How to Run a Company


Book Description

LESSONS FOR EVERYONE IN BUSINESS FROM AN ALL-STAR TEAM Every six months Dennis C. Carey and Marie-Caroline von Weichs run the CEO Academy, an immersion course for newly appointed CEOs of the world’s leading companies—what Business Week called a “boot camp” for the next class of top executives. Those attending get a priceless range of unvarnished advice and invaluable lessons from an all-star team of veteran CEOs about how to get the results they were hired to achieve. What participants pay $10,000 to hear is now contained in this book, the insights and secrets of some of the most influential business leaders of our time. Here is advice from high-caliber businesspeople such as Larry Bossidy, the recently retired CEO of Honeywell International; Ray Gilmartin, the CEO of Merck; John Smale, the former chairman of General Motors and retired chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble; and John Dasburg, who has run Northwest Airlines, Burger King, and now DHL Airways. Successful CEOs aren’t the only attraction. How to Run a Company also presents America’s leading business observers and watchdogs: Nell Minow, the shareholder rights activist; Ira Millstein, the legendary attorney and power broker; Matthew Bishop, business editor of The Economist; and Joseph Badaracco, Harvard Business School’s top professor of ethics. The combined team offers original and revealing observations on how business leaders at the top of the corporate world tackle pressing challenges, such as: • How an industrial goliath like DuPont dramatically shifted its business focus • How The Home Depot changed from fast-growing, free-wheeling adolescence to the management discipline that will help it mature and continue to expand • What Michael Armstrong, who oversaw the transformation of Hughes Electronics and AT&T, advises to companies whose core business begins to disappear • How the CEO of Tyco moved quickly during his first 100 days to build a new senior management team and began to restore trust in a company battered by scandal and bad publicity • The role of the board of directors and how corporate governance should be reformed • What strategies Jack Welch’s investor relations team at GE used to constantly probe who was buying the stock, who wasn’t, and why How to Run a Company is not just for CEOs, but anyone interested in the critical make-or-break factors in today’s ever-challenging business environment. As the demands and expectations in business become ever greater and the competition tougher, here in one volume is the accumulated wisdom and experience of people who have been in the trenches during a remarkable time. How to Run a Company is the success manual for the twenty-first century. From the Hardcover edition.




How to Start and Run a Successful I. T. Company Without Losing Your Shirt


Book Description

How to Start and Run a Successful I.T. Company without Losing Your Shirt shows the fundamentals of how to actually start your own IT company. Do people say you should start your own business but you have never known how? Are you sick of working for others? Find out what it really takes to start from scratch and run a successful company. Tim says, "Learn from my mistakes and let me help you be a success. I have made every mistake you can make in this business, from hiring bad employees to not charging enough for my services. The most important thing I can tell you is that you can do this.




Run Your Own Corporation


Book Description

“I’ve set up my corporation. Now what do I do?” All too often business owners and real estate investors are asking this question. They have formed their protective entity – be it a corporation, LLC or LP – and don’t know what to do next. “Run Your Own Corporation” provides the solution to this very common dilemma. Breaking down the requirements chronologically (ie the first day, first quarter, first year) the book sets forth all the tax and corporate and legal matters new business owners must comply with. Written by Rich Dad’s Advisor Garrett Sutton, Esq., who also authored the companion edition “Start Your Own Corporation”, the book clearly identifies what must be done to properly maintain and operate your corporation entity. From the first day, when employer identification numbers must be obtained in order to open up a bank account, to the fifth year when trademark renewals must be filed, and all the requirements in between, “Run Your Own Corporation” is a unique resource that all business owners and investors must have. Rich Dad/Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki states, “Run Your Own Corporation is the missing link for most entrepreneurs. They’ve set up their entity, but don’t know the next steps. Garrett Sutton’s book provides valuable information needed at the crucial start up phase of operations. It is highly recommended reading.” When “Start Your Own Corporation” is combined with “Run Your Own Corporation” readers have a two book set that offers the complete corporate picture.




The Way We're Working Isn't Working


Book Description

This book was previously titled, Be Excellent at Anything. The Way We're Working Isn't Working is one of those rare books with the power to profoundly transform the way we work and live. Demand is exceeding our capacity. The ethic of "more, bigger, faster" exacts a series of silent but pernicious costs at work, undermining our energy, focus, creativity, and passion. Nearly 75 percent of employees around the world feel disengaged at work every day. The Way We're Working Isn't Working offers a groundbreaking approach to reenergizing our lives so we’re both more satisfied and more productive—on the job and off. By integrating multidisciplinary findings from the science of high performance, Tony Schwartz, coauthor of the #1 bestselling The Power of Full Engagement, makes a persuasive case that we’re neglecting the four core needs that energize great performance: sustainability (physical); security (emotional); self-expression (mental); and significance (spiritual). Rather than running like computers at high speeds for long periods, we’re at our best when we pulse rhythmically between expending and regularly renewing energy across each of our four needs. Organizations undermine sustainable high performance by forever seeking to get more out of their people. Instead they should seek systematically to meet their four core needs so they’re freed, fueled, and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day. Drawing on extensive work with an extra-ordinary range of organizations, among them Google, Ford, Sony, Ernst & Young, Shell, IBM, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Cleveland Clinic, Schwartz creates a road map for a new way of working. At the individual level, he explains how we can build specific rituals into our daily schedules to balance intense effort with regular renewal; offset emotionally draining experiences with practices that fuel resilience; move between a narrow focus on urgent demands and more strategic, creative thinking; and balance a short-term focus on immediate results with a values-driven commitment to serving the greater good. At the organizational level, he outlines new policies, practices, and cultural messages that Schwartz’s client companies have adopted. The Way We're Working Isn't Working offers individuals, leaders, and organizations a highly practical, proven set of strategies to better manage the relentlessly rising demands we all face in an increasingly complex world.




How to Run a Limited Company


Book Description




Why Startups Fail


Book Description

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.




The Great Game of Business


Book Description

The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company. It wasn't dreamed up in an executive think tank or an Ivy League business school or around the conference table by big-time consultants. It was forged on the factory floors of the heartland by ordinary folks hoping to figure out how to save their jobs when their parent company, International Harvester, went down the tubes. What these workers created was a revolutionary approach to management that has proven itself in every industry around the world for the past thirty years--an approach that is perhaps the last, best hope for reviving the American Dream.




HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business


Book Description

An all-in-one guide to helping you buy and own your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: You can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small company offers significant financial rewards—as well as personal and professional fulfillment. Leading a firm means you can be your own boss, put your executive skills to work, fashion a company environment that meets your own needs, and profit directly from your success. But finding the right business to buy and closing the deal isn't always easy. In the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, Harvard Business School professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff help you: Determine if this path is right for you Raise capital for your acquisition Find and evaluate the right prospects Avoid the pitfalls that could derail your search Understand why a "dull" business might be the best investment Negotiate a potential deal with the seller Avoid deals that fall through at the last minute Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.




The Founder's Dilemmas


Book Description

The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.




Taboo Business Questions


Book Description

Taboo Business Questions is a business book unlike any other you've ever read. It will challenge you. It will help you process business ideas. It will allow you access to a community of great minds with a wide variety of viewpoints. Simply put; it will help you answer questions you didn't even know you had so your business can thrive.I specifically wrote this book for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and business leaders, probably just like you.It started out with this crazy idea. An idea that small business owners had these certain questions they needed answered. But, didn't know how to (or didn't want to) ask. I believe that when a question can be phrased just right, the answer becomes obvious. So. I've set out to help you and many others get your answers.Throughout my time consulting, I've noticed that business owners are of a different breed. Maybe you've noticed this, too! They work these crazy hours, take on stress like it's no big deal, and never want to let it be known that they don't know something in their business. This is exactly why I wrote Taboo Business Questions. I recognized that business owners' egos get in the way from allowing them to ask the tough questions necessary to grow their business. Avoiding these questions tends to hurt a business's growth. So, I took seven taboo business topics and reformatted them into Taboo Business Questions. The whole goal with this book is to create a safe place where business owners can find a process to answering challenging questions about their business and keep their egos intact.I formatted each answer in the form of a process. I didn't want the book to be a "formulas and spreadsheets" type of business book. Everyone has a unique business. I didn't want the book to be filled with case studies on businesses from the 60s and 70s by an armchair quarterback. What good is that going to do? Business owners today need tools they can use and a process they can follow.Part of this process is accessing and participating in the forum I created on my website. It goes hand-in-hand with the whole premise of the book. With this forum, collaboration can happen organically among business owners, entrepreneurs, and other business savvy individuals with anonymity. I hope you enjoy the process!