Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently

Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently Hardcover

by Caroline L. Arnold  (Author)

A Wall Street tech leader explains how small behavioral changes lead to major self-improvement
Whether trying to lose weight, save money, or get organized, we’re always setting goals and making resolutions but rarely following through on them. Determination and willpower aren’t strong enough to defeat our mass of ingrained habits; to succeed we have to learn how to focus our self-control on precise behavioral targets and overwhelm them, according to longtime Wall Street technology strategist Caroline Arnold. Read more of this post

Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs

Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs Paperback

by Larry Keeley  (Author) , Helen Walters  (Author) , Ryan Pikkel  (Author) , Brian Quinn  (Author)

Innovation principles to bring about meaningful and sustainable growth in your organization

Using a list of more than 2,000 successful innovations, including Cirque du Soleil, early IBM mainframes, the Ford Model-T, and many more, the authors applied a proprietary algorithm and determined ten meaningful groupings—the Ten Types of Innovation—that provided insight into innovation. The Ten Types of Innovation explores these insights to diagnose patterns of innovation within industries, to identify innovation opportunities, and to evaluate how firms are performing against competitors. The framework has proven to be one of the most enduring and useful ways to start thinking about transformation. Read more of this post

Alan Watts: In My Own Way: An Autobiography

In My Own Way: An Autobiography Paperback

by Alan W. Watts (Author)

In this new edition of his acclaimed autobiography — long out of print and rare until now — Alan Watts tracks his spiritual and philosophical evolution from a child of religious conservatives in rural England to a freewheeling spiritual teacher who challenged Westerners to defy convention and think for themselves. Read more of this post

Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969

Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969 Paperback

by Alan W. Watts (Author)

Alan Watts introduced millions of Western readers to Zen and other Eastern philosophies, but he’s also recognized as a brilliant commentator on Judeo-Christian traditions as well as a celebrity philosopher who exemplified the ideas and lifestyle of the 1960s counterculture. In this compilation of controversial lectures, delivered at American universities throughout the decade, Watts challenges readers to reevaluate Western culture’s most hallowed constructs. Watts treads familiar ground, interpreting Eastern traditions, and also covers new territory, exploring the counterculture’s basis in the ancient tribal and shamanic cultures of Asia, Siberia, and the Americas. In the process, he addresses some of the era’s most important questions: What is the nature of reality? And how does an individual’s relationship to society affect this reality? Filled with his playful, provocative style, the talks show the remarkable scope of a philosopher in his prime, exploring and defining the ’60s counterculture as only Alan Watts could. Read more of this post

Professors, We Need You! Academics are some of the smartest minds in the world. So why are they making themselves irrelevant?

Professors, We Need You!

FEB. 15, 2014

Nicholas Kristof

SOME of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.

The most stinging dismissal of a point is to say: “That’s academic.” In other words, to be a scholar is, often, to be irrelevant. Read more of this post

Magic of Impromptu Speaking: Create a Speech That Will Be Remembered for Years in Under 30 Seconds

Magic of Impromptu Speaking: Create a Speech That Will Be Remembered for Years in Under 30 Seconds Paperback

by Andrii Sedniev  (Author)

Magic of Impromptu Speaking is a comprehensive, step-by-step system for creating highly effective speeches in under 30 seconds. It is based on research of the most powerful techniques used by winners of impromptu speaking contests, politicians, actors and successful presenters. The book is entertaining to read, has plenty of examples and covers the most effective tools not only from the world of impromptu speaking but also from acting, stand-up comedy, applied psychology and creative thinking. Once you master the system, you will grow immensely as an impromptu public speaker, become a better storyteller in a circle of friends and be more creative in everyday life. Your audience members will think that what you do on stage after such short preparation is pure magic and will recall some of your speeches many years later. Read more of this post

How to Deliver a Great TED Talk: Presentation Secrets of the World’s Best Speakers [Paperback]

How to Deliver a Great TED Talk: Presentation Secrets of the World’s Best Speakers [Paperback]

Akash Karia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2013 | ISBN-10: 1484021851 | ISBN-13: 978-1484021859 | Edition: 1

“How to Deliver a Great TED talk” is a complete public speaking system for delivering highly effective presentations and speeches.
If you’ve watched TED talks before, you’ve no doubt been inspired and electrified by speeches by figures such as Sir Ken Robinson, Jill Bolte Taylor, Simon Sinek and Dan Pink.  Read more of this post

Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters

Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters Hardcover

by Jon Acuff (Author)

Wall Street Journal best-selling author Jon Acuff reveals the steps to getting unstuck and back onto the path of being awesome.

Over the last 100 years, the road to success for most everyone has been divided into predictable stages. But three things have changed the path to success: Read more of this post

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast!

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast! Hardcover

by Josh Kaufman  (Author)

Forget the “10,000 hour rule”… what if it’s possible to learn any new skill in 20 hours or less?

Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills – time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare?

Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy?

To make matters worse, the early hours of practicing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web…  Read more of this post

Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity Hardcover

Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity Hardcover

by Alan Siegel (Author) , Irene Etzkorn  (Author)

For decades, Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn have championed simplicity as a competitive advantage and a consumer right. Consulting with businesses and organizations around the world to streamline products, services, processes and communications, they have achieved dramatic results. Read more of this post

Solving Problems with Design Thinking: Ten Stories of What Works (Columbia Business School Publishing) Hardcover

Solving Problems with Design Thinking: Ten Stories of What Works (Columbia Business School Publishing) Hardcover

by Jeanne Liedtka  (Author) , Andrew King (Author) , Kevin Bennett (Author)

Design-oriented firms such as Apple and IDEO have demonstrated how design thinking can affect business results. However, most managers lack a sense of how to use this new approach for issues other than product development and sales growth. Solving Problems with Design Thinking details ten real-world examples of managers who successfully applied design methods at 3M, Toyota, IBM, Intuit, and SAP; entrepreneurial start-ups such as MeYou Health; and government and social sector organizations, including the City of Dublin and Denmark’s The Good Kitchen. Read more of this post

Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation

Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation Hardcover

by Debra Kaye  (Author)

Create products and services your consumers can’t pass up–without the high cost of development

Success is all about connections.

Debra Kaye explodes conventional thinking about innovation and provides an approach that anyone or any business can use to expose the crucial links among observations, experiences, facts, and feelings that on the surface do not seem related–but are–to uncover fresh, brilliant insights. In Red Thread Thinking, Kaye shows you how to weave originality from disparate information and turn it into a product or service that can shake up the marketplace–and your business. Read more of this post

Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence Hardcover

Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence Hardcover

by Amy Jen Su  (Author) , Muriel Maignan Wilkins  (Author)

Find your signature voice
People are drawn to and influenced by leaders who communicate authentically, connect easily with people, and have immediate impact. So how do you become one of them? How can you learn to “own the room”? This book will help you develop your leadership presence.
According to Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins, leadership presence is the ability to consistently and clearly articulate your value proposition while influencing and connecting with others. They offer a simple and compelling framework, as well as practical advice about how you can develop your own personal presence. Read more of this post

Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys To Transforming the Way We Work and LivePaperback

Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys To Transforming the Way We Work and LivePaperback

by Tony Schwartz  (Author) , Jean Gomes (Author) , Catherine McCarthy (Author)

This book was previously titled, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working.
Be Excellent at Anything is one of those rare books with the power to profoundly transform the way we work and live.
Demand is exceeding our capacity. The ethic of “more, bigger, faster” exacts a series of silent but pernicious costs at work, undermining our energy, focus, creativity, and passion. Nearly 75 percent of employees around the world feel disengaged at work every day. Be Excellent at Anything offers a groundbreaking approach to reenergizing our lives so we’re both more satisfied and more productive—on the job and off.  Read more of this post

More Reflection, Less Action: The more complex and demanding the work we do, the wider, deeper and longer the perspective we require to do it well

FEBRUARY 14, 2014, 12:52 PM  1 Comment

More Reflection, Less Action

By TONY SCHWARTZ

Earlier this week, I found myself talking with the chief of staff to the chief executive at a large company. The two of them had been on the road together for four consecutive weeks. I asked how that felt. “It’s brutal,” he said. “But it’s typical. My boss essentially has no openings on his schedule for the next three months.”

Think about that for a moment: Read more of this post

The High Cost of Avoiding Conflict at Work: As More Companies Seek Feisty Leaders, An Eagerness to Please Could Kill Your Career

The High Cost of Avoiding Conflict at Work

As More Companies Seek Feisty Leaders, An Eagerness to Please Could Kill Your Career

JOANN S. LUBLIN

Feb. 14, 2014 10:05 a.m. ET

It’s time to kill a common myth: Executives who avoid workplace conflicts get ahead. Instead, their advancement often stalls.

A well-liked senior vice president at a big health-care company lost a key promotion and left in 2012 because he never disagreed with colleagues during meetings. The man’s failure to manage conflict derailed his career, recalls David Dotlich, a leadership and succession coach. His research has identified “eagerness to please” as one of the top reasons that executives fail. Read more of this post

Why You Are Spending More and Enjoying It Less; Why? Because we’re bored or we want to keep up with our neighbors.

Why You Are Spending More and Enjoying It Less

Financial Advisers Agree—Americans Spend Way Too Much

VERONICA DAGHER

February 16, 2014

When a taco shop opened across the street from Stefanie O’Connell’s New York City apartment, she figured it would be harmless to go there a few times a week and grab a quick dinner.

But before she knew it, the actress and freelance writer was dropping $10 to $15 a week on tacos—that comes to more than $500 a year, or just about enough to pay for a round-trip ticket for her dream trip to Amsterdam. Read more of this post

Life’s Work: A HBR Interview with John Cleese

Life’s Work: John Cleese

An Interview with John Cleese by Adi Ignatius

John Cleese became a comedy icon in the 1970s for his work on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers. Later, while continuing to act, he ventured into corporate training, producing videos that mixed management wisdom with dry British wit. He’s now working on a memoir, doing stand-up shows to pay his alimony bills, and preparing for a much-anticipated Python reunion.Interviewed by Adi Ignatius

HBR: How did the Python team manage itself? Who made the final decisions? Read more of this post

The Truth About Trust: How It Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More

The Truth About Trust: How It Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More Hardcover

by David DeSteno  (Author)

What really drives success and failure?
Can I trust you? It’s the question that strikes at the heart of human existence. Whether we’re talking about business partnerships, romantic relationships, child-parent bonds, or the brave new world of virtual interaction, trust, when correctly placed, is what makes our world spin and lives flourish. Read more of this post

It’s one of the great executive challenges of our time: How can I give my all to my job and yet live a rich, rewarding personal life?

From the Editor: My Work, My Life

by Adi Ignatius

It’s one of the great executive challenges of our time: How can I give my all to my job and yet live a rich, rewarding personal life?

We talk a lot about work/life balance—implying that 50/50 is the ideal split between our jobs and everything else. But as Harvard Business School’s Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams show in “Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life,” achieving such a balance is an elusive, if not impossible, goal. Instead, the authors suggest, leaders should make deliberate choices about the lives they want to lead—about which opportunities to pursue and which to decline. Otherwise, they’re apt to be constantly juggling priorities and rarely engaging fully in anything. Read more of this post

Termites Teach Robots a Thing or Two

Termites Teach Robots a Thing or Two

ROBERT LEE HOTZ

Updated Feb. 13, 2014 7:17 p.m. ET

CHICAGO—Inspired by termites, Harvard University researchers have designed a construction crew of tiny robots able to build complicated structures without blueprints or outside intervention. Read more of this post

Pablo Picasso’s most readily accessible painting isn’t in a museum. It hangs in a New York restaurant, in a building whose owner reportedly thinks that the painting is a piece of junk and wants to get rid of it.

Picasso’s Unmovable Feast

TERRY TEACHOUT

Feb. 13, 2014 3:39 p.m. ET

Pablo Picasso’s most readily accessible painting isn’t in a museum. It hangs in a New York restaurant—a restaurant that is housed in a building whose owner reportedly thinks that the painting is a piece of junk and wants to get rid of it. Read more of this post

Noonan: Reliving History-and Learning From It; What Diane Blair’s papers tell us about the Clintons, and why people preserve their archives.

Noonan: Reliving History—and Learning From It

What Diane Blair’s papers tell us about the Clintons, and why people preserve their archives.

PEGGY NOONAN

Feb. 13, 2014 7:07 p.m. ET

All the Northeast is covered in snow, and the sound and clamor of Washington is muffled. The federal government took a day off; the news is full of weather. Not a bad time to ponder why people do what they do—more specifically, why witnesses to history often take notes on what they see and hear, and in time leave their papers to universities and libraries. Obviously we’re keying off this week’s story of Diane Blair, a close friend of Hillary Clinton, who died in 2000 and whose papers were given by her husband to the University of Arkansas. There they were kept sealed until 2010. An enterprising reporter for the Washington Free Beacon, Alana Goodman, took a look and found a small trove of journal entries and memos that add texture to our understanding of the Clinton era. Which, it occurs to me, may some day be referred to as the first Clinton era, but that’s another column. Read more of this post

Career women in bad marriages

Career women in bad marriages

Friday, February 14, 2014 – 09:08

The Star/Asia News Network

KUALA LUMPUR – Harian Metro reported that three female professionals in Kuala Lumpur have been subjected to torture and sexual abuse by their husbands. Read more of this post

Businessmen of a century ago didn’t place ‘competition’ on a revered pedestal. Merger and monopoly were considered preferable.

Book Review: ‘Harriman vs. Hill,’ by Larry Haeg

Businessmen of a century ago didn’t place ‘competition’ on a revered pedestal. Merger and monopoly were considered preferable.

ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Feb. 13, 2014 5:49 p.m. ET

Takeover wars seem to have lost their sizzle. What happened to the battles of corporate goliaths? Where have they gone, those swaggering deal makers? “Harriman vs. Hill” is a corporate dust-up that takes us back to the beginning of the 20th century, when tycoons who traveled by private rail merrily raided each other’s empires while the world around them cringed. Read more of this post

S’pore ex-lecturer talks of dicey journey with drugs

S’pore ex-lecturer talks of dicey journey with drugs

Friday, Feb 14, 2014
The New Paper
By Rennie Whang

SINGAPORE – He was a lecturer with a tertiary institute and a former general manager with a public-listed company.

In December 2010, he was busted for taking methamphetamine, also known as Ice. Read more of this post

There is no such thing as the banking profession; Self-inflicted injuries result from a lack of both common purpose and shared values

Last updated: February 12, 2014 7:13 pm

There is no such thing as the banking profession

By John Gapper

Self-inflicted injuries result from a lack of both common purpose and shared values

Antony Jenkins’ efforts to change the culture of Barclays by cutting bankers’ pay are on hold. At its investment bank, it is paying bonuses that are 13 per cent higher to “compete in the global market for talent”. The bank’s chief executive wants to reform the pay of US and Asian investment bankers but it is beyond his control. Read more of this post

Everything I Know About Investing I Learned From My Drivers’ Ed Teacher

February 12, 2014, 11:00 AM

Everything I Know About Investing I Learned From My Drivers’ Ed Teacher

JASON ZWEIG

Kids who grow up in farm country learn how to drive early.

When I was a teenager in the mid-1970s in the foothills of New York’s Adirondack Mountains, I and all my friends drove tractors and bashed-up jalopies through the hayfields and on the dirt roads long before any of us had a learner’s permit or a driver’s license. Read more of this post

A Stanford recipe for bloat-free expansion

February 12, 2014 3:56 pm

A Stanford recipe for bloat-free expansion

Review by Andrew Hill

Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less, by Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao, Crown Business, $26

How to get big without getting bloated is one of the greatest challenges facing growing businesses. Start-ups want to know how they can expand without adding layers of deadening process. At the same time, large companies want to know how to replicate the creativity and in­novative prowess of start-ups without triggering an anarchic free-for-all. Drawing on the authors’ own and others’ insights, Scaling Up Excellencepromises many answers to those pressing questions. Read more of this post

Ancient star helps scientists understand universe’s origins

Ancient star helps scientists understand universe’s origins

Sun, Feb 9 2014

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian astronomers have found the oldest known star in the universe, a discovery that may help to resolve a long-standing discrepancy between observations and predictions of the Big Bangbillions of years ago. Read more of this post