Josh Bersin

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Share of the Task and Leaders comes a manual for leaders looking to make their teams more adaptable, agile, and unified in the midst of change. When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2004, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing. Al Qaeda in Iraq was a decentralized network that could move quickly, strike ruthlessly, then seemingly vanish into the local population. The allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment, and training—but none of that seemed to matter. To defeat Al Qaeda, they would have to combine the power of the world’s mightiest military with the agility of the world’s most fearsome terrorist network. They would have to become a "team of teams"—faster, flatter, and more flexible than ever. In Team of Teams, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be rel­evant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and or­ganizations today. In periods of unprecedented crisis, leaders need practical management practices that can scale to thousands of people—and fast. By giving small groups the freedom to experiment and share what they learn across the entire organiza­tion, teams can respond more quickly, communicate more freely, and make better and faster decisions. Drawing on compelling examples—from NASA to hospital emergency rooms—Team of Teams makes the case for merging the power of a large corporation with the agility of a small team to transform any organization.

Regarded as one of the most influential management books of all time, this fourth edition of Leadership and Organizational Culture transforms the abstract concept of culture into a tool that can be used to better shape the dynamics of organization and change. This updated edition focuses on today's business realities. Edgar Schein draws on a wide range of contemporary research to redefine culture and demonstrate the crucial role leaders play in successfully applying the principles of culture to achieve their organizational goals.

A handsome, commemorative edition of Peter F. Drucker’s timeless classic work on leadership and management, with a foreword by Jim Collins. What makes an effective executive? For decades, Peter F. Drucker was widely regarded as "the dean of this country’s business and management philosophers" (Wall Street Journal). In this concise and brilliant work, he looks to the most influential position in management—the executive. The measure of the executive, Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results. Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can—and must—be mastered: Managing time;Choosing what to contribute to the organization;Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect;Setting the right priorities;Knitting all of them together with effective decision-makingRanging across the annals of business and government, Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in. Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz's personal and often humbling experiences.