Business & Economics

In 1984, soon-to-be college dropout Michael Dell hid signs of his fledgling PC business in the bathroom of his University of Texas dorm room. Almost 30 years later, at the pinnacle of his success as founder and leader of Dell Technologies, he found himself embroiled in a battle for his company’s survival. What he’d do next could ensure its legacy—or destroy it completely.

Play Nice But Win is a riveting account of the three battles waged for Dell Technologies: one to launch it, one to keep it, and one to transform it. For the first time, Dell reveals the highs and lows of the company’s evolution amidst a rapidly changing industry—and his own, as he matured into the CEO it needed. With humor and humility, he recalls the mentors who showed him how to turn his passion into a business; the competitors who became friends, foes, or both; and the sharks that circled, looking for weakness. What emerges is the long-term vision underpinning his success: that technology is ultimately about people and their potential.

More than an honest portrait of a leader at a crossroads, Play Nice But Win is a survival story proving that while anyone with technological insight and entrepreneurial zeal might build something great—it takes a leader to build something that lasts.

Strategy is not complex. But it is hard. It’s hard because it forces people and organizations to make specific choices about their future—something that doesn’t happen in most companies.

Now two of today’s best-known business thinkers get to the heart of strategy—explaining what it’s for, how to think about it, why you need it, and how to get it done. And they use one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the past century, which they achieved together, to prove their point.

A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, doubled P&G’s sales, quadrupled its profits, and increased its market value by more than $100 billion in just ten years. Now, drawn from their years of experience at P&G and the Rotman School of Management, where Martin is dean, this book shows how leaders in organizations of all sizes can guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business success—where to play and how to win.

The result is a playbook for winning. Lafley and Martin have created a set of five essential strategic choices that, when addressed in an integrated way, will move you ahead of your competitors

The bestselling author and star of ABC’s Shark Tank reveals how to master the three prongs of influence: reputation, negotiation, and relationships.

Have you ever wanted to make a big change in your life but weren’t sure where to start? In Powershift, Daymond John shares the answer. To take control of your destiny and drive the change you want to see, you need to lay the groundwork so you’re prepared to seize every opportunity that comes your way. And that means mastering

• Influence—make an impression: Develop a reputation that highlights what you stand for.
• Negotiation—make a deal: Hone a win-win negotiating style.
• Relationships—make a connection last: Nurture those connections you make along the way.

Through never-before-told stories from his life and career, Daymond shares the lessons that got him to where he is today: from how he remade his public image as he transitioned from clothing mogul to television personality, to how he mastered the negotiation strategies that determine whether deals are won or lost “in the tank,” to his secrets for building long-lasting—and profitable—relationships with founders and brands.

Throughout the book, some of the world’s most successful personalities reveal how they shifted their power in meaningful ways.

It has long been assumed that, in the development of any organization, the time for entrepreneurial activity is right at the beginning. Once an organization is established, qualities that were virtues in the organization’s start-up and early stages can become vices, and the entrepreneurial founders must cede control to professional managers who can nurture the fruits of their original vision more efficiently.

One unintended consequence of this assumption is that large, established organizations tend to be entrepreneur-free zones. Entrepreneurial thinking is tacitly discouraged because it can create novelty, and novelty is a threat to established organizations with large market shares.

Re-entrepreneuring argues that organizations must revive the entrepreneurial out-look of their founders in order to survive in today’s market. In an organization that encourages and nurtures an entrepreneurial outlook, everyone has the potential to unleash their inner entrepreneur and bring new and dynamic ways of thinking into their work environment. It has more to do with the ways of thinking encouraged by the organizational culture than by any inherent differences in talent or aptitude.

The solution presented in this new book is piecemeal yet targeted ‘re-entrepreneuring’. With the help of international case studies and first-hand testimony from business leaders, the authors show how the entrepreneurial approach can be applied to any organization and at all levels, in order to spark innovation, remove operational obstacles and – ultimately – to create new value.