without a Net, Thomas DeLong explains how to draw strength from vulnerability. First, understand the forces that escalate anxiety in high achievers and the unproductive behaviors you turn to for relief. Then adopt practices that give you the courage to "do the right things poorly" before "doing the right things well."Drawing on his extensive research and consulting work, DeLong lays out: - Roots of high achievers' anxiety: fear of being wrong and lack of a sense of purpose, and a craving for human connection - Destructive behaviors we adopt to relieve our anxiety: busyness, comparing ourselves to others, and blaming others for our frustrations - Behaviors we must adopt to gain strength from vulnerability: putting the past behind us and seeking honest feedback Packed with practical advice and inspiring stories, Flying Without a Net is an invaluable resource for all leaders seeking to thrive in this Age of Anxiety.

Manufacturing's central role in global innovation Companies compete on the decisions they make. For years--even decades--in response to intensifying global competition, companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those choices: in many cases, once manufacturing capabilities go away, so does much of the ability to innovate and compete. Manufacturing, it turns out, really matters in an innovation-driven economy. In Producing Prosperity, Harvard Business School professors Gary Pisano and Willy Shih show the disastrous consequences of years of poor sourcing decisions and underinvestment in manufacturing capabilities. They reveal how today's undervalued manufacturing operations often hold the seeds of tomorrow's innovative new products, arguing that companies must reinvest in new product and process development in the US industrial sector. Only by reviving this "industrial commons" can the world's largest economy build the expertise and manufacturing muscle to regain competitive advantage.America needs a manufacturing renaissance--for restoring itself, and for the global economy as a whole. This will require major changes. Pisano and Shih show how company-level choices are key to the sustained success of industries and economies, and they provide business leaders with a framework for understanding the links between manufacturing and innovation that will enable them to make better outsourcing decisions. They also detail how government must change its support of basic and applied scientific research, and promote collaboration between business and academia. For executives, policymakers, academics, and innovators alike, Producing Prosperity provides the clearest and most compelling account yet of how the American economy lost its competitive edge--and how to get it back.

The American people are frustrated with their government-dismayed by a series of high-profile failures (Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown) that seems to just keep getting longer. Yet our nation has a proud history of great achievements: victory in World War II, our national highway system, welfare reform, the moon landing. We need more successes like these to reclaim government's legacy of competence. In If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, William Eggers and John O'Leary explain how to do it. The key? Understand-and avoid-the common pitfalls that trip up public-sector leaders during the journey from idea to results.The authors identify pitfalls including: -The Partial Map Trap: Fumbling handoffs throughout project execution -The Tolstoy Syndrome: Seeing only the possibilities you want to see -Design-Free Design: Designing policies for passage through the legislature, not for implementation -The Overconfidence Trap: Creating unrealistic budgets and timelines -The Complacency Trap: Failing to recognize that a program needs change At a time of unprecedented challenges, this book, with its abundant examples and hands-on advice, is the essential guide to making our government work better. A must-read for every public official, this book will be of interest to anyone who cares about the future of democracy.

Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today--in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It's the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. No longer. In The Little Black Book of Innovation, long-time innovation expert Scott D. Anthony draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation. In his trademark conversational and lively style, Anthony presents a simple definition of innovation, breaks down the essential differences between types of innovation, and illuminates innovation's vital role in organizational success and personal growth.This unique hybrid of professional memoir and business guidebook also provides a powerful 28-day program for mastering innovation's key steps: * Finding insight * Generating ideas * Building businesses * Strengthening innovation prowess in your workforce and organization With its wealth of illustrative case studies and vignettes from a range of companies around the globe, this engaging and potent playbook is a must-read for anyone seeking to turn themselves or their companies into true innovation powerhouses.

Introducing "return on relationship" with your most valued customers The traditional model of growing your business--by relying on employees in sales, marketing, and product development--is dying. Today's most successful companies are taking a different approach: getting customers to market, sell, and create products for them. In assessing client value, most companies look at the money paid for their goods and services. But in this book, Customer Strategy Group CEO Bill Lee offers a compelling new vision for growth by maximizing your "return on relationship" with select customers--those that offer rich sources of hidden wealth. A different type of ROI, this strategy of making the most of your firm's existing relationships is a modern approach to customer relations--one that yields a distinct business advantage. Illustrated by numerous case studies--Salesforce.com, SAS Institute, 3M, Microsoft, and others--The Hidden Wealth of Customers shows the value some customers can have by helping to market your offerings, penetrate foreign markets, leverage the demand-generating power of social media, build customer communities, improve innovation, and more.Lee explains how to effectively engage this crucial audience, which has the power to keep your strategy focused on important customer issues and increase profitability. When done right, your best customers will prospect for you while also speeding product adoption and improving customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty. Consider this book a blueprint for finally making the most out of your most valuable customer relationships.

Conversation-powered leadership How can leaders make their big or growing companies feel small again? How can they recapture the "magic"--the tight strategic alignment, the high level of employee engagement--that drove and animated their organization when it was a start-up? As more and more executives have discovered in recent years, the answer to this conundrum lies in the power of conversation. In Talk, Inc., Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind show how trusted and effective leaders are adapting the principles of face-to-face conversation in order to pursue a new form of organizational conversation. They explore the promise of conversation-powered leadership--from the time-tested practice of talking straight (and listening well) to the thoughtful adoption of social media technology. And they offer guidance on how to balance the benefits of open-ended talk with the realities of strategic execution. Drawing on the experience of leaders at diverse companies from around the world, Talk, Inc., offers provocative insights and user-friendly tips on how to make organizational culture more intimate, more interactive, more inclusive, and more intentional--in short, more conversational.

Embracing the Counterintuitive Side of Collaboration Think of your to-do list at work. Chances are the most important tasks require you to work with others--and the success of those endeavors depends on the effectiveness of your collaboration. According to management expert Leigh Thompson, collaboration that is conscious, planned, and focused on generating new ideas builds excitement and produces what she calls a "creative conspiracy." Teams that conspire to organize themselves, motivate one another, and combine their talents to meet creative challenges are the hallmark of the most successful organizations. In this book, Thompson reveals the keys to the kind of collaboration that allows teams to reach their full creative potential and maximize their results.She also reveals a host of surprising findings; for example: * Left to their own devices, teams are less creative than individuals * Providing "rules" to teams actually increases inventiveness * Striving for quality results in less creativity than striving for quantity * Fluctuating membership enhances a team's innovation * Most leaders cannot articulate the four basic rules of brainstorming Thompson combines broad-ranging research with real-life examples to offer strategies and practices designed to help teams and their leaders capitalize on what actually works when it comes to creative collaboration. Creative Conspiracy challenges managers to adopt an unconventional approach to leading teams that, done right, will lead to the creative success of every team--and every organization.

A compelling narrative on what went wrong with our financial system--and who's to blame. From an award-winning journalist who has been covering the industry for more than a decade, The Devil's Derivatives charts the untold story of modern financial innovation--how investment banks invented new financial products, how investors across the world were wooed into buying them, how regulators were seduced by the political rewards of easy credit, and how speculators made a killing from the near-meltdown of the financial system. Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers worldwide created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators. Fundamental to this saga is how "the people who hated to lose" were persuaded to accept risk by "the people who loved to win." Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines?How did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum--ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the giants of finance? Provocative and intriguing, The Devil's Derivatives sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Will your next leader be insignificant--or indispensable? The importance of leadership and the impact of individual leaders has long been the subject of debate. Are they made by history, or do they make it? In Indispensable, Harvard Business School professor Gautam Mukunda offers an enticingly fresh look at how and when individual leaders really can make a difference. By identifying and analyzing the hidden patterns of their careers, and by exploring the systems that place these leaders in positions of power, Indispensable sheds new light on how we may be able to identify the best leaders and what lessons we can learn, from both the process and the result. Profiling a mix of historic and modern figures--from Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln to Winston Churchill and Judah Folkman--and telling the stories of how they came to power and how they made the most important decisions of their lives, Indispensable reveals how, when, and where a single individual in the right place at the right time can save or destroy the organization they lead, and even change the course of history.Indispensable will also help you understand this new model so you can use it in your own life--whether you're a citizen casting a ballot, an executive choosing your next CEO, or a leader trying to make your mark.

Introducing the global mind-set changing the way we do business. In this fascinating book, global entrepreneurship expert Daniel Isenberg presents a completely novel way to approach business building--with the insights and lessons learned from a worldwide cast of entrepreneurial characters. Not bound by a western, Silicon Valley stereotype, this group of courageous and energetic doers has created a global and diverse mix of companies destined to become tomorrow's leading organizations. Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid is about how enterprising individuals from around the world see hidden value in situations where others do not, use that perception to develop products and services that people initially don't think they want, and ultimately go on to realize extraordinary value for themselves, their customers, and society as a whole. What these business builders have in common is a contrarian mind-set that allows them to create opportunities and succeed where others see nothing. Amazingly, this process repeats itself in one form or another countless times a day all over the world.From Albuquerque to Islamabad, you will travel with Isenberg to discover unusual yet practical insights that you can use in your own business. Meet the founders of Grameenphone in Bangladesh, PACIV in Puerto Rico, Sea to Table in New York, Actavis in Iceland, Studio Moderna in Slovenia, Hartwell Metals in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, Given Imaging in Israel, WildChina in China, and many others. You'll be moved by the stories of these plucky start-ups--many of them fueled by adversity and, more often than not, by necessity. Great stories, stunning successes, crushing failures--they're all here. What can we, in the East and West, learn from them? What can you learn--and what will these entrepreneurial stories, so compellingly told, inspire you to do? Let this book open doors for you where you once saw only walls. If you've ever felt the urge to turn a glimmer of an idea into something extraordinary, these stories are for you.

How do you create your own definition of success--and reach your unique potential? Building a fulfilling life and career can be a daunting challenge. It takes courage and hard work. Too often, we charge down a path leading to "success" as defined by those around us--and ultimately, are left feeling dissatisfied. Each of us is unique and brings distinctive skills and qualities to any situation. So why is it that most of us fail to spend sufficient time learning to understand ourselves and creating our own definition of success? The truth is, it can seem so natural and so much easier to just do what everyone else is doing--for now--leaving it for later to develop our best selves and figure out our own unique path. Is there a road map that will enable you to defy conventional wisdom, resist peer pressure, and carve out a path that fits your unique skills and passions? Harvard Business School's Robert Steven Kaplan, leadership expert and author of the highly successful book What to Ask the Person in the Mirror, regularly advises executives and students on how to tackle these questions.In this indispensable new book, Kaplan shares a specific and actionable approach to defining your own success and reaching your potential. Drawing on his years of experience, Kaplan proposes an integrated plan for identifying and achieving your goals. He outlines specific steps and exercises to help you understand yourself more deeply, take control of your career, and build your capabilities in a way that fits your passions and aspirations. Are you doing what you're really meant to do? If you're ready to face this question, this book can help you change your life.

How to outsmart risk Risk has been defined as the potential for losing something of value. In business, that value could be your original investment or your expected future returns. The Risk-Driven Business Model will help you manage risk better by showing how the key choices you make in designing your business models either increase or reduce two characteristic types of risk--information risk, when you make decisions without enough information, and incentive-alignment risk, when decision makers' incentives are at odds with the broader goals of the company. Leaders who understand how the structure of their business model affects risk have the power to create wealth, revolutionize industries, and shape a better world. INSEAD's Karan Girotra and Serguei Netessine, noted operations and innovation professors who have consulted with dozens of companies, walk you through a business model audit to determine what key decisions get made in a business, when they get made, who makes them, and why we make the decisions we do. By changing your company's key decisions within this framework, you can fundamentally alter the risks that will impact your business.This book is for entrepreneurs and executives in companies involved in dynamic industries where the locus of risk is shifting, and includes lessons from Zipcar, Blockbuster, Apple, Benetton, Kickstarter, Walmart, and dozens of other global companies. The Risk-Driven Business Model demystifies business model risk, with clear directives aimed at improving decision making and driving your business forward.

Are you at the top of your game--or still trying to get there? Take your cues from the short, powerful 9 Things Successful People Do Differently, where the strategies and goals of the world's most successful people are on display--backed by research that shows exactly what has the biggest impact on performance. Here's a hint: accomplished people reach their goals because of what they do, not just who they are. Readers have called this "a gem of a book." Get ready to accomplish your goals at last.

Three experts in Human Resources introduce a measurement system that convincingly showcases how HR impacts business performance. Drawing from the authors' ongoing study of nearly 3,000 firms, this book describes a seven-step process for embedding HR systems within the firm's overall strategy--what the authors describe as an HR Scorecard--and measuring its activities in terms that line managers and CEOs will find compelling. Analyzing how each element of the HR system can be designed to enhance firm performance and maximize the overall quality of human capital, this important book heralds the emergence of HR as a strategic powerhouse in today's organizations.