Lior Arussy
Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right!
John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2005

Arussy explains how very few companies can demonstrate long-term success in forming strong, sustainable, and profitable relationships with their customers.

Yet to ultimately achieve success it is vital to implement a customer focus strategy that will have customers returning again and again - after all, they are your most valuable asset. Success depends on making serious tough choices and not cosmetic works. It is those tough trade offs that will help companies unleash their passion for customers and in return, increase their profitability and sales.

Full of examples and statistics, Passionate and Profitable takes a critical look at the state of the companies’ commitment to customers and exposes the fatal mistakes companies make and the lip service they pay to their customers.

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Stephane Garelli
Top Class Competitors: How Nations, Firms and Individuals Succeed in the New World of Competitiveness
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2006

Garelli reveals why competitiveness is the most powerful tool available to unleash new levels of prosperity for nations, profit for companies and success for people. Three decades ago competitiveness was unheard of; today it has taken the world by storm. To stay at the top we need to constantly re-invent ourselves and stay ahead of the competition; nations must tackle education and security to sustain economic development and companies must manage ‘soft’ issues such as brands and perceptions.

Top Class Competitors explores how competitiveness works, how its issues are intertwined and ultimately how it is the missing link to success. Insightful and truly informative it is sure to be a necessity for today’s business leaders.

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Michio Kaku
Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos
Penguin Books Ltd, 2006

Kaku uses the latest astronomical data to explore the Big Bang, our cosmic future and other astonishing possibilities. His wonderfully clear scientific account leads to some mind-boggling speculations; are we condemned to watch a single universe slowly run down, becoming a dark, cold wasteland? Or can we dream of escaping into one of many parallel universes, each born of a new Big Bang, or even existing in another dimension?

Parallel Worlds tells the story of the ultimate fate of the universe, delving into the possibility that one day we might be able to make the perilous journey from our universe into another, more hospitable one via wormholes and dimensional portals.

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Manfred Kets de Vries
The Leader on the Couch: A Clinical Approach to Changing People & Organizations
John Wiley and Sons, 2006

Kets de Vries explains how despite the proven benefit of emotional intelligence, organizational life has typically been hostile to the inner world of feeling. Rationality is deemed superior to feeling, which can contaminate judgment. But without feeling there is no passion, and no action. By revealing the ‘dark side’ of leadership behavior and its impact on performance renowned thinker Manfred sets out to change people and organizations for the better. He delves into the startling parallels between the journey to emotional intelligence, the process of psychoanalysis, the practice of leadership coaching and the Zen journey to enlightenment.

Informative and compelling The Leader on the Couch helps executives, consultants, and coaches to peel back the layers of self-deception and reveal how inner personality – largely hard-wired since early childhood – affects the way they lead and manage others.

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George Kohlrieser
Hostage at the Table
Pfeiffer Wiley, 2006

Kohlrieser has created a powerful metaphor born out of years of personal experience and insight as a real-life hostage negotiator. He applies techniques to teach business people how to deal with conflict effectively, while ensuring one never becomes a psychological "hostage." The parallel between the actual and the metaphorical hostage situation is powerful, and the themes he presents—which guide the reader on a journey to a “hostage free” state of mind—are relevant in both business and life.

Illustrated with examples and grounded in research, Hostage at The Table covers the seven key factors to hostage negotiation from the power of talking, dialogue, and negotiation to mastering the mind's eye and visualizing success.

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Chris Patten
Cousins and Strangers: America, Britain, and Europe in a New Century
Times Books, 2006

Patten draws on his wealth of diverse experiences to explore the relationship within the Western alliance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He explains that despite the past fifty years of peace and prosperity between the United States, Great Britain and Europe the relationship has now come under strain and it is time for the leaders of these regions to address the current threats of terrorism, environmental decline and conflicts between rich and poor nations. He explores a range of political issues, often revisiting old debates with imaginative arguments and the kind of hard-won perspective which only a few political veterans attain.

Cousins and Strangers is a thoroughly insightful commentary into the world’s troubles, challenges, and opportunities. Those in search of enlightenment about transatlantic relations will find it here.

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C.K. Prahalad
The Future of Competition: Co-creating Unique Value with Customers
Prentice Hall, 2006

Prahalad and his co-author Venkat Ramaswamy explain how the role of the customer has changed so dramatically. Despite unbounded opportunities for innovation, companies are struggling to satisfy their customers and sustain profitable growth. Customers are no longer passive recipients of the products and services companies created for them, instead they are now active participants who actually co-create the value they receive, from products and services they help develop, test, and distribute. In this emerging opportunity space companies must create a new theory on how to compete build new strategic capital.

The Future of Competition redefines strategy for the information age and assists managers with the production of a new framework for value creation.

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Joseph Stiglitz
Fair Trade For All: How Trade Can Promote Development
Oxford University Press, 2005

Stiglitz and his co-author Andrew Charlton address one of the key issues facing world leaders today; how can the poorer countries of the world be helped to help themselves through freer, fairer trade? They explore the different ways to ensure the world trading system is truly supportive to international development and not just to the most powerful economies and they put forward a radical and realistic new model for managing trading relationships between the richest and the poorest countries.

Insightful and accessibly written Fair Trade For All is packed full of empirical evidence and analysis and is most certainly a must read for anybody interested in the current debate.

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Donald N Sull
Made in China: What Western Managers Can Learn from Trailblazing Chinese Entrepreneurs
Harvard Business School Press, 2005


Sull investigates the pioneers who are reshaping the world’s second largest economy: China. In the face of an avalanche of obstacles, an elite few Chinese firms have thrived during the turbulence of the last decade. He explores these entrepreneurs’ winning strategies, from how they anticipate and maneuver through emerging threats and opportunities to how they manage risks and how they out-execute rivals. Dip in for a revealing look at the secrets behind the success of some of these fortunate enterprises.

Made in China is an insider’s look at the world’s savviest and most resilient entrepreneurs. It’s no wonder that the first print run was an instant sell-out.

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