Business & Economics

For fifty years, economists have been developing elegant theories or how markets facilitate innovation, create wealth, and allocate society’s resources efficiently. But what about when they fail, when they lead us to stock market bubbles, glaring inequality, polluted rivers, and credit crunches?

In this updated and expanded edition of How Markets Fail, John Cassidy describes the rising influence of “utopian economies”―the thinking that is blind to how real people act and that denies the many ways an unregulated free market can bring on disaster. Combining on-the-ground reporting and clear explanations of economic theories Cassidy warns that in today’s economic crisis, following old orthodoxies isn’t just misguided―it’s downright dangerous.

Adidas and Puma are two of the biggest global brands in sports, paying stars, clubs, and competitions to show off their labels in stadiums and across magazine pages. In Sneaker Wars, journalist Barbara Smit reveals the dramatic, character-driven story of these two powerhouses. Started in their mother’s laundry room in Germany, Adi and Rudi Dassler’s shoe business was an instant success. But a vicious feud soon pulled them apart: by the end of World War II, the brothers split the company, dividing their family and hometown.

Adidas and Puma then revolutionized the world of sport, their rivalry introducing behind-the-scenes deals and multimillion-dollar contracts. A page-turning narrative, Sneaker Wars is a riveting blend of family drama, business, sports, and history.

Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career that can also improve your closest relationships and your everyday life. Still, people often shy away from it, feeling defeated before they’ve even started. In this groundbreaking new book on negotiation, Alexandra Carter—Columbia law professor and mediation expert who has helped students, business professionals, the United Nations, and more—offers a straightforward accessible approach anyone can use to ask for and receive more.

We’ve been taught incorrectly that the loudest and most assertive voice prevails in any negotiation, or otherwise, both sides compromise, ending up with less. Instead, Carter shows that you get far more value by asking the right questions of the person you’re negotiating with than you do from arguing with them. She offers a simple yet powerful ten-question framework for successful negotiation where both sides emerge victorious. Carter’s proven method extends far beyond one “yes” and instead creates value that lasts a lifetime.

Why do some businesses thrive while many more struggle? In this age of disruption, a key reason is the failure of many leaders to realign all the moving parts of their enterprise, including its business strategy and how it is organised, to best support its enduring purpose. Thousands of enterprises globally are operating below their potential simply because they are not well aligned or fail to realign to reflect the new realities of their changing business environment. This book aims to change that.

This book is about strategic realignment, a leadership process to overcome disruption and secure high performance on a sustainable basis. Given that change is a constant and disruption to the business environment ever more likely, strategic realignment must become a core competency in order that all enterprises and leaders can succeed in the future. Most executives recognise this but lack a robust system of thought to execute strategic realignment effectively and realise its full benefits. But once mastered, strategic realignment offers a means of turning disruption into an advantage.

In Re:Align, Jonathan Trevor provides a blueprint to help leaders ask good questions, have better conversations and make the best possible choices to realign their enterprise to be fit for purpose. Drawing upon active research at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School (with contributions from the joint works of Dr Jonathan Trevor and Dr Barry Varcoe), the book also provides practical case studies and evidence-based insights. Re:Align offers both a thoughtful and compelling message as well as an effective toolkit to help leaders everywhere to overcome disruption and improve enterprise performance.

Businesses everywhere are plagued by managers who seem to think that keeping their staff miserable is the best way to deliver profits. This is a failure of leadership that also hurts the bottom line; research has shown that maintaining a happy, engaged workforce consistently drives measurably better business results across the board.

In When They Win, You Win, Russ Laraway, the Chief People Officer of Goodwater Capital, provides a simple, coherent, and complete leadership standard that teaches organizational planners and managers how to develop incredible levels of employee engagement. The book identifies three key elements: clear direction-setting, frequent coaching, and active engagement with employees on their long-term career goals.

Russ Laraway’s approach to management, developed at Google, Twitter, Qualtrics, and Goodwater, shows the way to cultivate a happy, productive, and engaged team. Happy results are sure to follow―for you, your customers, your shareholders, and your employees alike.