Business

Brief Summary Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity The world is changing fast. Political risk-the probability that a political action could significantly impact a company's business-is affecting more businesses in more ways than ever before. A generation ago, political risk mostly involved a handful of industries dealing with governments in a few frontier markets. Today, political risk stems from a widening array of actors, including Twitter users, local officials, activists, terrorists, hackers, and more. The very institutions and laws that were supposed to reduce business uncertainty and risk are often having the opposite effect. In today's globalized world, there are no "safe" bets. POLITICAL RISK investigates and analyzes this evolving landscape, what businesses can do to navigate it, and what all of us can learn about how to better understand and grapple with these rapidly changing global political dynamics. Drawing on lessons from the successes and failures of companies across multiple industries as well as examples from aircraft carrier operations, NASA missions, and other unusual places, POLITICAL RISK offers a first-of-its-kind framework that can be deployed in any organization, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Organizations that take a serious, systematic approach to political risk management are likely to be surprised less often and recover better. Companies that don't get these basics right are more likely to get blindsided. ISBN:9781455542369 Author:Condoleezza Rice and Amy B Zegart

Brief Summary Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail: The 6 Enduring Principles of High Achievement IN COUNTLESS STUDIES, PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE DISCOVERED A SURPRISING FACT: For decades they assumed that people who face adversity—a difficult childhood, career turbulence, sudden bouts of bad luck—will succumb to their circumstances. Yet over and over again they found a significant percentage are able to overcome their life circumstances and achieve spectacular success. How it is that individuals who are not "supposed” to succeed manage to overcome the odds? Are there certain traits that such people have in common? Can the rest of us learn from their success and apply it to our own lives? In Succeeding When You’re Supposed to Fail, Rom Brafman, psychologist and coauthor of the bestselling book Sway, set out to answer these questions. In a riveting narrative that interweaves compelling stories from education, the military, and business and a wide range of groundbreaking new research, Brafman identifies the six hidden drivers behind unlikely success. Among them: •The critical importance of the Limelight Effect—our ability to redirect the focus of our lives to the result of our own efforts, as opposed to external forces •The value of a satellite in our lives—the remarkable way in which a consistent ally who accepts us unconditionally while still challenging us to be our best can make a huge difference •The power of temperament—people who are able to tunnel through life’s obstacles have a surprisingly mild disposition; they don’t allow the bumps in the road to unsettle them By understanding and incorporating these strategies in our own lives, Brafman argues, we can all be better prepared to overcome the inevitable obstacles we face, from setbacks at work to challenges in our personal lives. ISBN:9780307887689 Author:Rom Brafman

Brief Summary Plan B: How to Hatch a Second Plan That's Always Better Than Your First Why has Facebook been so limber, evolving so successfully even after a number of stumbles, while Myspace stalled and lost ground? Why was Wal-Mart able to expand so successfully into new offerings, such as groceries, while H&R Block dramatically failed to expand into offering financial services? The answer, David Murray reveals, is that Facebook and Wal-Mart both started with business models that empowered them to effectively adapt their plans as they executed them. The failure of detailed strategic plans that have taken a great deal of time and money to develop is one of the worst problems in business, and it’s ever more urgent as the pace of change in business continues to accelerate. Murray, author of the acclaimed Wall Street Journal bestseller Borrowing Brilliance, argues that valiantly sticking to even a well-thought-out Plan A is the road to disaster. The greatest success comes to those who know how to construct and implement an adaptive Plan A that has within it the means of evolving into a superior Plan B by responding to problems confronted, discoveries made, changing market conditions, and the competition. Writing in a lively, engaging voice and using a series of specific examples drawn from companies including IBM, Intel, Facebook, American Express, and Kaiser Permanente, as well as from the art of war, including the Battle of Gettysburg and the D-Day invasion, and even from the space program, Murray presents powerful methods for constructing a plan that has the mechanisms for adaptation built in. Drawing on a wealth of research, he explains why we are fairly good at short-term predictions but why, in our ever more rapidly changing business world, even the best laid plans will eventually go astray. He then introduces the best techniques for creating an optimal original plan that takes into account our limited ability to predict, showing that vital to this process is that it be constructed so that we are alerted in time to make the right changes. In a brilliant discussion of strategy and tactics, he shows that the core of this adaptability is making sure that your strategy and tactics are well aligned with one another and that you have established the right metrics for measuring results. He then details precisely how to adapt throughout the execution process by constantly monitoring and assessing results, developing worst-case scenarios, and recognizing unanticipated opportunities. Plan B is an essential guide to harnessing the forces of change to achieve long-lasting success despite the most vexing challenges. ISBN:B004INH9TA Author:David Kord Murray

Brief Summary Smart Retail: Practical Winning Ideas and Strategies from the Most Successful Retailers in the World A really practical and helpful guide: essential reading for anyone involved in retailing. Charles Dunstone, CEO, The Carphone Warehouse Work in retail for any length of time and it gets into your system. It’s immediate, exciting, risky and hard to predict. No two days are the same ? one day could be a triumph, the next a disaster. But when you get it right, it’s thrilling. Based on one simple question, which Richard Hammond posed to the world’s leading retailers: • What makes you so good? Smart Retail shows you how to use some of the best winning ideas, strategies and tactical thinking. • Discover the secrets of great retailing Boost sales with practical advice from the best retailers in the world Learn how to delight customers and keep them coming back for more • A toolkit of retailing skills to take you beyond survival, to super-performance. • This book is full of practical, good things to make running stores that bit easier to get right • A wonderful insight into the world of retailing. A fun and inspiring read, particularly for those close to retail. ISBN:9780273744542 Author:Richard Hammond