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Lead by Gary Burnison
Brief Summary
Lead is a different kind of book. Rather than being the "last word" on leading others, it is meant to be the "first word"--an invitation to the reader to reflect on what the leadership journey means to each and every individual.
At its core, Lead will benefit anyone who seeks to inspire, influence, or lead others, whether they are coaches, teachers, pastors, community organizers, politicians--or are in the C-suite.
Lead offers an exploration of the essential elements of leadership, which author Gary Burnison defines as: purpose, strategy, people, measure, empower, reward, anticipate, navigate, communicate, listen, and learn--all of which culminate in leading.
Instead of taking the left-brain approach of "paradigm shifts" and "leadership models," the author focuses on right-brain constants such as emotional connection, compassion, focusing on others, humility, and managing oneself. Lead readers will find inspiring stories, easy to digest analogies, reflective exercises and evocative images meant to give them pause, draw them in, and encourage introspection.
ISBN:9781118750742
Author:Gary Burnison
Practice Perfect 42 Rules for Getting...
Brief Summary
Rules for developing talent with disciplined, deliberate, intelligent practice
We live in a competition loving culture. We love the performance, the big win, the ticking seconds of the clock as the game comes down to the wire. We watch games and cheer, sometimes to the point of obsession, but if we really wanted to see greatness--wanted to cheer for it, see it happen, understand what made it happen--we'd spend our time watching, obsessing on, and maybe even cheering the practices instead. This book puts practice on the front burner of all who seek to instill talent and achievement in others as well as in themselves. This is a journey to understand that practice, not games, makes champions.
In this book, the authors engage the dream of better, both in fields and endeavors where participants know they should practice and also in those where many do not yet recognize the transformative power of practice. And it's not just whether you practice. How you practice may be a true competitive advantage.
Deliberately engineered and designed practice can revolutionize our most important endeavors. The clear set of rules presented in Practice Perfect will make us better in virtually every performance of life. The "how-to" rules of practice cover such topics as rethinking practice, modeling excellent practice, using feedback, creating a culture of practice, making new skills stick, and hiring for practice.
Discover new ways to think about practice. Learn how to design successful practice. Apply practice across a wide range of realms, both personal and professional The authors include specific activities to jump-start practice Doug Lemov is the best-selling author of Teach Like a Champion
A hands-on resource to practice, the rules within will help to create positive outliers and world-changing reservoirs of talent.
ISBN:9781118216583
Author:Doug Lemov, Katie Yezzi and Erica Woolway
In Gods Hands by Desmond Tutu
Brief Summary
In God's Hands: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2015
In God's Hands is the 2015 Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book. It is a meditation on the infinite love of God and the infinite value of the human individual. Not only are we in God's hands, says Desmond Tutu, our names are engraved on the palms of God's hands. Throughout an often turbulent life, Archbishop Tutu has fought for justice and against oppression and prejudice.
As we learn in this book, what has driven him forward is an unshakeable belief that human beings are created in the image of God and are infinitely valuable. Each one of us is a God-carrier, a tabernacle, a sanctuary of the Divine Trinity. God loves us not because we are loveable but because he first loved us. And this turns our values upside down. In this sense, the Gospel is the most radical thing imaginable.
It is extremely moving that in this book Archbishop Tutu returns to something so simple and so profound after a life in which he has been involved in political, social, and ethical issues that have seemed to be so very complex.
ISBN:9781620409763
Author:Desmond Tutu
Its the Thought That Counts by David ...
Brief Summary
It's the Thought That Counts: Why Mind Over Matter Really Works.
When pharmaceutical scientist David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., observed the results of tests on new drugs, he noticed that patients receiving control placebo pills reported the same level of improvement as those receiving the actual drug.
Seeing this result repeat itself time and time again, he became fascinated by the mind-body connection and started to research the work of scientists, mystics, and healers working in this field.
The result is this groundbreaking book, in which Hamilton explains how the mind and emotions can influence the well-being of your body and even the structure of your DNA. You’ll learn about: the physical impact of meditation, why sending healing thoughts to a person in need is so beneficial, the power of love and its impact on body cells, and all the many ways in which your thoughts affect you.
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The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powel...
Brief Summary
Inspiration from the man who went from humble beginnings in Harlem to the office of Secretary of State Colin Powell is the classic American success story. Born in Harlem to immigrant parents, Powell rose through the ranks of the U.S. military to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a soft-spoken, steel-willed Desert Storm hero. Always seemingly one step ahead of both allies and competitors, he quickly became one of America's most trusted and beloved public icons, acknowledged for his courage, his compassion, and his ability to forge victory under the most trying circumstances.
The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell recounts Powell's core beliefs on leadership, negotiation, self-knowledge, and more. Based on an article written by Oren Harari after Harari met Powell and heard him speak, an article so compelling that it became the subject of a front-page feature in the Wall Street Journal, this leadership primer reveals the secrets and insights that made Colin Powell the success he is today. Short, snappy, and packed with Powell's depth and spirit, it will help readers inspire anyone to achieve extraordinary performance.
"The Performance of the Organization is the Ultimate Measure of the Leader."
Colin Powell has established an entirely new paradigm for leadership excellence. Through four U.S. presidents and countless world crises—including the current high-stakes campaign against global terror—the blunt-spoken four-star general has grown to become one of the world's most effective, bottom-line leaders.
The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell goes beyond other books to take an honest look into the foundations of Powell's compelling leadership style. Practical yet penetrating, it examines:
* Powell as Provocateur—Techniques Powell uses to encourage group debate—and consistently arrive at the best solution
* The Powell Character—The Powell model for assuming the role of leader, and setting a positive tone throughout any organization
* Powell's Principles—Concise yet powerful credos that have guided Powell through times of triumph and doubt
Sparked with insights and observations that are as refreshingly honest as they are grittily realistic, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell is the first in-depth exploration of Colin Powell's goal-driven approach to leadership. Whether you are currently a business leader or one who aspires to leadership, it provides a blueprint for inspiring anyone—including yourself—to achieve extraordinary levels of performance.
ISBN:9780071418614
Author:Oren Harari
Lament for the Fallen by Gavin Chait
Brief Summary
'Father, tell me a story?' asks Isaiah, moments before a strange craft falls from the sky and smashes into the jungle near his isolated West African community. Inside the ruined vessel the villagers find the shattered body of a man. His name is Samara and he is a man unlike any the villagers have seen before - a man who is perhaps something more than human.
With his city home of Achenia hiding in the rubble left by a devastating war, Samara has fallen 35,000 km to earth in order to escape the automated hell of an orbiting prison called Tartarus. As he struggles to heal himself, he helps transform the lives of those who rescued him but in so doing attracts the attention of the brutal warlord who rules over this benighted, ravaged post-21st century land. He is not a man to be crossed, and now he threatens the very existence of the villagers themselves and the one, slim chance Samara has of finding his way home and to the woman - and the world - he loves.
And all the while - in the darkness above - waits the simmering fury that lies at the heart of Tartarus . . .
ISBN:9780857523693
Author:Gavin Chait
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Brief Summary
When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous and legendary city, three people wandering along Bar Beach (Adaora, the marine biologist- Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa- Agu, the troubled soldier) find themselves running a race against time to save the country they love and the world itself… from itself.
Told from multiple points of view and crisscrossing narratives, combining everything from superhero comics to Nigerian mythology to tie together a story about a city consuming itself.
‘There was no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek. And there was no pain. It was like being thrown into the stars.’
ISBN:9781444762754
Author:Nnedi Okorafor
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Brief Summary
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. "God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
ISBN:9780812995343
Author:George Saunders
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Brief Summary
8 hours, 20 minutes
Who says you can't run away from your problems?
You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.
Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, LESS is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," LESS shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.
ISBN:9780316316125
Author:Andrew Sean Greer
The Master Algorithm How the Quest fo...
Brief Summary
Algorithms increasingly run our lives. They find books, movies, jobs, and dates for us, manage our investments, and discover new drugs. More and more, these algorithms work by learning from the trails of data we leave in our newly digital world. Like curious children, they observe us, imitate, and experiment. And in the world’s top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask.
Machine learning is the automation of discovery—the scientific method on steroids—that enables intelligent robots and computers to program themselves. No field of science today is more important yet more shrouded in mystery. Pedro Domingos, one of the field’s leading lights, lifts the veil for the first time to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone.
He charts a course through machine learning’s five major schools of thought, showing how they turn ideas from neuroscience, evolution, psychology, physics, and statistics into algorithms ready to serve you. Step by step, he assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner—the Master Algorithm—and discusses what it means for you, and for the future of business, science, and society.
If data-ism is today’s rising philosophy, this book will be its bible. The quest for universal learning is one of the most significant, fascinating, and revolutionary intellectual developments of all time. A groundbreaking book, The Master Algorithm is the essential guide for anyone and everyone wanting to understand not just how the revolution will happen, but how to be at its forefront.
ISBN:9780465065707
Author:Pedro Domingos
The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer...
Brief Summary
This rich, moving, and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker—places today’s headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again.
It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. But the country Nour’s mother once knew is changing, and it isn’t long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood.
When a shell destroys Nour’s house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety. As their journey becomes more and more challenging, Nour’s idea of home becomes a dream she struggles to remember and a hope she cannot live without.
More than eight hundred years earlier, Rawiya, sixteen and a widow’s daughter, knows she must do something to help her impoverished mother. Restless and longing to see the world, she leaves home to seek her fortune. Disguising herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, who has been commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to create a map of the world. In his employ, Rawiya embarks on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa where she encounters ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures.
A deep immersion into the richly varied cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, The Map of Salt and Stars follows the journeys of Nour and Rawiya as they travel along identical paths across the region eight hundred years apart, braving the unknown beside their companions as they are pulled by the promise of reaching home at last.
ISBN:9781501169038
Author:Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar
The Middle of Nowhere by Geraldine Mc...
Brief Summary
When her mother dies from a snake bite, Comity Pinny's life in the middle of the Australian outback changes for ever. Her father, Herbert, retreats into his work transmitting telegrams, abandoning Comity when she needs him most.
Comity turns to Fred, the young Aboriginal yard boy, and he becomes her only friend. But then a new assistant arrives who delights in playing cruel games. Soon Comity struggles to hold things together as events begin to spiral dangerously out of control.
ISBN:9781409522003
Author:Geraldine McCaughrean
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
In contemporary Sierra Leone, a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with secrets to keep. In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic.
As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories.
A work of breathtaking writing and rare wisdom, The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love.
Optimism over Despair On Capitalism E...
Brief Summary
This volume offers readers a concise and accessible introduction to the ideas of Noam Chomsky, described by the New York Timesas "arguably the most important intellectual alive.”
In these recent, wide-ranging interviews, conducted for Truthoutby C. J. Polychroniou, Chomsky discusses his views on the "war on terror” and the rise of neoliberalism, the refugee crisis and cracks in the European Union, prospects for a just peace in Israel/Palestine, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the dysfunctional US electoral system, the grave danger posed to humanity by the climate crisis, and the hopes, prospects, and challenges of building a movement for radical change.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. His work is widely credited with having revolutionized the field of modern linguistics. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works, which have been translated into scores of languages
ISBN:9781608467990
Author:Noam Chomsky
Peace land Conflict Resolution and th...
Brief Summary
Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention.
This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness.
Individuals from all over the world and all walks of life share numerous practices, habits, and narratives when they serve as interveners in conflict zones. These common attitudes and actions enable foreign peacebuilders to function in the field, but they also result in unintended consequences that thwart international efforts.
Certain expatriates follow alternative modes of thinking and acting, often with notable results, but they remain in the minority. Through an in-depth analysis of the interveners' everyday life and work, this book proposes innovative ways to better help host populations build a sustainable peace.
ISBN:9781107632042
Author:Séverine Autesserre
Profiles in Courage by John F Kennedy
Brief Summary
Written in 1955 by the then junior senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage serves as a clarion call to every American.
In this book Kennedy chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes, coming from different junctures in our nation’s history, include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft.
Now, a half-century later, the book remains a moving, powerful, and relevant testament to the indomitable national spirit and an unparalleled celebration of that most noble of human virtues. It resounds with timeless lessons on the most cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. Profiles in Courage is as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword: "not just stories of the past but a book of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us."
Along with vintage photographs and an extensive author biography, this book features Kennedy's correspondence about the writing project, contemporary reviews, a letter from Ernest Hemingway, and two rousing speeches from recipients of the Profile in Courage Award. Introduction by John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, forward by John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy.
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ISBN:9780060530624
Author:John F Kennedy
Rainbow in the Cloud The Wisdom and S...
Brief Summary
"Words mean more than what is set down on paper,” Maya Angelou wrote in her groundbreaking memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Indeed, Angelou’s words have traveled the world and transformed lives—inspiring, strengthening, and healing. Through a long and prolific career in letters, she became one of the most celebrated voices of our time.
Now, in this collection of sage advice, humorous quips, and pointed observations culled from the author’s great works, including The Heart of a Woman, On the Pulse of Morning, Gather Together in My Name, and Letter to My Daughter, Maya Angelou’s spirit endures. Rainbow in the Cloud offers resonant and rewarding quotes on such topics as creativity and culture, family and community, equality and race, values and spirituality, parenting and relationships. Perhaps most special, Maya Angelou’s only son, Guy Johnson, has contributed some of his mother’s most powerful sayings, shared directly with him and the members of their family.
A treasured keepsake as well as a beautiful tribute to a woman who touched so many, Rainbow in the Cloud reminds us that "If one has courage, nothing can dim the light which shines from within.”
ISBN:9780812996456
Author:Maya Angelou
Putin and the Rise of Russia
Brief Summary
Putin and the Rise of Russia: The Country That Came in from the Cold War
Not for the first time in the last two centuries, Russia leaves the world wondering about its destiny. In spite of the losses incurred when the Soviet Empire imploded, Russia is still an enormous country of ten time-zones; from Kaliningrad Oblast to Sakhalin, it is a land of vast empty spaces full of promise, with a population of more than 140 million - 15 million of them Muslim - looking at the crescent rising rather than the cross and the stars, suspecting that St George might not be their friend and protector.
It is a power with vast military inventories, among them more than 10,000 nuclear weapons in various configurations, an energy giant whose oil reserves will last, at present rates of exploitation, for more than 30 years, and with natural gas for more than 180 years.
There is also the Old Russian cultural and geopolitical ambiguity between Europe and Asia and the new oscillation between weak elements of democracy and, invariably, strong elements of autocracy.
Questions abound as to what constitutes Russia's national interest; especially now, as a result of the conflict in South Ossetia. With Vladimir Putin no longer President, and after several years of rising oil and gas revenues, many Russians fear instability and insecurity. But the outside world, too, keeps wondering what will happen next. It is a defining moment for Russia, with far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.
Professor Stuermer has observed at close quarters the former President as he steered his country out of the chaos of the post-Yeltsin years. His account is both authoritative and timely, and considers the future for a country striving to be, once again, a great power with global reach.
ISBN:9780297855095
Author:Michael Stuermer
How To Talk So Kids Can Learn
Brief Summary
The leading experts on parent-child communication show parents and teachers how to motivate kids to learn and succeed in school.
Using the unique communication strategies, down-to-earth dialogues, and delightful cartoons that are the hallmark of their multimillion-copy bestseller How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish show parents and teachers how to help children handle the everyday problems that interfere with learning.
This breakthrough book demonstrates how parents and teachers can join forces to inspire kids to be self-directed, self-disciplined, and responsive to the wonders of learning.
ISBN:9780684824727
Author:Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
iWoz by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith
Brief Summary
iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It
Before slim laptops that fit into briefcases, computers looked like strange, alien vending machines. But in "the most staggering burst of technical invention by a single person in high-tech history" (BusinessWeek) Steve Wozniak invented the first true personal computer.
Wozniak teamed up with Steve Jobs, and Apple Computer was born, igniting the computer revolution and transforming the world. Here, thirty years later, the mischievous genius with the low profile treats readers to a rollicking, no-holds-barred account of his life—for once, in the voice of the wizard himself.
ISBN:9780393330434
Author:Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith
