Management & Leadership Audiobooks | Business & Economics

Think you've heard it all? How about this one: a high-risk application development and systems integration project where the team is being asked to pull off something that has never been done before -- anywhere. The team is made up of over 200 people in 17 cities in four countries. With only five months to complete the seemingly impossible task, how did they do it?Kevin Aguanno, the Executive Project Manager in charge of this amazing project will tell you how the team shocked the experts and delivered over 1 million lines of code (and 23 patent filings!) on time and under budget. He will share with you the pros and the cons of trying to be agile in this large, distributed team environment. Who says that agile cannot scale?

Kevin Aguanno (Author), Kevin Aguanno (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want

In their groundbreaking book, Women Don't Ask, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever uncovered a startling fact: even women who negotiate brilliantly on behalf of others often falter when it comes to asking for themselves. Now they've developed the action plan that women all over the country requested-a guide to negotiation that starts before you get to the bargaining table. ASK FOR IT explains why it's essential to ask (men do it all the time) and teaches you how to ask effectively, in ways that feel comfortable to you as a woman. Whether you currently avoid negotiating like the plague or consider yourself hard-charging and fearless, Babcock and Laschever's compelling stories of real women will help you recognize how much more you deserve-whether it's a raise, that overdue promotion, an exciting new assignment, or even extra help around the house. Their four-phase program, backed by years of research, will show you how to identify what you're really worth, maximize your bargaining power, develop the best strategy for your situation, and manage the reactions and emotions that may arise-on both sides. Guided step-by-step, you'll learn how to draw on your special strengths to open doors you thought were closed, reach agreements that benefit everyone involved-and propel yourself to new places both professionally and personally.

Linda Babcock, Sara Laschever (Author), Polly Stone (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Riddle

Artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs thrive on their ability to be creative. New wealth flows to those who successfully introduce new ideas. While organizations claim to value creativity, they are often at a loss when attempting to conjure up novel ideas, particularly in a world where technology has made information readily available to everyone. As a result, leaders ask, "Where will the next big idea come from?" In response, they allocate significant resources for innovation; however the source of creative inspiration has remained a mystery. Science has shown that it's possible to create conditions under which the mind is more prepared to have insights, or "aha! moments." In this fascinating book, Andrew Razeghi examines the precursors to creative insight and offers clear-cut methods for making "Eureka moments" routine practice rather than lucky accidents. Combining the latest scientific research, interviews with current innovators, and studies of history's most creative minds, he dissects the creative process and presents a practical approach for inspiring innovation. The Riddle illustrates how replicating these precursors - curiosity, constraints, connections, conventions, and codes - can increase your odds of success at innovation. For example, the author reveals how to inspire creativity through controllable and reproducible thoughts and behaviors such as altering your mood, changing the context in which you solve problems, creating metaphors, and even simply writing things down. He also explores the role of sleep, memory, and ethnicity as they pertain to creative insight. The Riddle takes the mystery out of the creative process and plants it squarely in the realm of the scientific. Using the techniques outlined in this book, innovators can draw on the "Eureka moment" again and again.

Andrew Razeghi (Author), Jim Bond (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Sense of Urgency

True urgency is a gut-level determination to move and win, now. It's practitioners are unusually alert. They come to work each day determined to achieve something important, and they shed irrelevant activities to move faster and smarter. Those with a sense of urgency are the opposite of complacent-but they are not stressed-out and anxious, generating great activity without much productivity. Instead, they move boldly toward the future-sharply on the lookout for the hazards and the opportunities that change brings. Bestselling author and business guru John Kotter knows about urgency. "Raising urgency" is the first step in his enormously successful eight-step framework, first articulated in Leading Change. But as Kotter illustrates, increasing urgency is the toughest of the eight steps, and the one without which even the most brilliant, high-powered initiatives will sputter and die. More importantly, as we transition to a world where change is continuous-not just episodic-he shows how urgency must become a core, sustained capability. With vivid and powerful stories, Kotter reveals a distinctive view of the kind of urgency needed in every organization. He also highlights the insidious nature of its nemesis, complacency, in all its guises. He explains the crucial difference between constructive true urgency, and the frantic wheelspinning that is so often mistaken for urgency. He provides key tactics for increasing urgency, as well as exposing and rooting out complacency, with chapters on: •Bringing the outside in •Behaving with urgency every day •Finding opportunity in crises •Dealing with "NoNos" or naysayers A Sense of Urgency is a powerful tool for anyone wanting to win in a turbulent world that will only continue to move faster.

John P. Kotter (Author), Bill Weideman (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Breakthrough Company

The vast majority of small businesses stay small—and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent—a tiny one tenth of one percent—break through to annual sales above $250 million. In The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate—from small startup to industry leader. Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world's largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was simple: to identify the secrets of breakthrough. The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book's takeaways: • Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders "crown the company" instead of themselves. • It's not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company's future, even going nose to nose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way. • A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully. • However good you are—or think you are—you can't do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka "scaffolding," and how to enlist the aid of "insultants"—people who are willing to question a firm's existing assumptions and ways of doing business. With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who've taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability—The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you'll ever read.

Keith R. McFarland (Author), Keith R. McFarland (Narrator)

Audiobook

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence

Want to be the type of leader that truly inspires, and motivates to change and action? This 3CD Master-Class by Richard Boyatzis (co-author of Primal Leadership and Chair of Organizational Development at the Weatherhead School of Management) offers you the tools to become the leader you want to be - including exercises to develop valuable and effective techniques. Introducing the Intentional Change Model, Richard covers such topics as: - Chronic stress and how to free yourself from it - The neural connections that make great leaders - The optimal balance of positive to negative feedback - The role of hope

Richard Boyatzis (Author), Richard Boyatzis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Machiavelli: Der Fürst: Der Klassiker der Verhaltensstrategie in Politik und Wirtschaft

Es gibt nicht viele Werke, bei denen Werk und Wirkung so auseinandergetreten sind wie bei Niccolò Machiavellis schmalem Buch 'Der Fürst'. Auf der einen Seite sind heutzutage mit dem Begriff 'Machiavellismus' politische Skrupellosigkeit und Gewissenlosigkeit verbunden. Auf der anderen Seite formuliert das Buch erstmals ein modernes Staatsverständnis im Sinne eines Gewaltmonopols innerhalb territorialer Grenzen. Um diesen Widerspruch richtig einordnen zu können, muss man sich vor Augen führen, dass 'Der Fürst' vor beinahe fünfhundert Jahren in der Zeit der italienischen Renaissance entstand. War noch im Mittelalter das politische Handeln nach vermeintlich 'ewigen' Werten und Normen beurteilt worden, so vollzog sich in der Renaissance eine Entdeckung der Eigengesetzlichkeit des Politischen aus der kühlen Beobachtung von Fakten. Bis heute brisant geblieben ist die schonungslose Konsequenz, mit der Machiavelli politisches Handeln zweckrationalen Prinzipien unterwarf. Seine Empfehlungen, Betrug, Hinterlist und Wortbruch als Handlungsoptionen zu erwägen, irritieren noch heute die Leser des 'Fürsten' ebenso wie seine Ästhetik der Grausamkeit. Das Buch fokussiert auf die 10 bedeutenden Kapitel, in denen Machiavelli seine wesentlichen Thesen präzise darlegt. Der Hörer wird vom ersten Moment an gefesselt und taucht ein in Machiavellis Welt durch seinen einleitenden Brief an Lorenzo di Medici; unser Hörbuch gibt dem Hörer weitergehenden Kontext im Rahmen einer Einführung von Dr. Jörg Lehmann.

Niccolo Machiavelli (Author), Anette Daugardt, Uwe Neumann (Narrator)

Audiobook

Its Not about the Coffee: Leadership Lessons from a Life at Starbucks

It's Not About the Coffee outlines a simple yet effective approach to success: focus on people over profits. It presents ten enduring and memorable principles that Howard Behar, one of three top executives who helped shape the Starbucks organization, has used in his own life and has practiced as a leader and in developing leaders at all levels at one of the most recognized and respected companies in the world.

Howard Behar (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leadership Therapy: Inside the Mind of Microsoft

Microsoft is well-known for being an intense place to work: employees face constant pressure to innovate and excel and are passionately devoted to their jobs. In this insightful audiobook, Anna Rowley reveals the major problems all managers face and shows how to conquer them. She distills the characteristics every leader must have to succeed in a demanding environment, including belief, confidence, self-awareness, trust, power, and ambition. She provides the tools that have helped her clients to continue to attain their potential, while including fascinating case studies of the driven and talented clients she has worked with at Microsoft. Topics covered in the mind and Microsoft include: o Communicating well, even with difficult colleagues o Negotiating power o Bridging the gap between the real you and you, the leader o Managing change effectively o Establishing trust among coworkers

Anna Rowley (Author), Anna Rowley (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leaders At All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis

Corporate America's leading consultant explains how top companies solve the problem of leadership succession. A serious crisis looms in American management today. More and more CEOs are failing, and there remains an acute shortage of capable replacements. The true dilemma in leadership is the stagnant state of corporate leadership development. Because companies fail to hone their unit managers' leadership abilities, they are never able to fill their succession pipelines. With unit managers stagnating, companies have difficulty executing at every level, compounding the crisis. Now, best-selling author Ram Charan shows how top companies approach leadership development as a core competency, recognizing that an adaptable leadership pool is a competitive advantage, and focusing their attention on bringing out the best in the leaders they have. Charan reveals exactly what's wrong with corporate leadership development and tells how to make it right. He explains the concept of a leadership "gene pool" and shows how companies can discover just what "DNA" they need to succeed. He also details how to uncover the hidden leaders in a company, when and where to bring in fresh talent, how to coach, measure, and reward leadership, and much more. For CEOs, directors, and anyone involved in leadership development, Leaders at All Levels will be an eye-opening guide on how to get succession right.

Ram Charan (Author), Sean Pratt (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas

Selling ideas---especially the kinds of ideas that make organizations work---is a skill shrouded in mystery. In The Art of Woo, Professors G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa offer a self-assessment to determine which persuasion role fits you best and discuss how to make the most of your natural strengths.

G. Richard Shell, Mario Moussa (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

Audiobook

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls

Business gurus and best-selling authors Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis put their heads together for this vital book on making good decisions. According to the authors, the essence of good leadership is the ability to make consistently sound judgments. While many believe people are either born with this ability or not, Tichy and Bennis show that it can be developed-and it can lead to greatness. Judgment will have listeners making better decisions in no time.

Noel M. Tichy, Warren G. Bennis (Author), L.J. Ganser (Narrator)

Audiobook

Management & Leadership Audiobooks in Business & Economics