Showing results by publisher "Ascent Audio" in Management & Leadership

Now more than ever, every interaction you have with customers is critical. Customers today have unlimited information at their fingertips - and can influence the purchase decisions and behaviors of millions of others. With this comes a shift in the balance of power, and every company must come to terms with the fact that the customer is in control. Interacting with customers in the way they want is an essential business strategy and, in many industries, the key to business success.

We all wish we had more time to pause and reflect about small decisions and big goals - and everything in between. But since we live and work in a vortex of tasks, meetings, decisions, and serious responsibilities, we rarely get the chance to step back. In this practical guide, best-selling author and Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco argues that you don't need long periods of solitude and tranquility to reflect well.

In the ten years since the much-praised first edition, coaching has become a core requirement for leadership. It's a core part of business school programs, it's the norm on all leadership development programs, and all leaders and managers now have to be able to coach. The FT Guide to Business Coaching is the book on which many leaders rely, and this updated edition will give listeners a comprehensive introduction to coaching.

In Leading Growth: The Proven Formula for Consistently Increasing Revenue, veteran B2B sales professional and coach Anthony Iannarino delivers an expert guide to enabling revenue growth in your sales team. In the book, you'll explore the fundamentals of organizational leadership, including vision, transformation, strategy, communication, and decision-making. You'll also define new frameworks for growth involving the people, planning, pipeline, and efficacy that make up your strategy.

In a survey of more than 4,000 CEOs, executives, and managers, more than 90 percent admitted they were uncomfortable confronting or engaging in conflict. Yet leaders must realize that every conflict presents an opportunity to reach higher levels of performance. In The Elephant in the Boardroom, award-winning leadership psychologist Edgar Papke explores the unique and challenging relationship that leaders have with conflict and offers the know-how needed to use conflict as the engine of innovation and creativity.

Business gurus come and go. But not Peter Drucker, who remains a towering figure, widely regarded to be the father of modern management and the world’s most influential business thinker. Drucker’s uncanny ability to codify management practices and predict future trends has ensured his lasting impact. i>The Practical Drucker culls 40 of Drucker's most important how-to lessons, each interpreted for today’s business challenges and illustrated with fascinating stories and examples.

In The Soul of Strategy, two veteran strategists and academics deliver a straightforward new approach to business strategy―one that builds and expands on the classic work of Peter Drucker―recognizing the inescapable reality, faced by every organization, that a firm's primary job is to create and keep customers.

Direct selling is booming. It's no surprise when you consider the benefits of launching a direct selling business: low startup costs, strong earning potential, and a flexible work schedule. Currently an estimated 15.6 million people are involved in direct selling in the US alone - and more than 100 million worldwide.

The ever-increasing pace of change in today's organizations requires us all to understand and quickly adapt to constant shifts in the way our companies operate and how work gets done. Developing your own and your team's learning agility will keep your skills fresh, and help you stay flexible, grow from mistakes, and successfully respond to unexpected challenges.

Over the next decade, all leaders will be augmented with some form of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI. For the best leaders, this will mean dramatic improvement. For mediocre leaders, this will mean persistent confusion, distraction, and pretense. With futureback thinking—looking ten years ahead, then planning backward from future to next to now—this third edition of Leaders Make the Future shows how people can improve their leadership skills while expanding their human perspective.

Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips. You'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.

Based on over 100 CEO interviews and a survey of nearly 14,000 employees, renowned leadership thought leader and futurist Jacob Morgan shares candid stories and original research that shows how leaders can tap into vulnerability to transform themselves, their teams, and their organizations. This book will show you why it's so crucial to lead with vulnerability and how to do it well.

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area - not with formulating strategy, but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize just a fraction of the financial performance promised in their strategic plans. It doesn't have to be that way. Building on their breakthrough works on strategy-focused organizations, the authors describe a multistage system that enables you to gain measurable benefits from your carefully formulated business strategy.

In Wise Decisions: A Science-Based Approach to Making Better Choices, a team of accomplished industry experts delivers an evidence- and research-based blueprint for making the best decisions you can with the information you have. You'll learn to make the targeted, repeated investment of energy required to turn your decision-making process into one informed by reason, emotion, intuition, and science.

Humans have always been good at inventing tools that change the way we live and work—though not always good at adapting to those changes. Consider how the internet has given us instant access to gigabytes of data and yet has made us more distracted. Or how social media has enabled us to be more connected than ever, and yet it can also alienate or isolate us. Will the power of AI create a new era of robotic, impersonal efficiency, or will it catalyze a renaissance, redefining leadership and the world of work?

The iconic Sydney to Hobart Race, a 723-mile deepwater challenge - often called the “Everest” of offshore ocean racing - is considered one of the toughest in the world. Unpredictable weather and seas make each race demanding, but in 1998, an unexpected “weather bomb” hit the fleet, creating 80-foot waves and 100-mile-per-hour winds. Many bigger, better-equipped boats tried to maneuver around the storm, but the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler chose to head directly into its path.

Quick Leadership by Selena Rezvani equips you with modern, people-first strategies for leading in today's fast-moving, fast-changing workplaces. Forget outdated, top-down management―this book is packed with real-world tips that help you build trust, boost performance, and bring out the best in your team (without burning yourself out). Selena Rezvani, a renowned leadership expert and coach, guides listeners through simple, doable strategies that boost trust, inclusivity, and innovation—critical elements in a time when employees are demanding more purpose, autonomy, and respect in their work.

Are you a good boss - or a great one? Get more of the management ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you master the innumerable challenges of being a manager.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on managing yourself, listen to this book. We've chosen a new selection of current and classic Harvard Business Review articles that will help you understand your strengths, clarify your personal goals and direction, and build a career you're proud of.

In Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask, author Bill Shander demonstrates how to get from your stakeholders' "order"—what they're asking for—to what they really need. You'll learn how to uncover the needs and desires of your clients, colleagues, bosses, customers, and other stakeholders based on what they ask for and how they ask for it, and how to deliver products and services that meet those needs.