Business

Brief Summary The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimistand Genome returns with a fascinating, brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world. The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch—the endless fascination human beings have for design rather than evolution, for direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics and philosophy, Matt Ridley’s wide-ranging, highly opinionated opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high, whether in government, business, academia, or morality. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the bottom up. Patterns emerge, trends evolve. Just as skeins of geese form Vs in the sky without meaning to, and termites build mud cathedrals without architects, so brains take shape without brain-makers, learning can happen without teaching and morality changes without a plan. Although we neglect, defy and ignore them, bottom-up trends shape the world. The growth of technology, the sanitation-driven health revolution, the quadrupling of farm yields so that more land can be released for nature—these were largely emergent phenomena, as were the Internet, the mobile phone revolution, and the rise of Asia. Ridley demolishes the arguments for design and effectively makes the case for evolution in the universe, morality, genes, the economy, culture, technology, the mind, personality, population, education, history, government, God, money, and the future. As compelling as it is controversial, authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley’s stunning perspective will revolutionize the way we think about our world and how it works. ISBN:9780062296009 Author:Matt Ridley

Brief Summary Teach Your Team to Fish: Using Ancient Wisdom for Inspired Teamwork. Jesus Built an Inspired Team. You Can, Too. Laurie Beth Jones has given hundreds of thousands of business reader’s insight into how the ideas of Jesus can be used to enhance performance. In Teach Your Team to Fish, Jones focuses on one of the most critical areas for anyone in business: teamwork. Leaders today face their greatest challenges not only in defining strategies and getting updated information but also in getting diverse human beings to pull together without falling apart. Jesus is a role model for team leaders everywhere. Teach Your Team to Fish offers dozens of stories from the Bible, showing how Jesus managed his team of disciples and other followers, with suggestions for how to apply these lessons to real-world teambuilding and management problems. It offers guidance and inspiration on: • How to excite your team members in order to motivate them • How to ground them so they’ll be realistic about what can be achieved • How to transform them into a truly well-functioning team • How to release them into the world to improve teams elsewhere Laurie Beth Jones provides many examples of companies in which teams work well together and offers lessons that can help team leaders everywhere sustain themselves and achieve their common goals. ISBN:9781400053117 Author:Laurie Beth Jones

Brief Summary In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. At best, they offer the sorry spectacle of countries' stealing growth from their trading partners. At worst, they degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession, retaliation, and sometimes actual violence. Left unchecked, the next currency war could lead to a crisis worse than the panic of 2008. Currency wars have happened before-twice in the last century alone-and they always end badly. Time and again, paper currencies have collapsed, assets have been frozen, gold has been confiscated, and capital controls have been imposed. And the next crash is overdue. Recent headlines about the debasement of the dollar, bailouts in Greece and Ireland, and Chinese currency manipulation are all indicators of the growing conflict. As James Rickards argues in Currency Wars, this is more than just a concern for economists and investors. The United States is facing serious threats to its national security, from clandestine gold purchases by China to the hidden agendas of sovereign wealth funds. Greater than any single threat is the very real danger of the collapse of the dollar itself. Baffling to many observers is the rank failure of economists to foresee or prevent the economic catastrophes of recent years. Not only have their theories failed to prevent calamity, they are making the currency wars worse. The U. S. Federal Reserve has engaged in the greatest gamble in the history of finance, a sustained effort to stimulate the economy by printing money on a trillion-dollar scale. Its solutions present hidden new dangers while resolving none of the current dilemmas. While the outcome of the new currency war is not yet certain, some version of the worst-case scenario is almost inevitable if U.S. and world economic leaders fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. Rickards untangles the web of failed paradigms, wishful thinking, and arrogance driving current public policy and points the way toward a more informed and effective course of action. ISBN:9781591845560 Author:James Rickards

Brief Summary Revise your game plan and profit from the change. If you need the best practices and ideas for creating business models that drive growth--but don't have time to find them--this book is for you. Here are 10 inspiring and useful perspectives, all in one place. This collection of HBR articles will help you: • Reinvent your business profitably • Set your model up for success with a winning competitive strategy • Test and change your assumptions about customers • Spot trends that could transform your business • Exploit disruptive technologies • Give traditional offerings a shot in the arm • Produce game changers for your industry or market • Build a new business in an established organization ISBN:9781422162620 Author:Harvard Business Review

Brief Summary Fresh ideas can mean big profits but only if they make it to market and sell. If you need the best practices and ideas for creating and delivering new products and services but don't have time to find them this book is for you. Here are 10 inspiring and useful perspectives, all in one place. This collection of HBR articles will help you: • Decide which ideas are worth pursuing, • Adapt offerings from the developing world to wealthy markets, • Plan all-new ventures by testing and tweaking, • Tailor your efforts to meet customers' most pressing needs, • Make inexpensive products on a vast scale, measure and improve innovation performance, • Avoid classic pitfalls such as stifling innovation with rigid processes. ISBN:9781422162613 Author:Harvard Business Review

Brief Summary The First 90 Days in Government: Critical Success Strategies for New Public Managers at All Levels. More than 250,000 public sector managers in the United States take on new positions each year and many more aspire to leadership. Each will confront special challenges--from higher public profiles to a greater number of stakeholders to volatile political environments--that will make their transitions even more challenging than in the business world. Now Michael D. Watkins, author of the best-selling book The First 90 Days, applies his proven leadership transition framework to the public sector. Watkins and co-author Peter H. Daly address the crucial differences between the private and public sectors that go to the heart of how success and failure are defined, measured, and rewarded or penalized. This concise, practical book provides a roadmap to help new government leaders at all levels accelerate their transitions by overcoming nine transition challenges, ranging from clarifying expectations to defining goals to building a team to managing personal stress. The authors also offer detailed strategies for avoiding major "transition traps." Zeroing in on the challenges facing new government leaders, Getting Up to Speed in Government is an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to lead and succeed in the public sector. " ISBN:9781591399551 Author:Peter H. Daly, Michael D. Watkins and Cate Reavis