Tim Macdonell

You aspire to lead with greater impact. The problem is you’re busy executing on today’s demands. You know you have to carve out time from your day job to build your leadership skills, but it’s easy to let immediate problems and old mind-sets get in the way. Herminia Ibarra—an expert on professional leadership and development and a renowned professor at INSEAD, a leading international business school—shows how managers and executives at all levels can step up to leadership by making small but crucial changes in their jobs, their networks, and themselves. In Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, she offers advice to help you: • Redefine your job in order to make more strategic contributions • Diversify your network so that you connect to, and learn from, a bigger range of stakeholders • Become more playful with your self-concept, allowing your familiar—and possibly outdated—leadership style to evolve Ibarra turns the usual “think first and then act” philosophy on its head by arguing that doing these three things will help you learn through action and will increase what she calls your outsight—the valuable external perspective you gain from direct experiences and experimentation. As opposed to insight, outsight will then help change the way you think as a leader: about what kind of work is important; how you should invest your time; why and which relationships matter in informing and supporting your leadership; and, ultimately, who you want to become. Packed with self-assessments and practical advice to help define your most pressing leadership challenges, this book will help you devise a plan of action to become a better leader and move your career to the next level. It’s time to learn by doing.

Risk Takers: Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives, Third Edition, by John E. Marthinsen, goes to the heart of the arcane and largely misunderstood world of derivative finance and makes it accessible to everyone—even novice readers. Marthinsen takes us behind the scenes, into the back alleyways of corporate finance and derivative trading, to provide a bird’s-eye view of the most shocking financial disasters of the past quarter century. The book draws on real-life stories to explain how financial derivatives can be used to create or to destroy value. In an approachable, non-technical manner, Marthinsen brings these financial derivatives situations to life, fully exploring the context of each event, evaluating their outcomes, and bridging the gap between theory and practice.