Business & Economics

True leadership is about character – this is the key to winning ‘the right way’.

In a world where we’re bombarded by messages of ‘winning at any cost’, dishonest politicians, CEOs committing fraud, disgraced military commanders and cheating athletes, integrity matters more than ever. The Character Edge explains the powerful role character plays in trust, culture and leadership, and offers readers tools to exercise and strengthen their own.

Reaching from the battlefield to the classroom and beyond, former superintendent of West Point Robert Caslen and professor of psychology Dr Michael Matthews explore the vital link between strong character and strong leadership, and explain why the latter cannot exist without the former.

Over the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world’s dominant economic institution. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today’s corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.

In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations:

-The corporation’s legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others.
-The corporation’s unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
-Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization.

But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.

Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, The Corporation is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike.

Perfectionists and procrastinators alike agree—it’s natural to dread a deadline. Whether you are completing a masterpiece or just checking off an overwhelming to-do list, the ticking clock signals despair. Christopher Cox knows the panic of the looming deadline all too well—as a magazine editor, he has spent years overseeing writers and journalists who couldn’t meet a deadline to save their lives. After putting in a few too many late nights in the newsroom, he became determined to learn the secret of managing deadlines. He set off to observe nine different organizations as they approached a high-pressure deadline. Along the way, Cox made an even greater discovery: these experts didn’t just meet their big deadlines—they became more focused, productive, and creative in the process.

An entertaining blend of “behavioral science, psychological theory, and academic studies with compelling storytelling and descriptive case studies” (Financial Times), The Deadline Effect reveals the time-management strategies these teams used to guarantee success while staying on schedule: a restaurant opening for the first time, a ski resort covering an entire mountain in snow, a farm growing enough lilies in time for Easter, and more. Cox explains how to use deadlines to our advantage, the dynamics of teams and customers, and techniques for using deadlines to make better, more effective decisions.

This book is crucial for every manager or HR representative who shouldn’t just prepare to one day be faced with a report of a traumatic experience at work, but plan on it. This five-step method will help managers make survivors feel supported and understood. The Empathetic Workplace guides supervisors of any level through an understanding of how stories of trauma impact the brain of both the survivor and the listener, as well as the tools to handle the interaction appropriately, to help the listener, the organization, and most importantly, the survivor.

Hailed by Timeas one of the world’s hundred most influential people, Jeffrey D. Sachs is renowned for his work around the globe advising economies in crisis. Now a classic of its genre, The End of Poverty distills more than thirty years of experience to offer a uniquely informed vision of the steps that can transform impoverished countries into prosperous ones. Marrying vivid storytelling with rigorous analysis, Sachs lays out a clear conceptual map of the world economy. Explaining his own work in Bolivia, Russia, India, China, and Africa, he offers an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that challenge the world’s poorest countries.

Ten years after its initial publication, The End of Poverty remains an indispensible and influential work. In this 10th anniversary edition, Sachs presents an extensive new foreword assessing the progress of the past decade, the work that remains to be done, and how each of us can help. He also looks ahead across the next fifteen years to 2030, the United Nations’ target date for ending extreme poverty, offering new insights and recommendations.