Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

The long-awaited work by "one of the most influential psychologists in history and certainly the most important psychologist alive today" (Steven Pinker).

Outliers

The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Blink and The Bomber Mafia and host of the podcast Revisionist History, explores what sets high achievers apart—from Bill Gates to the Beatles—in this seminal work from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review). In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Noise

A Flaw in Human Judgment

Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the coauthor of Nudge, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones. Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients—or that two judges in the same courthouse give markedly different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different interviewers at the same firm make different decisions about indistinguishable job applicants—or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to answer the phone. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same interviewer, or the same customer service agent makes different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical. In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show the detrimental effects of noise in many fields, including medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews, and personnel selection. Wherever there is judgment, there is noise. Yet, most of the time, individuals and organizations alike are unaware of it. They neglect noise. With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions. Packed with original ideas, and offering the same kinds of research-based insights that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment—and what we can do about it.

Getting to Yes

Negotiating Agreement Without Giving in

Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

Problem Solving 101

A Simple Book for Smart People

Ken Watanabe

The fun and simple problem-solving guide that took Japan by storm Ken Watanabe originally wrote Problem Solving 101 for Japanese schoolchildren. His goal was to help shift the focus in Japanese education from memorization to critical thinking, by adapting some of the techniques he had learned as an elite McKinsey consultant. He was amazed to discover that adults were hungry for his fun and easy guide to problem solving and decision making. The book became a surprise Japanese bestseller, with more than 370,000 in print after six months. Now American businesspeople can also use it to master some powerful skills. Watanabe uses sample scenarios to illustrate his techniques, which include logic trees and matrixes. A rock band figures out how to drive up concert attendance. An aspiring animator budgets for a new computer purchase. Students decide which high school they will attend. Illustrated with diagrams and quirky drawings, the book is simple enough for a middleschooler to understand but sophisticated enough for business leaders to apply to their most challenging problems.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Ben Horowitz

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.

The SPEED of Trust

The One Thing That Changes Everything

Stephen M.R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill

Part of NWTC's Talent Development collection.

Blink

The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell

From the #1 bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia, the landmark book that has revolutionized the way we understand leadership and decision making. In his breakthrough bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant--in the blink of an eye--that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work--in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"--filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Administrative Behavior, 4th Edition

Herbert A. Simon

In this fourth edition of his ground-breaking work, Herbert A. Simon applies his pioneering theory of human choice and administrative decision-making to concrete organizational problems. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's original publication, Professor Simon enhances his timeless observations on the human decision-making process with commentaries examining new facets of organizational behavior. Investigating the impact of changing social values and modem technology on the operation of organizations, the new ideas featured in this revised edition update a book that has become a worldwide classic. Named by Public Administration Review as "Book of the Half Century," Administrative Behavior is considered one of the most influential books on social science thinking, and was referred to by the Nobel Committee as "epoch-making." Written for managers and other professionals who wish to understand the decision-making processes at the heart of organization and management, it is also essential reading for students in business and management, economics, sociology, psychology computer science, government, and law.

A Whole New Mind

Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Daniel H. Pink

New York Times Bestseller An exciting--and encouraging--exploration of creativity from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment--and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.

Evaluating Training Programs

The Four Levels

Donald L. Kirkpatrick

Leaders want to see changes in behavior as a result of what people have learned and may expect these new behaviors to deliver results for the business. With the third edition of this book, readers have an opportunity to update their understanding of this classic evaluation framework and to learn from the case studies about how to effectively apply the framework to a variety of learning programs. Readers are presented with the tools and the know-how to tell their own story of value creation.---Foreword by Merrill C. Anderson, Ph.D, Chief Executive Officer, MetrixGlobal, LLC.

A Curious Mind Expanded Edition

The Secret to a Bigger Life

Brian Grazer, Charles Fishman

In this specially combined edition with a new foreword, Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer and acclaimed author Charles Fishman blend their insights from bestselling books A Curious Mind and Face to Face to transform the art of connecting with and through curiosity. In A Curious Mind, deemed “a captivation account of how the simple act of asking questions can change your life” by Malcolm Gladwell, Grazer offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “superpower” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries. And in the captivating follow-up Face to Face, Grazer reveals that the secret to a more fulfilling life lies in personal connections, sparked through curiosity, learning through his interactions with people like Taraji P. Henson, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Eminem, and Prince. Now with a new foreword with fresh insights about curiosity from the last decade, A Curious Mind Expanded invites you to consider your personal journey of human connection. A fascinating page-turner, this combined edition offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our own lives.

The Scout Mindset

Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't

Julia Galef

"...an engaging and enlightening account from which we all can benefit."—The Wall Street Journal A better way to combat knee-jerk biases and make smarter decisions, from Julia Galef, the acclaimed expert on rational decision-making. When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a "soldier" mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and everything in between, we are driven to defend the ideas we most want to believe—and shoot down those we don't. But if we want to get things right more often, argues Galef, we should train ourselves to have a "scout" mindset. Unlike the soldier, a scout's goal isn't to defend one side over the other. It's to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what's actually true. In The Scout Mindset, Galef shows that what makes scouts better at getting things right isn't that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than everyone else. It's a handful of emotional skills, habits, and ways of looking at the world—which anyone can learn. With fascinating examples ranging from how to survive being stranded in the middle of the ocean, to how Jeff Bezos avoids overconfidence, to how superforecasters outperform CIA operatives, to Reddit threads and modern partisan politics, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think.

Principles

Life and Work

Ray Dalio

Dalio "shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business--and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals"--Amazon.com.

Generations of Giving

Leadership and Continuity in Family Foundations

Kelin E. Gersick, Deanne Stone, National Center for Family Philanthropy (U.S.)

Using detailed and comprehensive analysis, Generations of Giving: Leadership and Continuity in Family Foundations examines continuity and leadership over time within family foundations. Based upon a study of foundations in the United States and Canada that have survived through at least two generations, the authors ask probing questions, including: Why were the foundations started? What did they look like at the beginning? How did the families of the founders come to be involved? And how did they organize themselves to do their work from year to year, decade to decade? Although the foundations in the study are quite diverse in their goals and management, they have all had to confront and survive a common set of challenges. At the core of this volume is the study of two aspects of philanthropy: funding and volunteers_each essential to the survival of a foundation. This study is about the 'why' and the 'how' of these two crucial aspects. The authors give a truly unique perspective, which serves as a powerful tool for readers as they address the specific situations of their own foundations. A thorough and powerful work, Generations of Giving: Leadership and Continuity in Family Foundations demands that we must not only appreciate philanthropy, but we must also increase our understanding so that we can do it better.A co-publication with the National Center for Family Philanthropy

Tribe of Mentors

Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

Timothy Ferriss

Life-changing wisdom from 130 of the world's highest achievers in short, action-packed pieces, featuring inspiring quotes, life lessons, career guidance, personal anecdotes, and other advice

Think Again

The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Adam Grant

THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER If you can change your mind you can do anything. Why do we refresh our wardrobes every year, renovate our kitchens every decade, but never update our beliefs and our views? Why do we laugh at people using computers that are ten years old, but yet still cling to opinions we formed ten years ago? There's a new skill for the modern world that matters more than raw intelligence - the ability to change your mind. To have the edge we all need to develop the flexibility to unlearn old beliefs and adapt when the evidence and the world changes before us. Told through fascinating stories, informed by cutting-edge research and illustratedwith amazing insights from Adam Grant's conversations with people such as Elon Musk, Hilary Clinton's campaign team, top CEOs and leading scientists, this is the ultimate guide to keeping your thinking fresh, learning when to question your ideas and update your own opinions, and how to inspire those around you to do the same.

Death by Meeting

A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business

Patrick M. Lencioni

A straightforward framework for creating engaging and exciting business meetings Casey McDaniel had never been so nervous in his life. In just ten minutes, The Meeting, as it would forever be known, would begin. Casey had every reason to believe that his performance over the next two hours would determine the fate of his career, his financial future, and the company he had built from scratch. “How could my life have unraveled so quickly?” he wondered. In his latest page-turning work of business fiction, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni provides readers with another powerful and thought-provoking book, this one centered around a cure for the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings. And what he suggests is both simple and revolutionary. Casey McDaniel, the founder and CEO of Yip Software, is in the midst of a problem he created, but one he doesn’t know how to solve. And he doesn’t know where or who to turn to for advice. His staff can’t help him; they’re as dumbfounded as he is by their tortuous meetings. Then an unlikely advisor, Will Peterson, enters Casey’s world. When he proposes an unconventional, even radical, approach to solving the meeting problem, Casey is just desperate enough to listen. As in his other books, Lencioni provides a framework for his groundbreaking model, and makes it applicable to the real world. Death by Meeting is nothing short of a blueprint for leaders who want to eliminate waste and frustration among their teams and create environments of engagement and passion.

Focus

The Hidden Driver of Excellence

Daniel Goleman

In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the #1 international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today’s scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention. Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world. Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on Smart Practices—mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not.

The Success of Open Source

Steve Weber

As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected."