Books about Strategic from Amazon.com

The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

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Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas “stick.”

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”

In this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds–from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony–draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures)–the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of “the Mother Teresa Effect”; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas–and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick..
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Written by the business world's new gurus, "Blue Ocean Strategy" continues to challenge everything you thought you knew about competing in today's crowded market place. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes from creating 'blue oceans': untapped new market spaces ripe from growth. And the business world has caught on - companies around the world are skipping the bloody red oceans of rivals and creating their very own blue oceans. With over one million copies sold world wide, "Blue Ocean Strategy" is quickly reaching "must read" status among smart business readers. Have you caught the wave?.
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Jim Collins Answers the Social Sector with a Monograph to Accompany Good to Great. 30-50% of those who bought Good to Great work in the Social Sector.

• This monograph is a response to questions raised by readers in the social sector. It is not a new book.
• Jim Collins wants to avoid any confusion about the monograph being a book by limiting its distribution to online retailers.
• Based on interviews and workshops with over 100 social sector leaders.
• The difference between successful organizations is not between the business and the social sector, the difference is between good organizations and great ones..
  Price: $5.64 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Whether challenged with taking on a startup, turning a business around, or inheriting a high-performing unit, a new leader's success or failure is determined within the first 90 days on the job. In this hands-on guide, Michael Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions, offers proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one's career. "The First 90 Days" provides a framework for transition acceleration that will help leaders diagnose their situations, craft winning transition strategies, and take charge quickly. Practical examples illustrate how to learn about new organizations, build teams, create coalitions, secure early wins, and lay the foundation for longer-term success. In addition, Watkins provides strategies for avoiding the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter, and shows how individuals can protect themselves-emotionally as well as professionally-during what is often an intense and vulnerable period.Concise and actionable, this is the survival guide no new leader should be without. 'Few companies develop a systematic 'on-boarding' process for their new leaders, even though this is a critical function with major organizational implications. Michael Watkins' "The First 90 Days" provides a powerful framework and strategies that will enable new leaders to take charge quickly. It is an invaluable tool for that most vulnerable time-the transition' - Goli Darabi, Senior Vice President, Corporate Leadership & Succession Management, Fidelity Investments.'Every job - private - or public-sector, civilian or military - has its breakeven point, and everyone can accelerate their learning. Read this book at least twice: once before your next transition - before getting caught up in the whirl and blur of new faces, names, acronyms, and issues; then read it again after you've settled in, and consider how to accelerate transitions for your next new boss and for those who come to work for you' - Colonel Eli Alford, U.S. Army.'Watkins provides an excellent road map, telling us what all new leaders need to know and do to accelerate their learning and success in a new role. "The First 90 Days" should be incorporated into every company's leadership development strategy, so that anyone making a transition in an organization can get up to speed quicker and smarter' - Suzanne M. Danielle, Director of Global Leadership Development, Aventis. 'Michael Watkins has nailed a huge corporate problem and provided the solution in one fell swoop. The pressure on new leaders to hit the ground running has never been greater, and the likelihood and cost of failure is escalating. Watkins' timing with The First 90 Days is impeccable' - Gordon Curtis, Principal, Curtis Consulting.'"The First 90 Days" is a must-read for entrepreneurs. Anyone who's been the CEO of a start-up or early-stage company knows that you go through many 90-day leadership transitions in the course of a company's formative years. In this groundbreaking book, Michael Watkins provides crucial insights, as well as a toolkit of techniques, to enable you to accelerate through these transitions successfully' - Mike Kinkead, President and CEO, time BLASTER Corporation, serial entrepreneur, and Cofounder and Trustee, Massachusetts Software Council..
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In "Leading Change", John Kotter examines the efforts of more than 100 companies to remake themselves into better competitors He identifies the most common mistakes leaders and managers make in attempting to create change and offers an eight-step process to overcome the obstacles and carry out the firm's agenda: establishing a greater sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering others to act, creating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing even more change, and institutionalizing new approaches in the future. This highly personal book reveals what John Kotter has seen, heard, experienced, and concluded in 25 years of working with companies to create lasting transformation..
Price: $9.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Over the past thirty years, while the United States has turned either a blind or dismissive eye, Iran has emerged as a nation every bit as capable of altering America’s destiny as traditional superpowers Russia and China. Indeed, one of this book’s central arguments is that, in some ways, Iran’s grip on America’s future is even tighter.

As ex–CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully shows, Iran has maneuvered itself into the elite superpower ranks by exploiting Americans’ false perceptions of what Iran is—by letting us believe it is a country run by scowling religious fanatics, too preoccupied with theocratic jostling and terrorist agendas to strengthen its political and economic foundations.

The reality is much more frightening—and yet contained in the potential catastrophe is an implicit political response that, if we’re bold enough to adopt it, could avert disaster.

Baer’s on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with key Middle East players—everyone from an Iranian ayatollah to the king of Bahrain to the head of Israel’s internal security—paint a picture of the centuries-old Shia nation that is starkly the opposite of the one normally drawn. For example, Iran’s hate-spouting President Ahmadinejad is by no means the true spokesman for Iranian foreign policy, nor is Iran making it the highest priority to become a nuclear player.

Even so, Baer has discovered that Iran is currently engaged in a soft takeover of the Middle East, that the proxy method of war-making and co-option it perfected with Hezbollah in Lebanon is being exported throughout the region, that Iran now controls a significant portion of Iraq, that it is extending its influence over Jordan and Egypt, that the Arab Emirates and other Gulf States are being pulled into its sphere, and that it will shortly have a firm hold on the world’s oil spigot.

By mixing anecdotes with information gleaned from clandestine sources, Baer superbly demonstrates that Iran, far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a rational actor—one skilled in the game of nations and so effective at thwarting perceived Western colonialism that even rival Sunnis relish fighting under its banner.

For U.S. policy makers, the choices have narrowed: either cede the world’s most important energy corridors to a nation that can match us militarily with its asymmetric capabilities (which include the use of suicide bombers)—or deal with the devil we know. We might just find that in allying with Iran, we’ll have increased not just our own security but that of all Middle East nations.The alternative—to continue goading Iran into establishing hegemony over the Muslim world—is too chilling to contemplate..
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Poker has taken America by storm. But it s not just any form of poker that has people across the country so excited it s No-Limit Hold Em the main event game. And now thanks to televised tournaments tens of thousands of new players are eager to claim their share of poker glory.

Harrington on Hold Em takes you to the part of the game the cameras ignore the tactics required to get through the hundreds and sometimes thousands of hands you must win to make it to the final table. Harrington s sophisticated and time-tested winning strategies, focusing on what it takes to survive the early and middle stages of a No-Limit Hold Em tournament, are appearing here for the first time in print. These are techniques that top players use again and again to get to make it to final tables around the globe.

Now, learn from one of the world s most successful No-Limit Hold Em players how to vary your style, optimize your betting patterns, analyze hands, respond to a re-raise, play to win the most money possible, react when a bad card hits and much, much more.

Dan Harrington won the gold bracelet and the World Champion title at the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold Em Championship at the 1995 World Series of Poker. And he was the only player to make it to the final table in 2003 (field of 839) and 2004 (field of 2576) considered by cognoscenti to be the greatest accomplishment in WSOP history. In Harrington on Hold Em, Harrington and 2-time World Backgammon Champion Bill Robertie have written the definitive book on No-Limit Hold Em for players who want to win ... and win big..
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Originally published by Tarcher in 1988, The Now Habit has sold more than 58,000 copies, and is as relevant as ever!

Author Neil Fiore offers the first comprehensive strategy to overcome the causes of procrastination and to eliminate its deleterious effects. His techniques will help any busy person get more things done more quickly, without the anxiety and stress brought on by failure to meet the workplace's pressing deadlines.

This revised, redesigned edition includes a new introduction and a section that provides strategies to understand and deal with the complex role technology plays in procrastination today..
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