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booktag: business

14. Adam Grant

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.

Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.

Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things. This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

Carol J. Kaemmerer

Many first impressions are made on LinkedIn, so every business professional must convey his or her personal brand effectively on this platform. LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive, Second Edition, is an award-winning book that combines strategy and action items to ensure that the reader understands and implements the steps that will turn a mediocre profile into a powerful digital ambassador.

Intended for the busy executive reader, the book is beautifully designed and clearly written for easy readability. The behavioral checklist at the end can be used to help you select the chapters you want to read first, and to verify your completion of the recommended steps to improve your use of LinkedIn. The book outlines the importance of LinkedIn as an essential business tool, shows you how to control the way you present yourself, and how to use LinkedIn as an efficient relationship-building tool. It also shows how to use LinkedIn as a vehicle for expressing your thought leadership and building your own authentic brand as a leader, while contributing to your company’s brand equity. This book will guide you, the savvy executive, to increase your visibility and influence, attract high-performing talent and power your career.

Dave Ferguson

Employees rarely go to work to follow anyone for more than money. They certainly aren’t there to follow the vision of the person in charge. But you can change that!

In Boss or Leader, internationally recognized leadership coach and speaker, Dave Ferguson, cleverly defines the difference between a boss and a leader. In his direct, no-nonsense way, he uses his experience as a leader and as a leadership coach to help you first decide if you are a boss or a leader, then goes on to coach you on how to grow as a leader.

It’s not about how to be liked by your employees, nor is it about how to manage or supervise people. This book is about how to become a leader people will respect and be willing to follow. It’s also about developing leaders and identifying potential leaders. If you are in a leadership position, or want to be in one, then this book is for you.

At checkout use code CSLEADER for 25% off Boss or Leader book or Lead and Learn Kit.

David A. Paterson

“I have had this desire my whole life to prove people wrong, to show them I could do things they didn’t think I could do.”—David Paterson

A title that hits you between the eyes is second only to a Governor put in office by a prostitution scandal. Scandals aside, David Paterson overcame severe disability and racial prejudice to become a state senator, lieutenant governor, and—unexpectedly—governor of New York.

Paterson is well known for his remarkable vision. In a rising climate of denial and with fiscal crisis looming, Paterson appeared—seemingly from the wilderness—to sound the alarm about the impending crisis after being in service for only a few months. But his leadership extends well beyond reducing a 21.3-billion-dollar budget deficit during the worst economic downturn in recent history. From standing in protest outside Amazon against Kindle accessibility for the blind, to advocating the overthrow of a corrupt Trinidadian government, he made his mark during his three-year tenure. He made procedural changes that resulted in no state budget being late since his departure from office. He fought for same-sex marriage and against disability discrimination. When he appeared on an episode of Saturday Night Live, he even quipped, “You guys spent so much time talking about my blindness that I forgot I was black.”

Paterson was the first and only blind governor—other than a man who held the title for eleven days in 1975—and the fourth person of African descent to hold the office of governor in American history. Paterson may also be the only governor in history to have been arrested outside the governor’s office prior to his service. You will want to read about that one.

His candid admissions, even while serving as governor, are refreshing in this era where the truth and public servants are rarely mentioned in the same sentence.

This book is at times hilarious, shocking, heartfelt, and then—when you least expect it—soulful, passionate, irreverent, and extraordinary. This is a self-help book encapsulated from the memories of one who continues to help himself through his service to others, the credo of public life.

Since leaving office, the former governor has flourished as a talk show host, consultant to industry, Chair of the NY State Democratic Party, Director of Investments with the Moldaver Paterson Lee Group at Stifel Investment Bank, and now Senior Vice President & Special Advisor to the President of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

What’s next for David Paterson? The governor stated in one of his lighter moments in the journey of Black, Blind and In Charge: “I may take a run at the Presidency, or, better still, the Vice Presidency and another scandal.”

Seth Earley

“We know how we want our companies to work. Enterprises ought to be customer-focused, responsive, and digital. They should deliver to each employee and customer exactly what they need, at the moment they need it. The data and technology to do this are available now,” declares artificial intelligence expert Seth Earley. Nonetheless, AI continues to stumble when it comes to making this a reality. In his new book, THE AI POWERED ENTERPRISE: Harness the Power of Ontologies to Make Your Business Smarter, Faster, and More Profitable (LifeTree Media/April 28, 2020), Earley provides practical approaches for solving the data management problems that are at the heart of this disconnect, showing how organizations can truly deliver on the promise of AI.

“To create transformative AI solutions, we need a holistic, synergistic, and simultaneously integrated flow of information,” explains Earley, who has helped companies across industries to manage data to enable digital transformations. The problem is that, all too often, this foundational principle is ignored, given short shrift, or deprived of resources.

The answer, Earley says, lies in ontology – a consistent representation of data and data relationships that can inform and power AI technologies. In other words, ontology is “the master knowledge scaffolding of the organization.” Without it, any AI-driven transformation will be slow, costly, and less effective. In language accessible to a non-tech audience, Earley draws on examples from numerous client companies to describe what correct execution of data management looks like. He addresses how to manage this transformation, step-by-step, covering such issues as:

Customer Experience – Customer experience is hard to get right and easy to get wrong. “It’s a question of the proper integration of technology,” writes Earley. He explores the roadblocks that hinder a systematic approach to customer experience and offers a solution: a “high-fidelity journey map” that accounts for how technology represents and enables elements of the customer experience.

Marketing – Good marketing is about presenting the right content at the right time to engage the customer. Today, this means reading the online equivalent of physical body language: “the digital breadcrumbs, cues, and clues that tell us about what our customers need, how we can meet those needs, and how to best present the content most likely to engage the customer at that moment in their journey.” According to Earley, digital marketers must become knowledge enablers, champions of data quality, architects of digital systems, and keepers of the ontology that powers it all.

Ecommerce – ecommerce is where ontology-powered AI can have its biggest impact, says the author. Its success or failure depends on the quality of data. THE AI-POWERED ENTERPRISE addresses how to enhance this quality by improving both customer classification and product taxonomies (categorizations) based on features and relationships.

Sales Process – “AI technologies can improve every part of the sales process by freeing sales staff from routine tasks and making them more efficient,” Earley writes. He discusses effective use of AI-powered chatbots in customer interaction; machine learning to train AI systems to identify sales prospects, and sematic search to recommend the most productive approaches to sales leads.

In addition to these issues, Earley explains how having the right ontology and data structures can enable AI to improve supply chain dynamics and logistics – and can even have powerful impact on strategy and governance issues. Moreover, he outlines the basic principles that should guide leaders who are undertaking digital transformations of their organizations.

“The winners and losers of the next fifteen years will be determined by who best harnesses AI for solving business problems for employees and customers,” Earley contends. Combining a sophisticated explanation of how AI works with a practical approach to applying it to a range of business problems, THE AI-POWERED ENTERPRISE is a must-read for CEOs, CMOs and technology executives – along with anyone who wants to understand the role of AI and how to get a jump on the opportunities it presents.

Bob Collins

Peter Drucker once said “Business Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”. Collins asserts that a high-performance workforce, highly charged, thirsty for change and success, can be more powerful than carefully thought out business strategies that can be easily uprooted by the speed of new digital technologies. Vision Powered Management [VPM] provides real-world “how to” actions based on Collins years of experience delivering solid business results. He discusses the why and how of inspiring your organization with a clear and meaningful vision. Action steps necessary to implement to create a high-speed business environment when taking on a new leadership assignment are spelled out. Collins identifies 7 pragmatic steps for implementing a top-down culture shift. A leadership self-assessment tool allows the reader to evaluate their own skills and where to focus on areas needing improvement. Finally, EQ’s [Emotional Quotient] role in your continuing leadership development is introduced.

Jill Griffin

What if you could gather the smartest people you know into one room and ask them anything? Who would be there? What would you ask?

Follow These Leaders is a chance to do just that.

Jill Griffin reached out to her network…and even complete strangers….and asked them to contribute their best advice and counsel in these pages. She had no idea that nearly everyone would jump at the opportunity to share what they know with people they don’t know and may never meet in person. The room filled up quickly and the wisdom flowed freely. The result? A wise and entertaining handbook with a single goal. Help you soar! Follow these leaders and build a great career and life!

Rachel Headley

Called “brutally honest, incredibly practical, and refreshingly hopeful,” Headley and Manke shake traditional corporate culture to the core in this important and desperately needed book. Corporate success is hampered by the failure to create an Internal Experience (iX) that keeps the best people, enables true innovation and creativity, and implements change quickly and effectively. iX Leadership: Create High-Five Cultures and Guide Transformation will enable leaders to change the way business gets done. Headley, a former operational science officer of the Landsat satellite program, and Manke, an expert in talent management and organizational psychology, combine research and personal insight to demonstrate the importance and practical application of their proprietary Culture Types and Kurtz Change Transition Model. They demonstrate how to incorporate these concepts into the best leadership practices of today. iX Leadership: Create High-Five Cultures and Guide Transformation provides insight into people, what motivates them, and how they deal with changes – it’s widely applicable to industry, vertical, and role. Whether you want to create a culture to take you to the next $1B IPO, to survive the pre-revenue phase of your business, to improve sales, to implement changes more quickly and effectively, or to eliminate unspoken conversations, this book is your guide to achieving your legacy and success that you dream of.

Betsy Atkins

Betsy Atkins is often asked “How can I get on a board?” So after 20+ years in the boardroom and multiple roles in public and private companies she is ready to share her secrets. In this book, she teaches you how to build your own personal brand as well as how to keep yourself relevant and growing. Betsy covers the best ways to present your skills and credentials in order to get that board interview as well as detailed information on how to prepare for it. Also included is a collection of articles and learnings from Betsy’s experiences as an operator, board member and advisor to some of America’s largest and most notable public companies.

After reading this book, prospective board members will be energized and motivated to cultivate their own personal brand to gain a board seat and be a better board member and CEO

Dr. Evans Baiya & Ron Price

Innovation is not just about technical and systematic processes. In The Innovator’s Advantage, authors Evans Baiya and Ron Price reveal that the key to success is how you intertwine people throughout the innovation process. Organizing people is the first step and wrapping the processes tools, and systems around the people is the second step. Understanding how each person’s talent, skills and passion will influence innovation and how you can maximize their contributions is the secret to improving your innovation track record, creating in-demand products and services, and developing organizations where people want to work.