Stories
Stories
September 2018 Alumni and Faculty Books
Topics: Information-BooksEducation-AlumniEducation-FacultyAlumni Books
Perfect Is Boring: 10 Things My Crazy, Fierce Mama Taught Me about Beauty, Booty, and Being a Boss
by Tyra Banks (OPM 42, 2012) and Carolyn London
TarcherPerigree
Tyra Banks and her mother, Carolyn, share what they’ve learned on Tyra’s journey from insecure preteen to supermodel and entrepreneurial powerhouse. Carolyn’s mix of pep talk and tough love got Tyra to where she is today, and here they pay it forward to empower readers. Whether they’re writing about watching Tyra’s most imperfect moment go viral or how they’ve overcome everything from fashion industry discrimination to media fat-shaming, they never lose their sense of humor. Full of smart, wise, and often hilarious lessons for mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons everywhere, this book is a must-read for anyone who needs a kick in the butt, a pat on the back, or a good reason to laugh.
The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture
by Scott Belsky (MBA 2009)
Portfolio
We love talking about starts and finishes, even though the middle stretch is the most important and often the most ignored and misunderstood. We don’t talk about the middle because we’re not proud of the turbulence of our own making and the actions we took out of despair. This book sets out to change that. Belsky draws on his experiences building Behance, selling it, and then working as an investor and advisor to distill seven years’ worth of vital insights at every stage of building a business. These essential insights for enduring and optimizing the middle miles will outfit managers to find their way through the messy middle of any bold project or new venture.
Denial: How Refusing to Face the Facts about Our Autism Epidemic Hurts Children, Families, and Our Future
by Mark Blaxill (MBA 1984) and Dan Olmsted
Skyhorse Publishing
Even as the autism rate soars and the cost to our nation climbs into the billions, a dangerous new idea is taking hold: There simply is no autism epidemic. The authors believe autism is new, that the real rate is rising dramatically, and that those affected are injured and disabled, not merely “neurodiverse.” They call the refusal to acknowledge this reality Autism Epidemic Denial. The key to stopping the epidemic, they say, is to stop lying about its history and start asking “who profits?” People who deny that autism is new have self-interested motives, such as ending research that might pinpoint responsibility and, most threateningly, liability for this man-made epidemic.
Europe and the End of the Age of Innocence
by Francesco M. Bongiovanni (MBA 1980)
Palgrave Macmillan
Francesco Bongiovanni returns with a sequel to The Decline and the Fall of Europe. Since 2012 Europe has been confronting new, game-changing challenges such as the refugee crisis, the surprise of Brexit, and the explosion of “alternative” politics. Europeans have realized that the open societies they have been comfortably living in are under threat and fragmenting, leaving their survival uncertain. Minorities are falling prey to an Islamist ideology that conveys values and customs diametrically opposed to European ones. Terrorist acts have become the “new normal,” part of daily life. The North-South cleavage brought about by the eurozone crisis is now completed by a deep East-West cleavage born from the refugee crisis. Against this backdrop, a Germany that is not all that it seems has become Europe’s de-facto ruler but is unfit to lead, while Trump’s America cannot be counted on as before, forcing Europe to fend for itself. A naïve, unprepared Europe, facing new and terrifying challenges, is torn apart more than ever, increasingly unstable and adrift.
Creating Mindful Leaders: How to Power Down, Power Up, and Power Forward
by Joe Burton (PMD 75, 2000)
Wiley
Mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and resilience are the “must have skills” for modern leaders, yet many professionals are too stressed to know where to start. Burton provides deep insights and easy practices based in neuroscience, brain training, and positive psychology to help professionals thrive in the “age of disruption.” Burton provides relatable, real-world advice, helps build resilience while changing your relationship to stress, and shares a roadmap for sustainable performance in the face of ongoing change.
How to Wash a Chicken: Mastering the Business Presentation
by Tim Calkins (MBA 1991)
Page Two
This is not a book about public speaking (or chickens), it’s a comprehensive playbook for business leaders and people on their way up to give the best presentations of their lives. More often than not, the best intentions and most innovative ideas get lost in a poorly executed presentation. With concrete suggestions, helpful tricks, and step-by-step guidance applicable to all industries, Calkins inspires his readers to create and deliver effective business presentations and pitches.
Master Growth Hacking: The Best-Kept Secret of New-Age Indian Start-Ups
by Apurva Chamaria (SELP 1, 2017) and Gaurav Kakkar
Random Business
Growth hacking is a combination of coding, data intelligence, and marketing. It doesn't take much investment, just a lot of creativity, smart data analysis, and agility. It has now emerged as the new word for growth used by start-ups and entrepreneurs in India and across the world. This book is full of riveting stories by the pioneers of growth hacking in India, the founders of Zomato, IndiaMart, ShopClues, Paisabazaar, and a lot more.
Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First
by Ram Charan (MBA 1965), Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey
HBR Press
Typical talent-planning and HR processes are designed for predictable environments, traditional ways of getting work done, and organizations where “lines and boxes” still define how people are managed. As work and organizations have become more fluid and business strategy is no longer about planning years ahead but about sensing and seizing new opportunities and adapting to a constantly changing environment, companies must deploy talent in new ways to remain competitive. The authors provide leaders with a new playbook for acquiring, managing, and deploying talent for today’s agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment. Filled with examples of forward-thinking companies that have adopted radical new approaches to talent, this book shows leaders how to bring the rigor they apply to financial capital to their human capital, elevating HR to the same level as finance in their organizations.
The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias
by Dolly Chugh (MBA 1994)
HarperBusiness
Chugh offers advice on how to confront difficult issues including sexism, racism, inequality, and injustice so that we can make the world (and ourselves) better. Being the person we mean to be starts with a look at ourselves. The author argues that the only way to be on the right side of history is to be a good-ish— rather than good—person. Good-ish people are always growing. She helps us find our “ordinary privilege,” the part of our everyday identity that we take for granted, such as race for a white person, sexual orientation for a straight person, gender for a man, or education for a college graduate. This part of our identity may bring blind spots, but it is the best tool for influencing change. She introduces the psychological reasons that make it hard for us to see the bias in and around us. Finally, she guides us on how, when, and whom to engage (or not engage) in our workplaces, homes, and communities.
A Boyhood in Wartime Britain
by Michael H. Coles (MBA 1961)
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Collecting shrapnel from his front yard; identifying incoming bombers by their silhouettes; sleeping in the family bomb shelter–these were the everyday realities of a boyhood spent in the outskirts of London during the early 1940s. In this personal and meticulously detailed account of growing up under the stresses, daily dangers, and constant movement of unrestrained warfare, Michael Coles offers us a compelling portrait of the resilience of childhood.
The High Potential’s Advantage: Get Noticed, Impress Your Bosses, and Become a Top Leader
by Jay Conger (DBA 1985) and Allan Church
HBR Press
Being seen as a high-potential leader is essential to reaching your organization’s upper echelons, but most companies keep their top-talent list a closely guarded secret. And the assessment process used to decide who is a future leader is an even greater mystery. This book shows how you can get on and stay on your company’s fast track. The authors draw upon decades of research and experience to answer critical questions like: What will it take for me to advance in this organization? What does my boss look for when deciding whether I’m a high potential? Once I’m on the list, then what? Can I fall off it and, if so, what do I do? Revealing the five critical “X factors” that set people apart across companies of all types, the authors show what you need to do to achieve and maintain top-talent status. You’ll find detailed advice for cultivating and practicing each X factor. They also show you how to gain insight into and excel at the specific process your company uses to identify and develop high potentials and how to determine which unique capabilities your company values the most.
K-12 On the Brink: Why America’s Education System Fails to Improve, and Only Business Leadership Can Fix It
by Tom Coyne (MBA 1984)
Independently published
Ask yourself this question: “What will my state look like five or ten years from now if K-12 education performance doesn’t substantially improve?” The consequences of each year sending tens of thousands of unprepared kids into a harshly competitive world are already clear. They include rising social safety net spending (leaving less for infrastructure, higher education, and other needs), worsening inequality, and increasing social and political conflict. And with improving technology and intensifying global competition, they will only grow worse if America’s K-12 education results don’t substantially improve and quickly. Confronting the second question, “Why do so many school districts fail to improve, and what can we do about it?” Coyne describes the system that has generated the challenges we face today and illustrates them with a number of case studies, based on his unique perspective as an experienced business executive who has been involved in K-12 for almost twenty years. He then identifies performance improvements initiatives that have produced impressive results and explains why they can work at scale only if American business leaders become much more engaged with K-12 performance improvement.
One-Eyed Man and Other Stories
by Geoffrey Craig (MBA 1967)
Golden Antelope Press
This collection of 21 stories is organized into five sections, each with stories loosely focused on a particular place, time, and set of characters. The Blue Heron Lake stories follow a community of Latino workers who try to make their town a sanctuary city. The Brandon Forsythe stories feature a talented African American man, wrongfully imprisoned, who becomes a successful drug lord. The Carmichael stories feature two generations of Swedish immigrants in upstate New York, facing—or avoiding—the challenges that industrialization and automation create. The Snake stories, set in 1920s South Carolina, provide disturbing images of Jim Crow at work. And the stand-alone story, “Morocco,” will convince readers that travel can help heal the deepest of wounds.
Build Your Fortune in the Fifth Era: How Angel Investors, VCs, and Entrepreneurs Prosper in an Age of Unprecedented Innovation
by Alison Davis (MBA 1988) and Matthew C. Le Merle
Cartwright Publishing
The Internet didn't even exist 30 years ago, and now billions of people are connected to the web, and remarkable new technologies are being invented every day that will dramatically change the way humans exist on our planet. This emerging playing field is not well understood, and not everyone who was successful in the past will be able to benefit from this momentous shift. In this book, the authors provide insights, based on 30 years of leading and advising new technology companies on the rules of this game, and outline options for how readers can participate and prosper in the coming Fifth Era. Through the inspiring stories in this book, you’ll understand this age of unprecedented change, discover the greatest wealth creation opportunity ever, and explore nine options for building your fortune.
Corporate Innovation in the Fifth Era: Lessons from Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft
by Alison Davis (MBA 1988) and Matthew Le Merle
Cartwright Publishing
Over the last 30 years a host of new technologies have begun to change every industry driving us into a new era of human existence. The companies who have been most able to tap into these innovations have become the most highly valued companies in the world. To do so, they have created a new approach to corporate innovation. In this book the authors share the lessons they have learned from two decades of interaction with Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft as well as other leading companies.
Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success
by Samuel Dinnar (PMD 76) and Lawrence Susskind
Palgrave Macmillan
This book presents entrepreneurship as a series of interactions between founders, partners, potential partners, investors, and others at various stages of the entrepreneurial process, from seed to exit. Many authors offer tips on how to succeed as an entrepreneur, but no one else has scrutinized the negotiation mistakes that successful entrepreneurs talked about with the authors. Learning to handle emotions, manage uncertainty, cope with technical complexity, and build long-term relationships are equally or even more important. This book spotlights eight big mistakes that entrepreneurs often make and shows how most can be prevented with some forethought. It includes interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs about their own mistakes. It also covers gender biases, cultural challenges, and when to employ agents to negotiate on your behalf.
There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir
by Casey Gerald (MBA 2014)
Riverhead Books
Casey Gerald’s story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year’s Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather’s black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like boxcar children on her disability checks. When Casey, following in the footsteps of his father, is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he’s never dreamed of, the anteroom to secret societies and success on Wall Street, in Washington, and beyond. But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins and how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising. And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme. If to live as we are is destroying us, he asks, what would it mean to truly live? This book inspires us to question and reimagine our most cherished myths.
The New Global Road Map: Enduring Strategies for Turbulent Times
by Pankaj Ghemawat (PhDBE 1982)
HBR Press
Executives can no longer base their strategies on the assumption that globalization will continue to advance steadily. How should they respond to growing pressures against globalization? And what can businesses do to control their destinies in these times of uncertainty? Ghemawat helps readers understand the key trends affecting global business and explains how globalization levels around the world are changing, and where they are likely to go in the future. Using the most up-to-date data and analysis, Ghemawat provides a clear view of the most critical issues facing policymakers in the years ahead.
Cold War Navy SEAL: My Story of Che Guevara, War in the Congo, and the Communist Threat in Africa
by James M. Hawes (MBA 1971) and Mary Ann Koenig
Skyhorse Publishing
Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara was trying to export his revolution a few miles away. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara. He describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission.
You Can’t Give What You Don’t Have: Creating the Seven Habits That Make a Remarkable Life
by Greg Hiebert (MBA 1990)
Grayline Publishing
It's easy to take life for granted. In the pursuit of fame, fortune, or success, we forget to take care of ourselves, missing out on things that bring us happiness and well-being. Hiebert walks you through seven fundamental habits to becoming personally and professionally fulfilled. He demonstrates how to embrace purpose, cultivate positivity, deepen relationships, express gratitude, visualize hope, be mindful, and keep moving. He also offers techniques to integrate these habits into any challenging, busy life.
Health Journal: 10 Minutes a Week to Greater Health through Tracking of Moods, Meds, Symptoms, Supplements, Results, Gratitude
by Reena Ahluwalia Jadhav (MBA 1998)
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Jadhav recommends writing a daily health journal as a way to inpire oneself to improve oneself. The mere fact that one is concentrating on some part of improving one’s health is enough. What you think about is where your energy flows.
Reinvent Your Business Model: How to Seize the White Space for Transformative Growth
by Mark W. Johnson (MBA 1996)
HBR Press
In this revised, updated, and newly titled edition of Johnson’s 2010 Seizing the White Space, he provides an eminently practical framework for understanding how a business model actually works. Identifying its four fundamental building blocks, he lays out a structured and repeatable process for reinventing an existing business model or creating a new one and then incubating and scaling it into a profitable and thriving enterprise. In a new chapter on digital transformation, he shows how serial transformers like Amazon leverage business model innovation so successfully.
Redefining Success in America: A New Theory of Happiness and Human Development
by Michael Kaufman (MBA 1994)
Univ. of Chicago Press
Work hard in school, graduate from a top college, establish a high-paying professional career, enjoy the long-lasting reward of happiness. This is the American Dream—and yet basic questions at the heart of this competitive journey remain unanswered. Does competitive success, even rarified entry into the Ivy League and the top one percent of earners in America deliver on its promise? Does realizing the American Dream deliver a good life? In this book, Kaufman develops a fundamentally new understanding of how elite undergraduate educations and careers play out in lives, and what shapes happiness among the prizewinners in America. He exposes the myth at the heart of the American Dream. Returning to the Harvard Student Study of undergraduates from the 1960s and interviewing participants almost fifty years later, Kaufman shows that formative experiences in family, school, and community largely shape a future adult’s worldview and well-being by late adolescence, and that fundamental change in adulthood, when it occurs, is shaped by adult family experiences, not by ever-greater competitive success. Published research on general samples shows that these patterns, and the book’s findings generally, are broadly applicable to demographically varied populations in the United States.
Survive or Sink
by Naina Lal Kidwai (MBA 1982)
Rupa
Kidwai underscores the role that citizens, industry, civil society, media, and the government need to play in collaboration with each other to address poor sanitation, water, and pollution, thus improving human well-being, health, and also reducing the impact of climate change. She also covers green finance and the financial structure for sustainability, inclusive growth, green jobs, and the critical role of women in social transformation.
Body of Knowledge: A Novel
by A.M. Matthews, aka Ann Mannheimer (MBA 1977)
Piggyback Press
After years of working for other biotechnology companies, Susan Glasser has achieved her dream and opened her own research laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area. After numerous unsuccessful trials, she has finally gotten a positive result from a new biologic she is testing. But before she can assess her discovery, this brilliant but socially awkward research scientist finds her life upended by a series of unrelated events. Forced to confront and deal with problems well outside her areas of expertise and training, Susan must figure out what is happening and find a way to reclaim her life.
Building Bridges: The Case for Executive Peer Networks
by James Millar (MBA 1992)
Skybridge Associates LLC
While few of us enjoy “networking,” we all crave authentic conversations with peers, clients, and key stakeholders. The pace of change is accelerating, and we need peer networks more than ever to understand what others are thinking and doing. The most successful executives often have the best networks—to share insights, provide support, and pursue common interests. But strong peer interactions rarely happen on their own. Time, trust, and low expectations too often get in the way. This book urges executives to demand more. It describes the characteristics of the most valuable peer networks, where executives meet regularly for conversations they can't have anywhere else. And it offers a set of design principles for those who want to create and sustain these vital professional resources. Because, in a transactional world, we all need to belong.
Po-Ling Power: Propelling Yourself and Others to Success
by Betty Ng (MBA 2001) and Po-Ling Ng
Indie Books International
This book tells about the inspiring life journeys of mother and daughter, Po-Ling and Betty Ng. These two Asian-American leaders have led very different career and life journeys but have shared a common approach to propel themselves and others to success. This approach involves the P-Ling Power framework, which the authors explicate: its genesis, how it works, and its real-life application as exemplified through their life stories.
Sponge: Leadership Lessons I Learnt from My Clients
by Ambi M.G. Parameswaran (AMP 186)
Westland
Early in his career, Parameswaran realized that some of the best lessons can be learned if people just listen to and learn from customer interactions. A challenging customer could actually end up enriching one’s life with some of the most engaging conversations one could ever have. In his long career in advertising, the author was fortunate to work with some of the most highly respected names in the Indian corporate world. This book is an attempt to present the interesting conversations he had with these doyens, in an easy-to-read, anecdotal form.
Converting the Saints: A Study of Religious Rivalry in America
by Charles Randall Paul (MBA 1972)
Greg Kofford Books Inc.
In this study of religious conflict in the US, the author focuses on the early twentieth-century Protestant missions in Utah to convert Mormons to traditional Christian belief. After the Mormons acquiesced to federal laws against polygamy and federal pressure to secularize Utah’s governance, the religious conflict over Mormonism’s Christian legitimacy remained unresolved. This study explores the crucial understanding at the center of the American experiment: that disputation over religion, ideology, or founding principles is normal in our secular state and even healthy for free citizens to flourish within a diverse society.
You Are a Mogul: How to Do the Impossible, Do It Yourself, & Do It Now
by Tiffany Pham (MBA 2012)
Simon & Schuster
Traditionally, the word “mogul” has been attributed to men. But Pham has redefined it. Now, when you Google the word, the top search result is the company she founded, Mogul, a platform that enables millions of women, across 196 countries, to connect, share information, and access knowledge. Pham chronicles her path to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs of her generation and offers specific advice that covers everything from overcoming self-doubt and pursuing side-hustles to crushing it at life and work by overdelivering, all while remaining your authentic self.
Bladder Cancer: A Patient-Friendly Guide to Understanding Your Diagnosis and Treatment Options
by David Pulver (MBA 1965), Mark Schoenberg, and Fran Pulver
Patient-Friendly Publishing
After David Pulver was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2007 and got a second opinion from Mark Schoenberg, an authority on bladder cancer, they formed a partnership, not only to treat Pulver's bladder cancer but also to write a patient-friendly book for other patients diagnosed with the disease. The book presents expert medical information in a clear style that organizes and presents the information in the most patient-friendly way.
Pricing: The New Frontier
by Gabor Rekettye (ETP, 1992) and Jonathan Liu
Transnational Press London
Price management is growing all over the world, due mainly to the turbulent economic situation, accelerating technological development, the saturation of markets and the globalization of competition. These trends affect the achievement of company objectives and place prices, pricing, and price management in a context that differs greatly from what has been known before. At a time when almost continual change is disrupting nearly all industries, and the internet is putting ever more power in the hands of the customer, a book that treats pricing with substance and foresight is a welcome addition to the market. - John Schermerhorn, Professor Emeritus, Ohio University
Fearless Growth: The New Rules to Stay Competitive, Foster Innovation, and Dominate Your Markets
by Amanda Setili (MBA 1990)
Career Press
In this age of disruption, companies must be agile and courageous, reacting quickly and intelligently to the changes that are always unfolding. Packed with practical examples, tools, and guidance, this book provides new rules to enable companies to adapt faster, move faster, and grow faster by capitalizing on uncertainties in the market; leverage the talent, assets, technology, and data that exist outside your company; get in sync with customers; gain early insight into changing needs; bring the right solutions to market; and open the floodgates of employee creativity, empowering employees to respond quickly and effectively to emerging opportunities.
Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive
by Bradley R. Staats (MBA 2002)
HBR Press
It’s a truism in today’s economy: the only constant is change. Technological automation is making jobs less routine and more cognitively challenging. Globalization means you’re competing with workers around the world. Simultaneously, the internet and other communication technologies have radically increased the potential impact of individual knowledge. The relentless dynamism of these forces shaping our lives has created a new imperative: we must strive to become dynamic learners. In every industry and sector, dynamic learners outperform their peers and realize higher impact and fulfillment by learning continually and leveraging that learning to build yet more knowledge. Staats describes the principles and practices that comprise dynamic learning and outlines a framework to help people become more effective as lifelong learners. The steps include
valuing failure, focusing on process, not outcome, and on questions, not answers, making time for reflection,
learning to be true to yourself by playing to your strengths, pairing specialization with variety, and treating others as learning partners.
The Perfect Candidate
by Peter Stone (MBA 2008)
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
When Cameron Carter lands an internship with Congressman Billy Beck in Washington, DC, he thinks it’s his ticket out of small-town captivity. What he lacks in connections and Beltway polish, he makes up in smarts, and he soon finds a friend and mentor in fellow staffer Ariel Lancaster. That is, until she winds up dead. As rumors and accusations about her death fly around Capitol Hill, Cameron’s low profile makes him the perfect candidate for an FBI investigation that he wants no part of. Before he knows it—and with his family’s future at stake—he discovers DC’s darkest secrets as he races to expose a deadly conspiracy.
The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa
by Irene Yuan Sun (MBA 2016)
HBR Press
China is now Africa's largest trade partner, the largest infrastructure financier, and the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment. Chinese entrepreneurs are flooding into the continent, investing in long-term assets such as factories and heavy equipment. One might suspect that China's activity in Africa is another instance of a foreign power exploiting resources. But Sun shows it is really a story about resilient Chinese entrepreneurs building in Africa what they so recently learned to build in China: a global manufacturing powerhouse. Chinese investment gives rise to a tantalizing possibility: that Africa can industrialize in the coming generation. With a manufacturing-led transformation, Africa would be following in the footsteps of the United States in the nineteenth century, Japan in the early twentieth, and the Asian Tigers in the late twentieth. Many may consider this an old-fashioned way to develop, but as Sun argues, it's the only one that's proven to raise living standards across entire societies in a lasting way. And with every new Chinese factory boss setting up machinery and hiring African workers--and managers--that possibility becomes more real for Africa.
Journeys: An American Story
by Andrew Tisch (MBA 1977) and Mary Skafidas
RosettaBooks
Every family has a story of how they arrived in America, whether it was a few months, years, decades, or centuries ago. This book celebrates the vastness and variety of immigration tales in America with 72 essays about the different ways we got here. This is a collection of family lore, some that has been passed down through generations, and some that is being created right now.
A Burden of Deficit
by Olusegun Ayobami Toluh (GMP 7, 2009)
Christian Faith Publishing
Christianity today is a confused play of charlatans, people enamored of untruths, half-truths, and often evil. It is about time we redefined our faith, a faith that is now more about who we are in the market (where men thrive in hideous sinfulness) and our closets (where no one watches) than about places of worship (where everyone appears a saint). When our actions match our confessions, when our speeches honor God despite the permissiveness of our environment, when our thoughts glorify God despite the sight before our eyes, maybe then, by His grace, we can truly become worshipers of the one and only true God.
Pure Skin: Discover the Japanese Ritual of Glowing
by Victoria Tsai (MBA 2006)
Clarkson Potter
Your skin is your body’s biggest organ, as vital to your health as your heart. That’s why Tsai, the founder of Tatcha Skin Care, is sharing time-tested Japanese skincare traditions with you. This guide gives tips about turning everyday ingredients and products into a simple, two-minute ritual in four steps: purify, polish, prep, and nourish. But this book is also about a lifestyle, how you eat and sleep. You’ll learn how to pamper yourself with silk in five different ways; discover your skincare personality and what treatment will work for you; indulge in this scientifically proven beauty trend once a week; use the six traditional ingredients found in Japanese skincare; and feed your skin with the trinity of Japanese superfoods.
Costovation: Innovation That Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want—And Nothing More
by Stephen Wunker (MBA 1996) and Jennifer Luo Law
Amacom
Cut costs is a common corporate refrain. But if you constantly slash expenditures, what happens to innovation? How can you stay competitive and satisfy customers? Costovation solves the dilemma of how to spend less and innovate more by broadening the definition of innovation beyond products to the business model itself. With costovation, you let go of assumptions, take a fresh look at the market, and relentlessly focus on what customers really want. Packed with examples (Planet Fitness and gourmet grocer Picard, for example) and interactive exercises, the book explores cost innovation strategies that work for big and small companies alike.
Faculty Books
Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World
edited by Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier
Bloomsbury Academic
This is an overview of the state of global history in different world regions. The book’s chapters provide regional surveys of the practice of global history on all continents, review some of the research in four core fields of global history, and consider a number of problems that global historians have contended with in their work. Collectively, the authors provide an unprecedented survey of what today is the most dynamic field in the discipline of history.
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
by Amy C. Edmondson
John Wiley & Sons
Edmondson offers practical guidance for organizations that are serious about success in the modern economy. Success requires a continual influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule, or intimidate. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud. This creates a culture in which a minor flub is no big deal, where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. This book explores this culture of psychological safety and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life.
Driving Digital Strategy: A Guide to Reimagining Your Business
by Sunil Gupta
HBR Press
Despite the widespread threat of disruption, many large companies in traditional industries have succeeded at digitizing their businesses in truly transformative ways. The New York Times, formerly a bastion of traditional media, has created a thriving digital product behind a carefully designed paywall. Best Buy has transformed its business in the face of Amazon’s threat. John Deere has formed a data-analysis arm to complement its farm-equipment business. And Goldman Sachs and many others are using digital technologies to reimagine their businesses. In this book, Gupta provides a workable framework for following their lead. He knows what works and what doesn't. Instead of dabbling in digital or launching a small independent unit, businesses need to change the core of their business and ensure that their digital strategy touches all aspects of their organization: business model, value chain, customer relationships, and company culture. Gupta covers each aspect in detail while providing navigation tips and best practices along the way.
High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences
edited by Gordon H. Hanson, William R. Kerr, and Sarah Turner
University of Chicago Press
Immigration policy is one of the most contentious public policy issues in the United States today. High-skilled immigrants represent an increasing share of the U.S. workforce, particularly in science and engineering. These immigrants affect economic growth, patterns of trade, education choices, and the earnings of workers with different types of skills. The chapters in this book go beyond the traditional question of how the inflow of foreign workers affects native employment and earnings; they also explore effects on innovation and productivity, wage inequality across skill groups, the behavior of multinational firms, firm-level dynamics of entry and exit, and the nature of comparative advantage across countries.
The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society
by William R. Kerr
Stanford Business Books
The global race for talent is on, with countries and businesses competing for the best and brightest. Talented individuals migrate much more frequently than the general population, and the United States has received exceptional inflows of human capital. This foreign talent has transformed U.S. science and engineering, reshaped the economy, and influenced society at large. But America is bogged down in thorny debates on immigration policy, and the world around the United States is rapidly catching up, especially China and India. The future is quite uncertain, and the global talent puzzle deserves close examination. To do this, Kerr combines insights and lessons from business practice, government policy, and individual decision making. Examining popular ideas that have taken hold and synthesizing research across fields such as entrepreneurship and innovation, regional advantage, and economic policy, Kerr gives voice to data and ideas that should drive the next wave of policy and business practice.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries
by Tarun Khanna
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Entrepreneurs in developing countries who assume they will have the same legal, governmental, and institutional protections as their counterparts in the West will fail. To succeed, they need to build trust within the existing structures—and this book shows how it’s done.
Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation
by Gary P. Pisano
PublicAffairs
Every company wants to grow, and the most proven way is through innovation. The conventional wisdom is that only disruptive, nimble startups can innovate; once a business gets bigger and more complex, corporate arteriosclerosis sets in. Pisano’s research of over three decades and his on-the ground experience with big companies and fast-growing ones that have moved beyond the start-up stage, provide new thinking about how the scale of bigger companies can be leveraged for advantage in innovation. He begins with the simple reality that bigger companies are different, complex. They need to sustain revenue streams from existing businesses and deal with Wall Street’s demands. These organizations require a different set of management practices and approaches, a discipline focused on the strategies, systems, and culture for taking their companies to the next level. Big can be beautiful, but it requires creative construction by leaders to avoid the creative destruction that is all too often the fate of too many.
The Academy of Fisticuffs: Political Economy and Commercial Society in Enlightenment Italy
by Sophus A. Reinert
Harvard University Press
The terms “capitalism” and “socialism” continue to haunt our political and economic imaginations, but we rarely consider their interconnected early history. Even the 18th century had its “socialists,” but unlike those of the 19th, they paradoxically sought to make the world safe for “capitalists.” The word “socialists” was first used in northern Italy as a term of contempt for the political economists and legal reformers Pietro Verri and Cesare Beccaria, author of the epochal On Crimes and Punishments. Yet the views and concerns of these first socialists, developed inside a pugnacious intellectual coterie dubbed the Academy of Fisticuffs, differ dramatically from those of the socialists that followed. I turn to Milan in the late 1700s to recover the Academy’s ideas and the policies they informed. At the core of their preoccupations lay the often lethal tension among states, markets, and human welfare in an era when the three were becoming increasingly intertwined. What distinguished these thinkers was their articulation of a secular basis for social organization, rooted in commerce, and their insistence that political economy trumped theology as the underpinning for peace and prosperity within and among nations. I argue that the Italian Enlightenment, no less than the Scottish, was central to the emergence of political economy and the project of creating market societies. By reconstructing ideas in their historical contexts, I address motivations and contingencies at the very foundations of modernity.
Unlocked: Keys to Improve Your Thinking
by Gerald Zaltman
Independently published
What’s the best way to change your life? Change how you think, says Zaltman. While most of us are accustomed to self-improvement via physical exercise or dieting, we often overlook our most powerful tool for effecting change: our own thoughts. Through a variety of exercises called Think Keys, Zaltman guides the reader through the mind’s most important unconscious and conscious dynamics. Zaltman has used these techniques with executives from around the world and at Harvard Business School to teach people how to think better. Now he brings his toolbox to all readers interested in unlocking their own potential.
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