Keep your cool and get the results you want when faced with crucial conversations. This New York Times bestseller and business classic has been fully updated for a world where skilled communication is more important than ever.

The book that revolutionized business communications has been updated for today’s workplace. Crucial Conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation―especially difficult ones―leads to the results you want. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person.

This new edition addresses issues that have arisen in recent years. You’ll learn how to:

• Respond when someone initiates a crucial conversation with you
• Identify and address the lag time between identifying a problem and discussing it
• Communicate more effectively across digital mediums

When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation poorly and suffer the consequences; or apply the lessons and strategies of Crucial Conversations and improve relationships and results.

Whether they take place at work or at home, with your coworkers or your spouse, crucial conversations have a profound impact on your career, your happiness, and your future. With the skills you learn in this book, you'll never have to worry about the outcome of a crucial conversation again.

African leadership is in crisis. The legacy of colonialism has prevailed, while novel challenges such as the pandemic and its aftermath, substantial developmental setbacks, the scourge of corruption and troughs in growth have challenged the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative that once dominated. In a deeply fragmented and uncertain world, one might ask, what is the source of inspiration for leadership?

As leaders are faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of rebuilding Africa’s economies, structures and systems, there is an argument to be made that leadership approaches should be uniquely and distinctly African.

Letlhokwa George Mpedi draws inspiration from African culture and African approaches to challenge the prevailing systems. By exploring selected proverbs and sayings, Letlhokwa identifies the tenets of successful and effective leadership. Traversing the ages, sourcing from indigenous practices, drawing from different regions and exploring diverse cultures on the continent, he finds common threads to rethink the practice of leadership.

From the Baobab to the Mosquito emphasises the value of collaboration and collective decision-making, reflecting the communal values that are at the heart of many African cultures. It offers a powerful reminder that leadership is not just about individual achievement, but about building strong relationships, fostering a sense of community, and making a positive difference in the lives of others.

Through this collection of African concepts in a contemporary context, Letlhokwa George Mpedi sounds the call for authentic African leaders.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Focussing on radical and breakthrough innovation, Joe Tidd provides a crucial insight into over 50 years of research and experience, and illustrates how the pioneering work on innovation dynamics can offer a deeper understanding of radical innovation to inform future research, policy and practice. The book also identifies the distinct sources, organization, processes and outcomes of radical innovation, in contrast to conventional incremental business and management approaches. Key Features: draws upon a distinct interdisciplinary body of knowledge on radical innovation illustrates conceptual models and practical methods to better understand and manage radical innovation goes beyond business school incremental approaches to innovation, such as marketing and design-thinking provides an argument for an iterative coupling process, between knowledge-push and demand-pull challenges and opportunities The practical approach in this Advanced Introduction will provide an excellent resource for scholars and researchers in innovation management and policy, as well as managers responsible for creating, resourcing and managing radical innovations.

A powerful meditation on the nature and dangers of ego, from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Stillness is the Key, and Obstacle is the Way - over 1 million copies sold 'Re-read it each year. It's that important' Derek Sivers, author of Anything You Want 'Ryan Holiday is one of his generation's finest thinkers' Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art 'This is a book I want every athlete, aspiring leader, entrepreneur, thinker and doer to read' George Raveling, Nike's Director of International Basketball 'Inspiring yet practical' Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power It's wrecked the careers of promising young geniuses. It's evaporated great fortunes and run companies into the ground. It's made adversity unbearable and turned struggle into shame. Every great philosopher has warned against it, in our most lasting stories and countless works of art, in all culture and all ages. Its name? Ego, and it is the enemy - of ambition, of success and of resilience. In Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday shows us how and why ego is such a powerful internal opponent to be guarded against at all stages of our careers and lives, and that we can only create our best work when we identify, acknowledge and disarm its dangers. Drawing on an array of inspiring characters and narratives from literature, philosophy and history, the book explores the nature and dangers of ego to illustrate how you can be humble in your aspirations, gracious in your success and resilient in your failures. The result is an inspiring and timely reminder that humility and confidence are our greatest friends when confronting the challenges of a culture that tends to fan the flames of ego, a book full of themes and life lessons that will resonate, uplift and inspire.

STOP TELLING STORIES. START SELLING THEM!

The world is rightly obsessed with the incredible power of a good story. Unfortunately too many of us take that to mean that it is our own story that’s important. It’s not. The magic happens not when we tell our customers the story of our past, but when we sell them a new story of their future. One in which we play a part.

As a salesperson (and make no mistake, you are a salesperson) you have two jobs. Job No. 2 of the storyseller is to help your clients and customers slay their dragon. Job No. 1 of the storyseller is to help them see their dragon.

You are in the dragon hunting business, but dragon hunting ain’t easy – there’s work to be done. In this short and highly practical book, renowned speaker Richard Mulholland shares with you how to use powerful stories to change minds, drive sales, and solve problems.

Here Be Dragons isn’t just a how-to book, it is far more a why-to, and mostly a what-to-do book.

One of America’s foremost experts on leadership, Dr. John C. Maxwell believes that people need to master skills in four areas if they want to be successful. In this new edition of The 4 Pillars of Success, these four areas are called the four pillars, because they are key features of attaining success.

The four pillars are:

• Mentoring – help others achieve the next level
• Self-improvement – improve your life, improve yourself
• Success – overcome obstacles that keep you from success
• Teamwork – talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships

What does ‘success’ mean to you?

If you’re an entrepreneur, this probably feels like a straightforward question with a simple answer: you want your business to thrive. You want to make a profit; stand out; be noticed. But then what? Are you done? Are you fulfilled? Are you happy?

For Adii Pienaar, selling two multimillion-dollar businesses wasn’t enough. He was an entrepreneur because he wanted freedom; and yet, instead, he was stuck in a destructive cycle, almost losing everything by his constant search for more. That’s when he changed his mindset, his expectations, and his life.

In Life Profitability, Adii provides you with a new perspective for becoming self-aware, recognising your values, and understanding your impact. An enriched life and successful business are not mutually exclusive. In fact, this book will provide you with the first steps in building a business that is more sustainable with increased options for you, your employees, and your community. Learn how to give yourself some space, measure meaningful output, and live with intention so that you can maximise profit that truly counts.

Adii prides himself on the commercial and life profitability of his businesses. His personal journey enabled him to discover a rich, fulfilling life that coincides with a sustainable strategy for success in the workplace, and his concept of ‘life profitability’ is gaining momentum in the business world.

Winners find a way to win.

Who better to learn from, on how to be successful, than those who’ve reached the top of their game and stayed there. Using sport as a prism, this book is for people who want to make changes in their personal and professional lives in order to beat the opposition and take home the gold.

Competitive Edge is a book about competition, struggle and hard work, but, ultimately, it is about success and the routes you can take to get to your own promised land. Jam-packed with lessons, observations and tips taken from the very best sportspeople around the globe, on how they found ways to win in their various disciplines, discover how you can be successful too.

Business is, by its very nature, competitive and the world is a tough place right now. There is a lot to be learnt from those who’ve triumphed in the ultra-competitive realm of professional sports, and their lessons are distilled in this book; a resource for individuals and business people who are looking to reach the next level.

Competitive Edge will serve as a guide to determine where you need to improve in the different aspects of your life, or business. It will give you an insight into how the very best adapted in order to rise to another level, and it will teach you how to get ahead and have sustained success in whatever endeavour you face.

Competitive Edge is a winner’s guide to success and how anyone can achieve that gold medal, and also stay ahead of the chasing pack.

Today it is clear to managers and entrepreneurs that the business environment can change at any given time. Strategic management is an important and ongoing process of formulating and implementing strategies that help an organisation to position itself optimally and so maintain a competitive advantage that results in profit. It creates harmony between any organisation, big or small, and its environment. All stakeholders are affected by strategic decisions. In the South African context, strategic management is crucial for all profit-seeking as well as non-profit-seeking organisations as a result of an ever-changing, turbulent and competitive environment. It is therefore important for students and practitioners of management at every level and in every organisation to understand the vital role of strategic management in the life of an organisation. The strategic management process: a South African perspective is a new South African handbook with a fresh and exciting perspective. Its four parts follow an understandable and practical approach, making use of numerous figures and "strategy in action" cases to support the theory. The strategic management process: a South African perspective should prove invaluable both to students in strategic management and to organisations, from corporate and public companies with management training programmes, to small business ventures that are trying to gain a competitive advantage in a cut-throat environment.

The Handbook of Sustainable Innovation maps the multiple lineages of research and understanding that constitute academic work on how technological change relates to sustainable practices of production and consumption. Leading academics contribute by mapping the general evolution of this academic field, our understanding of sustainable innovation at the firm, user, and systems level, the governance of sustainable innovation, and the methodological approaches used. The Handbook explores the distinctiveness of sustainable innovation and concludes with suggestions for generating future research avenues that exploit the current diversity of work while seeking increased systemic insight. This unique and original book will have a broad appeal among scholars, researchers and advanced students interested in innovation, environmental studies and technological transitions.

Maverick. Leadership genius. Self-made millionaire. Dragon. The rock star of public speaking. Vusi Thembekwayo has been called many things.

Join him in his inspiring journey from the township to the top echelons of South African business, to becoming one of the youngest directors of a listed company and CEO of a boutique investment firm. As a Dragons' Den judge and a sought- after public speaker across the globe, Vusi doesn't just talk business – he lives it.

Now you can learn the secret of his success and how to shape your own destiny.

When Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy/Bad Strategy was published in 2011, it immediately struck a chord, calling out as bad strategy the mish-mash of pop culture, motivational slogans and business buzz speak so often and misleadingly masquerading as the real thing. Since then, his original and pragmatic ideas have won fans around the world and continue to help readers to recognise and avoid the elements of bad strategy and adopt good, action-oriented strategies that honestly acknowledge the challenges being faced and offer straightforward approaches to overcoming them. Strategy should not be equated with ambition, leadership, vision or planning; rather, it is coherent action backed by an argument. For Rumelt, the heart of good strategy is insight into the hidden power in any situation, and into an appropriate response - whether launching a new product, fighting a war or putting a man on the moon. Drawing on examples of the good and the bad from across all sectors and all ages, he shows how this insight can be cultivated with a wide variety of tools that lead to better thinking and better strategy, strategy that cuts through the hype and gets results.

With an interdisciplinary approach, this book elaborates and discusses the strategic, regulatory and economic scenario that the sponsorship of a European Digital Single Market has been generating for small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs). Encompassing expert innovative analysis of the regulatory framework, economic dynamics and organizational processes, SMEs in the Digital Era highlights the effects these have and the complex process through which SMEs can enter and successfully compete in the digital market. With contributions from international scholars, this insightful book takes a deep dive into the current most relevant debates taking place in management, economics and business law using original evidence from a variety of fields and countries. Chapters offer a fresh look at the new policies and regulatory tools required to meet the challenges of digitalization, reflecting on the effects on employment, competition and organizational processes, and how imbalances can impact the future of the technological revolution. Providing insights into the most advanced and recent research on digital markets, this will be an excellent resource for academics, practitioners, managers and policymakers in fields ranging from organization theory and organizational behaviour to strategy, economic analysis as well as economics and business law.

This textbook addresses the most crucial strategic decisions and management challenges facing managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating across different institutional settings and complex cultural contexts. How can managers of MNEs address pressures for local responsiveness and global integration? What are cultural and institutional differences and how do they impact the management of MNEs? How can managers create social capital across the MNE in the face of such differences? How can managers ensure knowledge transfer across the MNE? How can human resources be managed in a world of differing standards? Taking a critical, multi-level approach to international business, this textbook: Explores the strategic choices available to managers of MNEs and their consequences in an interactive way, providing an original, and engaging approach to the subject for students seeking to understand the issues faced by managers of MNEs Gives state-of-the-art theoretical overviews of topics related to global strategy and management, making this textbook a useful reference for academics as well as students Offers thirteen original, rich, case studies to illustrate each chapter's theory, highlighting the key challenges and dilemmas faced by managers of MNEs Provides clear exposition and critique of current literature to provide students with a firm theoretical understanding of the subject. This textbook provides a fresh and important contribution to the management of MNEs and will be invaluable for both students at masters level and their lecturers. It will also appeal to practitioners facing the daily challenges of managing MNEs.

Straight from the heart of South Africa’s townships and rural areas, Rising from the Township is an essential read for anyone seeking inspiration and practical strategies to build a thriving business.

This first volume in an ongoing series offers a deep dive into the journeys of South Africa’s most inspiring leaders, showing how they turned challenges into opportunities, accessed new markets, secured funding, and built powerful partnerships.

Meet 10 trailblazers reshaping their industries, including:

• Themba Makamo, founder of Vaya Footwear
• Sheldon Tatchell, founder of Legends Barbershop
• Ntuthuko Shezi, founder of Livestock Wealth
• Nozipho Tshabalala, founder of The Conversation Strategists
• Candice Thurston, founder of Candi & Co.

Each story is a powerful testament to resilience, creativity, and the unstoppable spirit that thrives in South Africa’s townships and rural areas.

Be part of the movement and get your copy today!

Guide students in mastering data analysis, modeling and spreadsheets with Albright/Winston's BUSINESS ANALYTICS: DATA ANALYSIS & DECISION MAKING, CENGAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, 8TH EDITION.

This analytical approach delivers a proven teach-by-example approach, student-friendly writing and integration with Excel. The data-oriented new edition covers the two main Power BI tools in Excel, Power Query and Power Pivot, and includes sections on implementing these tools in Power BI Desktop. This edition also contains expanded coverage of data mining. Current problems, cases and examples highlight the relevance of the concepts.

Let's be honest - no one grows up saying, 'One day, I want to be undervalued, underpaid, and overused like a free trial that no one cancels.' In Corporate Rebel, Sadika Fakir delivers a fearless, funny, no-BS guide to surviving—and thriving—inside systems that profit from women's ambition while quietly diminishing it.

From unpaid gigs and free consulting to boardrooms, breakdowns, bad bosses, and even worse job offers—and finally rising to senior leadership—Sadika tells it like it actually is. She has lived the contradictions of corporate life and is done pretending that hard work alone is enough. No corporate jargon. No girl-boss clichés. Just hard-won lessons, sharp humour, and radical honesty about what it really takes to be a woman at work.

This isn't a glossy “lean in” manifesto or a confidence pep talk. It's real strategy: how power actually works, why ego derails careers, when working for free is a trap, and how to stop playing small without burning everything down. Because sometimes being a corporate rebel means knowing when to break the rules, when to rewrite them, and when to laugh at how ridiculous they were in the first place.

Funny, fierce, deeply human, and refreshingly unpolished, Corporate Rebel is for every woman who's ever felt invisible in the room—and decided she wasn't going to stay that way.

This is not a career manual. It's a rebellion.

Entrepreneurs build businesses to fulfil dreams for themselves, their families, their employees and their community. Their business lives therefore have an impact on a wide range of people. Businesses do not grow and thrive merely on the strength of being a good opportunity, however. Entrepreneurs need creativity and innovation as well as leadership, management and networking abilities. Entrepreneurial skills focuses on the essential concepts and skills needed to grow and manage an entrepreneurial venture successfully.

Entrepreneurial skills presents current, relevant content in unique and interesting ways. It draws from real-world examples to introduce the reality of entrepreneurial life so that the reader will better understand his or her motivations for starting a business and avoid being disillusioned by distorted concepts about what is required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Contents include the following:

• Opportunity recognition
• Setting realistic goals and achieving them
• Networking
• Leadership and management
• Creativity and innovation
• Handling legal issues

Entrepreneurial skills will equip undergraduates at universities and universities of technology as well as practising entrepreneurs to deal with the challenges and develop the necessary skills set for running a business.

This original book is a unique and original in-depth study on how, in the past decade, Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) have achieved technological innovation in the large infrastructure sectors. It reveals a "new world" of Chinese innovation, showing that SOEs are willing to innovate and are also more than capable of doing so. Based on findings from first-hand data and years of observations, this book shows how the innovation ecosystem perspective incentivises and facilitates Chinese SOEs' innovation and highlights the entrepreneurial role of the government. Using the examples of UHV Power Transmission, mobile telecommunication standards, high-speed trains, and nuclear electric power, the book exhibits the complex determinants of SOEs' success in radical technological innovations within the large infrastructure sector. Chapters also demonstrate the innovation process of SOEs, the unique innovation model of China, as well as its advantages and disadvantages. Catch-Up and Radical Innovation in Chinese State-Owned Enterprises will be a useful resource for academics in research disciplines such as development studies, innovation and entrepreneurship, and Chinese studies. It will also aid entrepreneurs, businesses and managers who intend to collaborate with Chinese SOEs, to better understand the trends of SOEs' engagement in radical innovation and the potential opportunities for broadening their international collaborations.

Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS), a way to simulate a large number of choices by individual actors, is one of the most exciting practical developments in business modeling since the invention of relational databases. It represents a new way to understand data and generate information that has never been available before--a way for businesses to view the future and to understand and anticipate the likely effects of their decisions on their markets and industries. It thus promises to have far-reaching effects on the way that businesses in many areas use computers to support practical decision-making.
Managing Business Complexity is the first complete business-oriented agent-based modeling and simulation resource. It has three purposes: first, to teach readers how to think about ABMS, that is, about agents and their interactions; second, to teach readers how to explain the features and advantages of ABMS to other people and third, to teach readers how to actually implement ABMS by building agent-based simulations. It is intended to be a complete ABMS resource, accessible to readers who haven't had any previous experience in building agent-based simulations, or any other kinds of models, for that matter. It is also a collection of ABMS business applications resources, all assembled in one place for the first time. In short, Managing Business Complexity addresses who needs ABMS and why, where and when ABMS can be applied to the everyday business problems that surround us, and how specifically to build these powerful agent-based models.

Today it is clear to managers and entrepreneurs that the business environment can change at any given time. Strategic management is an important and ongoing process of formulating and implementing strategies that help an organisation to position itself optimally and so maintain a competitive advantage that results in profit. It creates harmony between any organisation, big or small, and its environment. All stakeholders are affected by strategic decisions. In the South African context, strategic management is crucial for all profit-seeking as well as non-profit-seeking organisations as a result of an ever-changing, turbulent and competitive environment. It is therefore important for students and practitioners of management at every level and in every organisation to understand the vital role of strategic management in the life of an organisation. The strategic management process: a South African perspective is a new South African handbook with a fresh and exciting perspective. Its four parts follow an understandable and practical approach, making use of numerous figures and "strategy in action" cases to support the theory. The strategic management process: a South African perspective should prove invaluable both to students in strategic management and to organisations, from corporate and public companies with management training programmes, to small business ventures that are trying to gain a competitive advantage in a cut-throat environment.

Pitching sucks. The word alone conjures up dull PowerPoint decks, pushy tactics, and shouty emails. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Danny Fontaine, an expert in innovative pitching, presents a game-changing guide that transforms pitching into an exciting, creative and enjoyable experience. Drawing from his billion-dollar pitching experience, this book delves into the psychology of connection and storytelling mastery, alongside practical methods for persuading any audience. And it's all backed with anecdotes of some of the very best, and worst, pitches of all time.

These techniques work in any context, from corporate boardrooms to classroom lectures to after-dinner speeches, proving that great pitching is all about creating experiences and evoking emotions.

Forget PowerPoint and discover how to captivate any audience, win more deals, and have fun doing it.

This edited collection presents fascinating new insights on gender and innovation with a central focus on the experiences of women innovators, exploring different geographic and institutional contexts through a series of in-depth case studies. It investigates how intersecting characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity as well as broader contextual and institutional factors enable and constrain the innovation activities and ambitions of women. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives, expert contributors interrogate questions of gender and innovation to examine the multiple factors influencing women innovators in the contemporary world. The book also engages with how policies can support diversity and inclusion within innovation, an area that has historically been highly gendered. Further to this, it recommends actions to take to support the development of inclusive practices, and identifies directions for future research. Exploring the diversity of gender and innovation as a concept as well as in practice, this book will be a stimulating resource for scholars, educators and students who wish to gain an overview of the topic. Policy makers and practitioners will find the insights on how policies and initiatives can achieve great equality and diversity informative and illuminating.

Written by a plethora of expert contributors from a range of institutions, the Handbook of Technology Transfer provides an engaging deep-dive review of technology transfer as a complex and dynamic process, applying different mechanisms characterising activities in a variety of countries. The Handbook takes a fresh look at how technology transfer comprises at least four dimensions: the underlying mechanism of transferring knowledge; the role of individuals that trigger the transfer; the role of institutions where the transfer takes place, and lastly the role of governments and politics. Split into four distinct parts, this insightful Handbook fully examines each of these dimensions and the roles that each of them play in technology transfer, highlighting university institutions in Europe and North America in particular. Forward-thinking, it also delves into future innovation implementation in emerging economies where resources are limited, and the challenges faced as a result. This enlightening Handbook will be an excellent resource for scholars of business management, economics and information technology. It will also be of great interest to policy-makers of innovation and entrepreneurship given its in-depth look at technology transfer and innovation.