Uncategorized Posts
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Blog / Staff Picks
Fixing the Game
Book Review by Porchlight
With the NFL owners and players union currently in court over the lockout, it might seem like an odd time to use the NFL as an example for how to run anything. But current labor disputes aside, the NFL is by far the most successful business operating in sport today—it must be doing something right. And Roger L.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects – Obliquity
By Porchlight
Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly by John Kay, Penguin Press, 240 pages, $25. 95, Hardcover, April 2011, ISBN 9781594202780 Obliquity. It’s a peculiar name for a book, and the title may in fact drive a number of potential readers (like me) to their dictionaries.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects – Decade of Change
By Porchlight
Decade of Change: Managing in Times of Uncertainty, edited by Geoffrey Brewer and Barb Sanford, Gallup Press, 240 pages, $24. 95, Hardcover, May 2011, ISBN 9781595620538 We’ve come to expect good things from Gallup Press, and their latest release, Decade of Change, doesn’t disappoint. Unlike their past releases, books like Strengths Finder 2.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects – Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar
By Porchlight
Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work, edited by Richard Ford, Harper Perennial, 607 pages, $16. 99, Paperback, May 2011, ISBN 9780062020413 John Cheever, Andre Dubus, Donald Barthelme, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joyce Carol Oates, Eudora Welty, Tobias Wolff. These are names you expect to see on college literature course syllabi and New York Times Best Seller Lists.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / News & Opinion
A Call For Submissions to the The FT/Goldman Sachs Book Awards
By Porchlight
The call is on for submissions to the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. From the press release: Now in its seventh year, the award is firmly established as a feature of the business and publishing calendars. [.
Categories: news-opinion, publishing-industry
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Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 82
By Porchlight
Little Bets: Think Differently by Peter Sims “Our education system places great emphasis on teaching us about facts that are already known, such as historical information or scientific tables, and then testing us in order to measure how much we’ve retained about that body of knowledge. Those skills work perfectly well for many situations, but not when doing something new. Or creative.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Four Strands: Creating Companies Aligned With Human DNA
By Porchlight
"There are universal developmental issues and milestones in the construction of all people, which like gravity, must be obeyed. They are like the laws of physics, non-negotiable. Break these laws and dysfunction occurs. But, obey these laws and people thrive. They will be what we call "healthy." So, when a company is designed and operates in ways that are aligned with how people are constructed, it will be like an airplane aligned with the laws of physics that govern force or torque. It will reach the altitude, speed and course that its horsepower allows. But if its design is not aligned, it will fly in circles, stall out, crash, or break apart."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Make It Happen: Turning Good Ideas Into Great Results
By Peter Sheahan
"The world is not short of ideas. It's not. It is short of people who can execute on them. It is short of people who know how to take their aspirations and make a real impact on the world with them. What differentiates the great ideas that end up on the cutting room floor from those that wind up changing the world? There are five steps, or rather five competencies you can build that separate the haves from the have-nots, the doers from the talkers ... They are not a mantra for meditation, they are not positive affirmations that you chant to yourself in the mirror, they are actions."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Little Bets: Think Differently
By Peter Sims
"Our education system places great emphasis on teaching us about facts that are already known, such as historical information or scientific tables, and then testing us in order to measure how much we've retained about that body of knowledge. Those skills work perfectly well for many situations, but not when doing something new. Or creative. Or original. They certainly won't help us invent the future. As education and creativity researcher and author Sir Ken Robinson puts it, 'We are educating people out of their creativity.' But it's still there. And unleashing our creativity, however deeply it's hidden, begins with little bets."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
How to Sharpen Your Sales Strengths
By Tony Rutigliano, Brian Brim
"There is no single right way to sell. In fact, we believe there are as many ways to sell as there are salespeople. Does that feel liberating? We hope so. If you enjoy sales, if you're good at it, and if you're finding some of the success you want, you possess a rare ability—and you should celebrate it. You're someone who can do this job. And if you're trying to follow a method or emulating a sales hero and it's not working, it might not be your fault. Who you are is who you should be. You'll be most successful at sales if you make the most of who you are. And by that, we mean using your natural talents—the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that come naturally to you. "
Categories: changethis