The World's Best Book Summaries
How can you choose advisors who will stay loyal to you? How much power should you give them? In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli advises that princes should surround themselves with reliable advisors. He gives recommendations on where to find advisors and what the relationship with them should be like. Read more about Machiavelli’s discussion of political advisors below.
What are strategic inflection points? Is your business facing such a crisis? Drawing on his experience as the CEO of Intel, Andrew Grove provides clear guidance on preparing for, identifying, and adapting to the kinds of upheavals that send less agile companies out of business. He calls these crises “strategic inflection points.” Keep reading to learn what strategic inflection points are and how to determine whether your business has reached one.
What was Steve Jobs’s personality like? How did he treat his employees at Apple? Steve Jobs was one of the leading figures in electronics when he was alive. His biography by Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, claims this is because he was a strict and intense leader who strived for perfection. Learn more about Jobs’s determined personality below.
Could your company survive a major upheaval? How can you give it a better chance to weather the storms? Every company must navigate a changing business landscape, but not all changes are equal. Andrew Grove’s book Only the Paranoid Survive provides a practical guide for business leaders struggling to navigate a major disruption to their industry. Here’s our overview of the book’s principles and concrete advice.
What does Machiavelli mean by “virtú”? How does it differ from the modern understanding of virtue? In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli sets forth several qualities that great princes (rulers) have. According to Machiavelli, virtú is the characteristic that stands above the rest. However, it doesn’t mean exactly what its apparent modern equivalent means. Keep reading to find out what virtú is to Machiavelli.
Do you want to improve your leadership skills? What are some of the best leadership resources to learn from? There are hundreds of leadership resources on the web that claim to be the best when it comes to leadership development. As with everything, the best sources are always the ones that speak from firsthand experience. That was exactly our criteria when compiling this list of the best leadership resources, including books, blogs, and podcasts.
Do you often feel like there isn’t enough time in the day? Do you feel like you don’t have control of your time? Many people feel as though there is never enough time—not enough time for work, not enough time for family, not enough time for ourselves. This sentiment is understandable: Modern life is busy, and with so many things vying for our time and attention, it’s hard to be on top of everything. But if your time management is on point, being on top of everything that’s important is not that difficult. In this article, we’ve rounded up a
What is a hiring plan? Why do you need to have one for your business? A hiring plan helps you determine what roles you need to fill in your company. Once you’ve done that, you need to begin interviewing candidates. Read below to learn how to create a hiring plan by interviewing potential job candidates.
How important are location and timing in business? Are they a built-in advantage for you? If you’re in the right place at the right time, you have a leg up over the competition. Location and timing are unfair advantages identified in the book The Unfair Advantage by entrepreneurs Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba. The authors discuss potential drawbacks of good location and timing, how to know if location and timing are your unfair advantage in particular, and how to improve and make the most of your location and timing. Let’s take a closer look at this unfair advantage.
What’s a tribe? How do tribal cultures develop? What does a tribal leader do? In the book Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, Halee Fischer-Wright, and John King contend that organizations succeed or fail on the strength of their tribes—groups of individuals with shared social norms and ways of working. They argue that you can improve your organization by elevating the cultures of those tribes. If you implement their strategies, the authors say you’ll improve both your bottom line and the happiness of your employees. Take a look at our overview of the book, and see what you can apply to your