Showing results by publisher "Ascent Audio" in All Categories

If you listen to nothing else on communication, listen to this book. We've chosen a new selection of current and classic Harvard Business Review articles that will help you speak more authentically, express your ideas with clarity and impact, and win over your audience. This book will inspire you to ask better questions to get more out of every discussion; listen for emotions and cues, not just facts; use visuals persuasively and effectively; sharpen your business writing to ensure your message sticks; and manage negative emotions during stressful conversations.

Influence Without Authority is the classic guide to getting what you need from people you don't control. This book introduces the Exchange Model, in which you get what you need by offering something of value in return. The key lies in knowing what the other person values—that's their "currency," and it's your immediate tool for coaxing their cooperation. This book shows you how to implement the Exchange Model at the personal, team, and organizational level to raise the bar for performance and leadership.

Imagine if your life were a startup. How would you lead it and shape it to be most successful? That's the question behind The Happiness Files, a rich selection of enlightening and instructive essays by Arthur C. Brooks, known worldwide for his inspiring yet practical wisdom and advice in his weekly column for the Atlantic and in his bestselling books, From Strength to Strength and Build the Life You Want (coauthored with Oprah Winfrey).

A new fundamental economic shift is emerging: an economy based on transformative experiences that guide people to change, achieve their aspirations, and become who they want to be. Welcome to the Transformation Economy. Creating transformative experiences offers businesses the largest opportunity for creating economic value today, particularly as goods and services become increasingly commoditized. Enterprises can create no greater value than to help customers achieve their aspirations—whether improving health, increasing wealth, developing wisdom, or finding purpose.

Finland shocked the world when its 15-year-olds scored highest on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a set of tests touted for evaluating critical-thinking skills in math, science, and reading. That was in 2001; but even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education - with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing - produce students who match the PISA scores of high-powered, stressed-out kids in Asia?

Many companies are stuck with digital transformations that are not moving the needle. There are no quick fixes but there is a playbook. The answer is in rewiring your business so hundreds, thousands, of teams can harness technology to continuously create great customer experiences, lower unit...

Whether it's a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change.

North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent....

Great leaders and teams don't know everything, and they don't get it right every time. What sets them apart is their commitment to continual learning and vertical growth. Vertical growth is about cultivating the self-awareness to see our self-defeating thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors, and then consciously creating new behaviors that are aligned with our best intentions and aspirations.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on becoming a new manager, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you transition from being an outstanding individual contributor to becoming a great manager of others.

The power of glitzy advertising and elaborate marketing campaigns is on the wane; word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company. Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows that people can't help recommending products and services to their friends....

Regardless of your stage of life and your current financial picture, the quest for financial freedom can indeed be conquered. The journey will demand the right tools and strategies along with the mindset of money mastery. With decades of collective wisdom and hands-on experience, your guides for this expedition are Peter Mallouk, the only man in history to be ranked the number one financial advisor in the US for three consecutive years by Barron's (2013, 2014, 2015), and Tony Robbins, the world-renowned life and business strategist.

Being a manager is no easy task. You must set and meet team goals that match business objectives while also ensuring growth and development opportunities for your people. You have to be the voice of authority and a key decision-maker while simultaneously giving your employees autonomy and flexibility. How do you navigate these tensions?

We're building more products today than ever before, but most of them fail—not because we can't complete what we want to build, but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product. What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. In this book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving product/market fit for your fledgling venture. This new edition introduces the continuous innovation framework and follows one entrepreneur's journey from initial vision to a business model that works.

In Bootstrap Empire Natalie Holloway, cofounder of the hit fitness equipment brand, Bala, delivers the ultimate guide to successfully transforming your business idea into a thriving enterprise. The book is a playbook for building a brand that rises above the competition and the noise, explaining...

Singer-songwriter. Trailblazer. Mastermind. The Beatles of her generation. From her genre-busting rise in country music as a teenager to the economic juggernaut that is the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift has blazed a path that is uniquely hers. But how exactly has she managed to scale her success—multiple times—while dominating an industry that cycles through artists and stars like fashion trends? How has she managed to make and remake herself time and again while remaining true to her artistic vision?

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself will inspire you to: stay engaged throughout your fifty-plus-year work life; tap into your deepest values; solicit candid feedback; replenish physical and mental energy; balance work, home, community, and self; spread positive energy throughout your organization; rebound from tough times; decrease distractibility and frenzy; and delegate and develop employees' initiative.

In True North: Emerging Leaders Edition, renowned leadership expert Bill George and Millennial tech entrepreneur Zach Clayton issue the challenge to emerging leaders—from Gen X to Millennials and Gen Z—to lead their organizations authentically through never-ending crises to make this world a better place for everyone. This edition is filled with stories from successful leaders such as Merck's Ken Frazier to PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, and emerging leaders like OneTrust's Kabir Barday on how they overcame great challenges to build highly successful organizations.

For years, we've been told that authenticity is the key to success—that we should be true to ourselves, tune out others' opinions, and lead with unwavering genuineness. This feel-good message has spawned countless self-help books, leadership seminars, and viral social media posts. There's just one problem: science says it's wrong. Drawing on decades of research, renowned psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic reveals an uncomfortable truth: our obsession with authenticity is backfiring.

In this highly-anticipated sequel to Monetizing Innovation, Madhavan Ramanujam and Eddie Hartman unveil a battle-tested playbook for architecting profitable growth. Drawing from their experience advising over 400 companies―including 50+ unicorns―the authors dissect both legendary successes and costly failures. Packed with real-world case studies, hard-hitting insights, and nine breakthrough strategies, Scaling Innovation reveals how founders, executives, and investors need to navigate the critical transition from product-market fit to building an enduring, high-value business.