Audiobooks narrated by Walter Dixon

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Data Strategy Audiobook

Your data is your business. Is it supporting your strategy? Algorithms, machine learning, generative AI. With the latest advancements in technology, data is taking center stage in organizations. But without a clear plan for how you're storing, integrating, and gaining value from that information, your company will be at risk—and fall behind. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on setting a data strategy in your organization, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you improve your analytic and algorithmic capabilities, navigate digital transformation, and achieve competitive advantage in our hyperconnected world. This book will inspire you to quantify the benefits of a digital transformation; discover opportunities for innovative, data-backed products and services; better understand and improve your customer experience; break down silos and share higher-quality information across your organization; identify areas susceptible to cyberattacks and data breaches; and ensure metrics aren't overshadowing strategic objectives.

Harvard Business Review (Author), Randye Kaye, Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Becoming the Best: Build a World-Class Organization Through Values-Based Leadership

What does it mean in practice to be a values-based leader? When faced with real situations, how can you be your best self and create best teams—while also being a best partner with customers and vendors, a best investment for your stakeholders, and a best citizen making a difference in the world? In his bestselling book From Values to Action, Harry Kraemer showed how self-reflection, balance, true self-confidence, and genuine humility are the traits of today's most effective leaders. In Becoming the Best, his highly anticipated follow-up, Kraemer reveals how, in practical terms, anyone can apply these principles to become a values-based leader and to help create values-based organizations. Drawing on his own experiences as the former CEO and chairman of Baxter International, as well as those of other notable leaders and organizations, Kraemer lays out a pathway for understanding the principles and putting them into practice. Regardless of level or job title, individuals can make a difference in their organization and beyond by embodying the essential traits of a great leader. Becoming the Best offers a definitive, actionable guide to show anyone how to apply in practice the principles of values-based leadership personally and professionally, making it an indispensable manual for the new wave of better leaders.

Harry M. Jansen Kraemer Jr. (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries

An ambitious look at how the twentieth century's great powers devised their military strategies and what their implications mean for military competition between the United States and China How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But Zack Cooper argues that the American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden path. For centuries, the world's most powerful militaries have adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior, determined largely by their leaders' perceptions of relative power shifts. By uncovering these trends, this book places the evolving military competition between the United States and China in historical context. Drawing on a decade of research and on his experience at the White House and the Pentagon, Cooper outlines a novel explanation for how militaries change as they rise and decline. Tides of Fortune examines the paths of six great powers of the twentieth century, tracking how national leaders adjusted their defense objectives, strategies, and investments in response to perceived shifts in relative power. All these militaries followed a common pattern, and their experiences shed new light on both China's recent military modernization and America's potential responses.

Zack Cooper (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ransom War: How Cyber Crime Became a Threat to National Security

This timely book explores the alarming rise of ransomware: malicious software blocking users from their systems or data until they've paid money to regain access or to prevent the release of sensitive information. High-profile British examples of the twenty-first century have targeted national libraries and healthcare organizations; in the US, hackers of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley Health Network held patient data hostage—when their demands went unmet, they published topless photographs of women with breast cancer. The issue presents formidable challenges and costs for businesses, national security and, as the Pennsylvania case showed, individuals—often society's most vulnerable. But we can watch and learn from cyber extortionists, leaving us better prepared for next time. In 2022, a series of devastating ransomware attacks prompted Costa Rica's president to declare a national emergency, describing a 'state of war.' This episode had much to tell us about how these networks arise, operate, organize—and collapse. Max Smeets's landmark study demystifies the ransomware playbook, from funding to networking. Through one of the largest ransomware operations on record, he reveals how this challenge has evolved, how it differs in substance and style from traditional cyber/hacking threats, and how to combat it.

Max Smeets (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fire Eaters: The People and Aircraft Combatting Wildfires Over the Last Century

Throughout history, when threatened by wildfires our only defense was to pray for rain and run—until aircraft changed the way we fight fires. Beginning with the Canadian 'H-Boats' in 1924, aircraft have become indispensable in detecting and extinguishing wildfires. Fire Eaters tells the incredible stories of the Ontario Provincial Air Service, the first government aerial fire suppression organization in history; one of its pilots, Carl Crossley, who invented the water scoop-up and drop-off system; and the Canadair CL-215, the first purpose-built water bomber. Today, helicopters with 'Bambi Buckets' and snorkels can dump water while hovering directly over the flames, and Air Tractors and Dash 8-400AT air tankers not only perform a crucial role in saving communities but also protect our ecosystem. Satellites—unmanned aircraft able to fly for sixteen hours, even overnight when manned aircraft do not—and artificial intelligence already play a decisive role in fire management. But it is the men and women of the aerial fire service who have really changed the way we fight fire around the world. Their bravery and dedication mean that response times are fast, fires can be contained sooner, and people have the chance to save rather than lose everything.

Peter Pigott (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Harvard Business Review Sales Management Handbook: How to Lead High-Performing Sales Teams

Managing an effective sales organization is key to revenue generation, customer satisfaction, and business results. But whether you're a sales manager or leading a large sales force, it's increasingly challenging to balance success today with driving the digital sales transformation that will position your team for the future. With actionable insights and examples from many industries worldwide, the HBR Sales Management Handbook provides the resources you need to build value for your company, your customers, and your sales teams. The book covers the fundamentals every sales manager needs to know and explores today's most challenging issues around digital: bringing value to informed and self-sufficient customers while managing the business; hiring, developing, and retaining the best talent; managing sales in the remote, multichannel world; using AI and analytics to support critical decisions; navigating change with continuous improvement; and building the next generation of sales information hubs. Your job as a sales leader is vast and dynamic. This handbook is a collection of proven and forward-looking ideas to help you, your salespeople, and your customers win.

Arun Shastri, Prabhakant Sinha, Sally E. Lorimer (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Right to Oblivion: Privacy and the Good Life

We are able to configure privacy settings on our devices and social media platforms, but we know our efforts pale in comparison to the scale of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. In our hyperconnected era, many have begun to wonder whether it is still possible to live a private life, or whether it is no longer worth fighting for. The Right to Oblivion argues incisively and persuasively that we still can and should strive for privacy, though for different reasons than we might think. Recent years have seen heated debate in the realm of law and technology about why privacy matters, often focusing on how personal data breaches amount to violations of individual freedom. In a novel philosophical account, Pressly insists that privacy isn't simply a right to be protected but a tool for making life meaningful. Privacy deepens our relationships with others as well as ourselves, reinforcing our capacities for agency, trust, play, self-discovery, and growth. Without privacy, the world would grow shallow, lonely, and inhospitable. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Hannah Arendt, Jorge Luis Borges, and a range of contemporary artists, Pressly shows why we all need a refuge from the world: not a place to hide, but a psychic space beyond the confines of a digital world in which the individual is treated as mere data.

Lowry Pressly (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Patenting Life: Tales from the Front Lines of Intellectual Property and the New Biology

Shortly after the emergence of genetic engineering in the 1970s, academic biologists were courted by venture capitalists and multinational companies. Researchers who understood the new biology of the time went from being merely curious about how the natural world functioned to realizing that they could profit from their newfound recognition. As they were inventing all sorts of newfangled organisms, biologists became acquainted with intellectual property. Patenting Life provides insights into legal fights over patented microbes, virus-resistant crops, ownership of body parts, and the patents they engendered. Covering the early days of recombinant DNA science to the present, Goldstein shares cases from his own career and those of others involving blockbuster biological drugs, aseptic mosquitoes, genetically engineered cows, and CRISPR, the modern gene-editing technology that promises to vanquish congenital diseases such as sickle cell anemia. He also addresses the perceived downsides of the patent system: the high prices of drugs, international access to COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines, and the ascent of genetically modified crops. Patenting Life will appeal to listeners interested in science and technology and also those interested in laws promoting innovation.

Jorge Goldstein (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource

In 2023, the Supreme Court made one of its most devastating rulings in environmental history. By narrowing the legal definition of 'waters of the United States' (WOTUS), the court opened the floodgates to unregulated pollution. But while tremendously consequential, the decision was also simply the latest in a long series of battles over WOTUS, and which rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands, and perhaps even farm fields were to be protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. Waters of the United States is an unprecedented exploration of this history—and its importance for today's efforts to conserve a critical natural resource. The book not only examines how bodies of water are legally defined (and therefore protected), but who gets to decide on these definitions. The result is a fascinating look at the ongoing power struggle between the president and federal agencies, the courts, the states, and Congress, over water quality. Waters of the United States offers the detailed analysis necessary for any lawyer or environmental advocate to understand the nuances of water policy, while spinning a compelling narrative for listeners who have never cracked a law book. The unique mix of insights into environmental law, history, and politics is required for anyone who cares about the future of the nations water.

Royal C. Gardner (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

The New Nature of Business: The Path to Prosperity and Sustainability

In The New Nature of Business: The Path to Prosperity and Sustainability, businessman André Hoffmann and journalist Peter Vanham describe how companies should change their ways to have continued success, and why the current modus operandi is not working. They present a template for creating 'sustainable prosperity', and case-studies of companies that survived and thrived by opting for change. In doing so, they provide a way out of long-standing dilemmas, such as how to balance business needs with impact on nature, shareholders with stakeholders, and short-term vs. long-term profits. You'll find: ● A first-hand account of global healthcare company Roche's sustainability practice, as told by André (Roche's vice-chairman), chairman Severin Schwan, and several other senior management members ● Case-studies and lessons of organizations with visionary leaders, such as INSEAD, IKEA, Harley Davidson, and Holcim ● Strategies for addressing the negative externalities and trade-offs that arise from doing business; identifying the right metrics and targets to deliver on your purpose; and accounting for human, social, and natural capital, alongside financial capital

Andre Hoffmann, Peter Vanham (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Power Phone Scripts: 500 Word-for-Word Questions, Phrases, and Conversations to Open and Close More

Have you ever found yourself at a loss for what to say when the gatekeeper asks you what your call is about? Have your palms ever sweated when the decision maker shuts you down with: 'I wouldn't be interested'? Has your heart taken a fast dive into your stomach when, at the start of your presentation, your prospect tells you that they've thought about it and are just going to pass? If you're in sales, then the question isn't 'Have you ever felt this way?', but rather, 'How often do you feel this way? Are you finally ready to learn how to confidently and effectively overcome these objections, stalls, and blow-offs? If so, Power Phone Scripts was written for you! Unlike other books on sales that tell you what you should do (like build value—hard to do when the prospect is hanging up on you!), Power Phone Scripts provides word-for-word scripts, phrases, questions, and comebacks that you can use on your very next call. Learn to overcome resistance, get through to the decision maker, and then, once you have him or her on the phone, make an instant connection and earn the right to have a meaningful conversation. You'll be equipped with proven questions, conversation starters, and techniques to learn whether or not they are even right for your product or service, and, if they aren't, who else in their company or another department might be.

Mike Brooks (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leading Successful Change, Revised and Updated Edition: 8 Keys to Making Change Work

When Jack Dorsey returned to Twitter as CEO in 2015, the company was in trouble. But unlike so many other social media platforms that have crumbled under tough conditions, Twitter is still alive—and thriving. How did Twitter turn itself around in one of the most turbulent and competitive industries? The change management approach of authors Gregory P. Shea and Cassie A. Solomon guided a significant area of the organization's turnaround effort. In this revised and updated edition of Leading Successful Change, Shea and Solomon share success stories from a host of companies including Twitter, Viacom, and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, offering a tested method for leading successful change, which they have developed over a combined fifty years of helping organizations do just that. In Leading Successful Change, Shea and Solomon share: why most change efforts fail; the two key tenets for making successful change; how to create a scene that will provide a vision of the future; the 8 Levers of Change, a tried-and-true method for designing the work environment to support the changes; and how winning companies—from IKEA to Whirlpool—are successfully implementing change.

Cassie A. Solomon, Gregory P. Shea (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Walter Dixon