Business & Economics

Affordable delineates the roles of the five essential participants in delivering affordable housing: the Government, the Private Sector, Professionals, the Community, and the Individual. Each chapter describes what the particular participant needs to do, or to view differently, so that sustainable affordable housing can be achieved. Affordable is action-oriented, with the various action points set in a format to be acted upon independently by any player, even if some or all of the other essential players are not yet on board. It draws on experiences from European, Latin American and African contexts and is a book designed to help you to think critically about housing issues and to think differently about housing delivery.

A set of tools for mastering the one skill standing between us and success: the ability to ask for the things we need to succeed.

Imagine you’re on a deadline for a big project, and feeling overwhelmed. Or you’re looking for a job, but can’t seem to get your foot in the door. Or you’re dying for tickets to a sold out concert, and all your leads have gone cold.

What do these problems have in common? They can all be solved simply by reaching out to a colleague, friend, or wider network and making an ask.

Studies show that asking for help makes us better and less frustrated at our jobs. It helps us find new opportunities and new talent. It unlocks new ideas and solutions, and enhances team performance. And it helps us get the things we need outside the workplace as well. And yet, we rarely give ourselves permission to ask. Luckily, the research shows that asking—and getting—what we need is much easier than we tend to think.

Here, Wayne Baker shares a set of strategies—used at companies like Google, GM, and IDEO—that individuals, teams, and leaders can use to make asking for help a personal and organizational habit, including:
• A quiz to identify your asking-giving style
• SMART criteria for who, when, and how to ask
• “Plug-and-play ” routines that make requests a standard component of meetings
• Mini-games that incentivize asking within teams
• The Reciprocity Ring, a guided activity that allows people to tap into the giving power of a network

At Amazon, “Day One” is code for inventing like a startup, with little regard for legacy. Day Two is, in Jeff Bezos’s own words, “stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death.”

Most companies today are set up for Day Two. They build advantages and defend them fiercely, rather than invent the future. But Amazon and fellow tech titans Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are operating in Day One: they prioritize reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership.

Through 130 interviews with insiders, from Mark Zuckerberg to hourly workers, Always Day One reveals the tech giants’ blueprint for sustainable success in a business world where no advantage is safe. Companies today can spin up new products at record speed — thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud computing — and those who stand still will be picked apart. The tech giants remain dominant because they’ve built cultures that spark continual reinvention.

It might sound radical, but those who don’t act like it’s always day one do so at their own peril. Kantrowitz uncovers the engine propelling the tech giants’ continued dominance at a stage when most big companies begin to decline. And he shows the way forward for everyone who wants to compete with–and beat–the titans.