For more than twenty years, Stanley Bing has peerlessly explained corporate culture and strategy with wit and insight. Now he brings us this engaging and instructive book of white-collar fables that have charmed generations of businesspeople since Greece was glorious and Rome was grand, brilliant gems of wisdom flowing from the pen of the mysterious, legendary author known throughout the ancient corporate world by a single name: Bingsop. Bingsop's Fables is animated by a cast of archetypal characters that are as iconic and representative of human nature as were the jackdaw, the dull, the snake, the hare, the lion, the horse, and all the rest of the birds and beasts that populated the stories of that other fabulist, Aesop. The Stupid Investor, the Miserable Misery Mogul, the Ill-Tempered PR Person, and the Potentially Generous CEO each struts and frets his hour upon the stage and, in the end, presents us with a moral that rings so true it would hurt if we were not also laughing. Festooned with provocative, witty illustrations by New Yorker artist Steve Brodner, this lean, muscular edition will equally be at home on the shelves of aspiring hedge fund managers hoping to kill their elders as on the credenzas of those beleaguered executives who hear the next generation coming up fast from behind. No business library should be considered complete without it.

The definitive account of Wall Street's stunning collapse From critically acclaimed investigative journalist and CNBC personality Charles Gasparino comes a sweeping examination of the most recent volatile, anxiety-ridden era in our nation's socioeconomic history. The Sellout traces the implosion of the financial services business back to its roots in the late 1970s when Wall Street embraced a new business model predicated on taking enormous risks. It shows how a backwater business involving the trading of risky bonds packed with mortgages showered countless billions in profits on the financial industry but sowed the seeds of its ultimate demise. Gasparino walks readers through Wall Street's three-decades' love affair with risk, revealing a trail of culpability from the government bureaucrats who crafted housing policies that encouraged homeownership, to the Wall Street firms that underwrote and invested in risky debt, to the mortgage sellers who handed out loans to people without the financial wherewithal to pay them back, to the homeowners who became convinced they could afford mansions on blue-collar wages. The ongoing tumult in financial markets and the global economy began when some of our most esteemed financial institutions, our government, and even average citizens abdicated their collective responsibilities, eventually selling out investors and selling off the American Dream itself. In the spirit of classics such as Barbarians at the Gate and Liar's Poker, this page-turning narrative captures how avarice, arrogance, and sheer stupidity eroded Wall Street's dominance and profoundly weakened the financial security of millions of middle-class Americans. Eye-opening and engrossing, The Sellout provides the most thorough investigation to date of this latest gilded era.

A provocative user's guide to a world where the only thing that doesn't change is change itself "Before I die," Albert Einstein once said, "I hope someone will clarify quantum physics for me. After I die, I hope God will explain turbulence to me." Einstein might have been more confused today: Turbulence, in all its manifestations, is on the rise. Financial markets gyrate. Commodity prices zig and zag. New technologies disrupt long-standing businesses and entire industries. Scientific discoveries overturn historical truisms. Dirty bombs and pension busts, natural disasters and flu pandemics, add to the tumult. We live in a world beset by turbulence.We often respond to turbulence by accelerating activities that worked in the past. We lapse into inertia when we should adapt with agility, and we cling to rigid dogmas when we should improvise. But throughout history, volatility has not only dethroned incumbent leaders, it has also created untold possibilities to create economic value. Turbulence has an upside, and companies that seize the opportunities arising out of seething markets will become tomorrow's champions. Based on more than a decade of research, The Upside of Turbulence draws lessons from companies that have consistently spotted and exploited opportunities that rivals have missed. The book explores realms ranging from improvisational comedy to the U.S. Marine Corp's combat doctrine. The result is a series of provocative insights that defy conventional wisdom. The book also introduces practical tools, which have been field-tested by executives around the world, to wrestle triumph out of turmoil.

A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don't cover. His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend; whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them; if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company; how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you; what to do when smart people are bad employees; why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one; whether you should sell your company, and how to do it. Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.

Jam-packed with up-to-date, easy-to-understand information on every area of money, this smart, useful book—just right for kids age 8–14—makes learning about money fun. A savvy brother and sister team, Arthur and Rose explain a lot about money matters, including:?Budgets and savings (great ways to get the stuff you really want!) ?The basics of stocks, bonds, and other ways of investing ?Credit cards (“The Plastic Flash”) and borrowing ?Updated information on the Internet with useful Web links ?Online investing, Web safety precautions ?Saving and paying for college ?And much more

Successful management relies on identifying and promoting high-performing employees and targeting underperformers for serious improvement. Evaluating Performance, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how.Learn to: Monitor day-to-day performance Conduct productive formal reviews Reward consistent, excellent performance through promotions Terminate underperforming employees Create a company-wide performance management system The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

In today's hypercompetitive business climate, managers who help employees achieve their individual potential stand to get and stay ahead. Managing People, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how.Learn to: Delegate the right work to the right employee Motivate people to outperform the competition Establish and empower effective teams Manage multiple projects and stay on track Inspire trust and lead in times of change The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

In 2005, firebrand radio talk show host Neal Boortz and Georgia congressman John Linder created The FairTax Book, presenting the American public with a bold new plan designed to eliminate federal taxes and the IRS, jump-start the U.S. economy, bring back lost industries and jobs, and recapture billions of untaxed dollars hoarded by criminal and offshore businesses. Their book became an immediate #1 New York Times bestseller, propelling a powerful grassroots tax reform movement that's spreading like wildfire across our nation.Now, three years later, the authors are back to answer the outspoken and misinformed critics of their innovative proposal. Offering eye-opening new insights not covered in the original book, FairTax: The Truth debunks the negative myths and gross misrepresentations of this groundbreaking idea. The FairTax plan is simple, brilliant, and it will work enabling you to keep all the money in your paycheck; eliminating the fraud, hassle, and waste of our current system; and revolutionizing the way America pays for itself.

Three-time New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely teams up with legendary The New Yorker cartoonist William Haefeli to present an expanded, illustrated collection of his immensely popularWall Street Journal advice column, “Ask Ariely”. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely revolutionized the way we think about ourselves, our minds, and our actions in his books Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. Ariely applies this scientific analysis of the human condition in his “Ask Ariely” Q & A column in the Wall Street Journal, in which he responds to readers who write in with personal conundrums ranging from the serious to the curious: What can you do to stay calm when you’re playing the volatile stock market What’s the best way to get someone to stop smoking How can you maximize the return on your investment at an all-you-can-eat buffet Is it possible to put a price on the human soul Can you ever rationally justify spending thousands of dollars on a RolexIn Ask Ariely, a broad variety of economic, ethical, and emotional dilemmas are explored and addressed through text and images. Using their trademark insight and wit, Ariely and Haefeli help us reflect on how we can reason our way through external and internal challenges. Readers will laugh, learn, and most importantly gain a new perspective on how to deal with the inevitable problems that plague our daily life.

More than ten years after his first bestselling book The EMyth changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of small business owners Michael Gerber trepreneur author and speaker extraordinaire res the next salvo in his highly successful EMyth Revolution. Drawing on lessons learned from working with more than 15000 small medium sized and very large organisations Gerber has discovered the truth behind why management doesn't work and what to do about it. Unearthing the arbitrary origins of commonly held doctrines such as the omniscience of leader (Emperor) and the most widely embraced myth of all EMyth Manager offers a fresh provocative alternative to management as we know it. It explores why every manager must take charge of his own life reconcile his own personal vision with that of the organisation and develop an entrepreneurial mind set to achieve true success.

Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk. The book brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing, from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamity of today. It's a tale that features professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house in blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It's also a tale of Wall Street's evolution, the power of the market to generate wealth and wreak havoc, and free market capitalism's war with itself.The efficient market hypothesis long part of academic folklore but codified in the 1960s at the University of Chicago has evolved into a powerful myth. It has been the maker and loser of fortunes, the driver of trillions of dollars, the inspiration for index funds and vast new derivatives markets, and the guidepost for thousands of careers. The theory holds that the market is always right, and that the decisions of millions of rational investors, all acting on information to outsmart one another, always provide the best judge of a stock's value. That myth is crumbling.Celebrated journalist and columnist Fox introduces a new wave of economists and scholars who no longer teach that investors are rational or that the markets are always right. Many of them now agree with Yale professor Robert Shiller that the efficient markets theory represents one of the most remarkable errors in the history of economic thought. Today the theory has given way to counterintuitive hypotheses about human behavior, psychological models of decision making, and the irrationality of the markets. Investors overreact, underreact, and make irrational decisions based on imperfect data. In his landmark treatment of the history of the world's markets, Fox uncovers the new ideas that may come to drive the market in the century ahead.

When industry giants such as GE, Toyota, and Sharp and investment firms such as Goldman Sachs are making multibillion-dollar investments in clean technology, the message is clear. Developing clean technologies is no longer a social issue championed by environmentalists; it's a moneymaking enterprise moving solidly into the business mainstream. In fact, as the economy faces unprecedented challenges from high energy prices, resource shortages, and global environmental and security threats, clean tech technologies designed to provide superior performance at a lower cost while creating significantly less waste than conventional offerings promises to be the next engine of economic growth.In The Clean Tech Revolution, authors Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder identify the major forces that have pushed clean tech from back-to-the-earth utopian dream to its current revolution among the inner circles of corporate boardrooms, on Wall Street trading floors, and in government offices around the globe. By highlighting eight major clean-tech sectors solar energy, wind power, biofuels and biomaterials, green buildings, personal transportation, the smart grid, mobile applications, and water filtration they uncover how investors, entrepreneurs, and individuals can profit from this next wave of technological innovation. Pernick and Wilder shine the spotlight on the winners among technologies, companies, and regions that are likely to reap the greatest benefits from clean tech and they show you why the time to act is now.Groundbreaking and authoritative, The Clean Tech Revolution is the must-read book to understand and profit from the clean technologies that are reshaping our fast-changing world.

The author of Getting from College to Career reinvents the concept of management for a new generation, offering a fresh and relevant approach to career success that shows Millennials how to make the next step: become a leader.We are in the midst of a leadership revolution, as power passes from Baby Boomers to Millennials, who are stepping into executive positions in corporations, government, and their own businesses. Becoming the Boss is a brisk, tech savvy success manual filled with real-world, actionable tips from an expert. Lindsey Pollak defines what Millennial generation leadership is and draws on original research, her own experience, and interviews with young managers and entrepreneurs to share the secrets of what makes them successful leaders and shows young professionals how to rise in their own careers. From learning to develop a style that appeals to your older colleagues to managing virtual employees to mastering the rules of social media etiquette, Becoming the Boss helps you identify your next professional move and shows you how to succeed once you get there.

The Personal Finance Classic . . . that's fun to read!You Need the Truth About MoneyCompletely revised and expanded, The Truth About Money shows you everything you need to know about personal finance and explains it all in plain English. Investments, insurance, taxes, mortgages, leasing cars, getting out of debt, wealth planning for multimillion-dollar estates it's all here for you.Whether you're saving for college or retirement, buying a home or selling one, concerned about long-term care for yourself or your parents, worried about an impending job loss, or facing any financial decision, knowing what's in The Truth About Money will help you make great financial decisions.New to This EditionPlanning Your Retirement LifestyleLearn how to retire in comfort and financial security (and what to do when you get there) (pg. 485).The Best Investment ChoiceLearn how ETFs can help you create wealth while saving you big money (pg. 176).Target-Date FundsIt's what you don't know that can hurt you (pg. 269).Behavioral Finance and NeuroeconomicsLearn why you make bad financial decisions and how to break the cycle (pg. 224).Picking the Best FundsFind out the truth about Morningstar ratings (pg. 250).Are Your Parents Aging?See how best to provide help without harming yourself financially (pg. 374).The Most Important Financial Decision You'll MakeFind out how to make this decision successfully (pg. 631).Plus more than 100 Pages of New Content!

The world has changed in the seventeen years since the controversial initial publication of Paul Hawken's Ecology of Commerce, a stirring treatise about the perceived antagonism between ecology and business. Yet Hawken's impassioned argument that business both causes the most egregious abuses of the environment and, crucially, holds the most potential for solving our sustainability problems is more relevant and resonant than ever.Containing updated and revised material for a new audience, The Ecology of Commerce presents a compelling vision of the restorative (rather than destructive) economy we must create, centered on eight imperatives: Reduce energy carbon emissions 80 percent by 2030 and total natural resource usage 80 percent by 2050. Provide secure, stable, and meaningful employment to people everywhere. Be self-organizing rather than regulated or morally mandated. Honor market principles. Restore habitats, ecosystems, and societies to their optimum. Rely on current income. Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic outcome.

A groundbreaking book that sheds new light on the vital importance of teams as the fundamental unit of organization and competition in the global economy. Teams—we depend on them for both our professional success and our personal happiness. But isn't it odd how little scrutiny we give themThe teams that make up our lives are created mostly by luck, happenstance, or circumstance—but rarely by design. In trivial matters—say, a bowling team, the leadership of a neighborhood group, or a holiday party committee—success by serendipity is already risky enough. But when it comes to actions by fast-moving start-ups, major corporations, nonprofit institutions, and governments, leaving things to chance can be downright dangerous. Offering vivid reports of the latest scientific research, compelling case studies, and great storytelling, Team Genius shows managers and executives that the planning, design, and management of great teams no longer have to be a black art. It explores solutions to essential questions that could spell the difference between success and obsolescence. Do you know how to reorganize your subpar teams to turn them into top performersCan you identify which of the top-performing teams in your company are reaching the end of their life spanDo you have the courage to shut them downDo you know how to create a replacement team that will be just as effective—without losing time or damaging moraleAnd, most important, are your teams the right size for the jobThroughout, Rich Karlgaard and Michael S. Malone share insights and real-life examples gleaned from their careers as journalists, analysts, investors, and globetrotting entrepreneurs, meeting successful teams and team leaders to reveal some "new truths": The right team size is usually one fewer person than what managers think they need. The greatest question facing good teams is not how to succeed, but how to die. Good "chemistry" often makes for the least effective teams. Cognitive diversity yields the highest performance gains—but only if you understand what it is. How to find the "bliss point" in team intimacy—and become three times more productive. How to identify destructive team members before they do harm. Why small teams are 40 percent more likely to create a successful breakthrough than a solo genius is. Why groups of 7 (± 2), 150, and 1,500 are magic sizes for teams. Eye-opening, grounded, and essential, Team Genius is the next big idea to revolutionize business.

How dynamic businesses of every size can unleash innovation by inviting customers to codesign what they do and make. Reading line: The 8 Roles Customers Play in Trend Setting Companies The refrain is familiar for Patricia Seybold in her journeys as a top technology and management strategist: "I want our company to be acknowledged as the most admired and most customer valued in our industry and to be recognized as the company that has forever changed the way things are done." "How can we become the Google of banking?" "How can we be the eBay of software?" "I want to be the JetBlue of manufacturing." "How can we become the undisputed trend setter in our industry with a competitive bar no one can topple?" In Outside Innovation, bestselling author Seybold taps her close relationship with dozens of high innovation companies to reveal the untold strategy behind the trendsetters and the next HUGE leap forward in customer strategy. Seybold shows that companies that are dominating their category and staying ahead of the pack are collaborating at every level of their business with their customers.

Meet the men and women whose deeply personal philanthropy is dramatically changing the way we think about giving There are 8.6 million millionaires in the United States, and these numbers are set to rise in what will be the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer in history. As $41 trillion dollars (or over three times the national GDP) moves from the World War II generation to their baby- boomer children over the next couple of decades, it will become imperative that the beneficiaries of this wealth—even those not joining the ranks of the superrich—begin thinking about philanthropy, perhaps for the first time in their adult lives. Here they will find the personal journeys of the most successful givers of their generation. This new generation of wealth has already begun to change the face of philanthropy and to reshape the entire nonprofit sector. In Be the Change, bestselling author Lisa Endlich presents eleven compelling profiles of this twenty-first century generosity. Through candid, revealing, and often surprising interviews, readers will venture into the hearts and minds of the top names in philanthropy today—men and women who have chosen to use their immense riches and influence to meaningfully improve the lives of others in the most dramatic ways. These intimate conversations include in-depth interviews with: ?Melinda Gates, one of the driving forces behind the largest philanthropic organization the world has ever seen; ?Bob and Suzanne Wright, he's the former vice chairman of GE and longtime head of NBC Universal and their Autism Speaks has brought awareness of autism onto the national and international stage; ?Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor Investments and the Robin Hood Foundation; ?Peter Bloom, founding chairman of the groundbreaking DonorsChoose.org. From Connie Duckworth, a former Goldman Sachs partner, who brings steady employment to Afghani women and education to them and their children, to Johann Olav Koss, an Olympic gold medalist who now strives to give children in the direst circumstances the chance to play, these philanthropists demonstrate that giving doesn't begin or end with a signed check. They grant Endlich exclusive access to the stories of how they learned from early failures and developed a personal, sustainable way of giving, and they also share the catalyzing moment when they saw a problem so heartbreaking they simply could not turn away. In doing so, these new philanthropists offer valuable lessons—ones that will inspire readers to start giving, keep giving, and become the change they want to see in the world.

In this penetrating work of investigative and historical journalism, Eamon Javers explores the dangerous and combustible power spies hold over international business.Today's global economy has a dark underbelly: the world of corporate espionage. Using cutting-edge technology, age-old techniques of deceit and manipulation, and sheer talent, spies act as the hidden puppeteers of globalized businesses. They control markets, determine prices, influence corporate decisions, and manage the flow of data and information of some of the world's biggest corporations. In his gripping and alarming book, Eamon Javers takes the reader inside this hidden global industry. Readers meet the spies who conduct surveillance operations, satellite analysts who peer down on corporate targets from the skies, veteran CIA officers who work for hedge funds, and even a Soviet military intelligence officer who now sells his services to American companies.This industry has tentacles in almost every industry in almost every corner of the globe. Intelligence companies and the spies they employ are setting up fake Web sites to elicit information, trailing individuals and mirroring travel itiner-aries, Dumpster-diving in household and corporate trash, using ultrasophisticated satellite surveillance to spy on facilities, acting as impostors to take jobs within companies or to gain access to corporations, concocting elaborate schemes of fraud and deceit, and hacking e-mail and secure computer networks. The work of this industry can be ingenious, but it also raises crucial moral and legal questions in a world where global conflicts are as likely to be corporation versus corporation as they are to be nation versus nation.This globalized industry is not a recent phenomenon, but rather a continuation of a fascinating history. The story begins with Allan Pinkerton, the nation's first true "private eye," and extends through the annals of a rich history that includes tycoons and playboys, presidents and FBI operatives, CEOs and accountants, Cold War veterans and military personnel. Built on exclusive reporting and unprecedented access, this book features accounts of Howard Hughes's private CIA, the extensive spying that took place in a battle between two global food companies, and interviews with some of the world's top corporate surveillance experts.

Do you exude confidence and credibilityCan you command a roomSylvia Ann Hewlett, one of the world's most influential business thinkers, cracks the code of Executive Presence (EP) for men and women intent on winning the next plum assignment and doing something extraordinary with their lives.You might have the qualifications to be considered for your dream job, but you won't get far unless you can signal that you're "leadership material" and that you "have what it takes." Professionals are judged on presence as well as on performance. Using a wealth of hard data including a new nationwide survey and dozens of focus groups Hewlett reveals EP to be a dynamic mix of three things: how you act (gravitas), how you speak (communication), and how you look (appearance). She also draws on in-depth interviews with a wide selection of admired leaders to reveal how they embody and deploy key elements of EP.This book is immensely practical. Hewlett teases out tactics that can help you raise your game and close the gap between merit and success. She offers the unvarnished advice you won't get from supportive friends and tackles head-on such touchy subjects as too-tight clothing and too-shrill voices. She shows how the standards for EP vary for men, women, multicultural, and LGBT employees, and she shares how to get meaningful feedback from politically correct bosses intent on avoiding the real issues.The good news is that EP is eminently teachable. You can learn how to "show teeth" while remaining likable, and you can teach yourself how to dress appropriately while staying true to yourself. You don't have to be born with the voice of James Earl Jones or the looks of Angelina Jolie to hurdle the EP bar. With hard facts and vivid examples, Hewlett shows you how to ace EP and fully realize your unique potential no matter who you are, no matter where you work.

What is Your Collaborative Intention?James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet provide tools that will increase your ability to collaborate. You will learn to be more aware of others and how to problem-solve and negotiate. Collaborative skills have never been more important, and these skills are absolutely necessary for today's workplace.Radical Collaboration is a how-to-manual for anyone who wants to create trusting, collaborative environments, and transform groups into motivated and empowered teams.It is an eye-opener for leaders, managers, HR professionals, agents, trainers, and consultants who are seeking constructive ways of getting the results they want.