Give ownership of business strategy to every employee at every level of your organization You have a great product. You have top-notch talent. You have a process that's been carefully mapped out. So, what's missing? Executive, speaker, and leadership authority Billy Ray Taylor points to a lack of clarity on strategy that makes it impossible for your employees to understand how their activities fit within the company's overall vision and to take true ownership of their careers. In this groundbreaking guide, Taylor reveals how his proprietary LinkedX Process can help your organization cultivate "extreme ownership" at every level, from top management to front-line employees. Each chapter clearly covers one of the five steps of the Process, providing an actionable roadmap to reaching clearly defined benchmarks and turning them into winning practices. Taylor's proven program will show you how to: Build and deploy a clear, purpose-driven strategy with clarity Align the strategy with process, assets, and talent to deliver growth and profitability Enable and develop people-driven ownership and adherence to process Measure what matters by defining standards and performance Understand that winning is more than just the numbers Highlighted by Taylor's personal experiences working with companies across the globe, The Winning Link offers you a step-by-step playbook for creating a corporate culture-driven approach to success.

The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor: America's Classical Musician is the autobiography of the legendary jazz ambassador whose work spans more than six decades, from the heyday of 52nd Street in 1940s New York City to CBS Sunday Morning. Beginning with his childhood in segregation-era Washington D.C., Billy Taylor recounts how he came of age as a jazz musician in smoke-filled clubs pulsating with the rhythms of bebop, and later climbed to world acclaim as an internationally recognized music educator and popular media figure. Through his life's work, Taylor fought not only for the recognition of jazz music as "America's classical music" but also for the recognition of black musicians as key contributors to the American music repertoire. Peppered with anecdotes detailing encounters with other jazz legends such as Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and many others, this autobiography is not only the life story of a jazz musician and spokesman, but is also the history of a nation grappling with racism and modernity.

"Q: How can you tell when a producer is lying to you?
A: His lips are moving."

Movie madness meets midlife crisis in Billy Taylor's hilarious novel, as a recovering dolly grip battles egos, absurdity, and a soon-to-be-ex-wife, all to keep a really lousy movie from falling to pieces.

It's been nine months since Bobby Conlon's wife dumped him for a hot young film director, and he's doing great. Okay, so he occasionally breaks into Natalie's apartment and sobs along to her old Carole King records, but that's only when he's out of meds. He's better now. One hundred percent. And to prove it, he's throwing out that year-old Christmas tree decorated with five hundred empty Vicodin bottles and flying to Texas to work on a movie starring Ralph the Swimming Pig.

Once in Texas, Bobby realizes he's signed on to the most dysfunctional movie ever. The director can't direct, the pig catches pneumonia, and just when things can't get any worse, Natalie and her boyfriend are hired to take over the movie. Suddenly, no matter which way Bobby turns, fresh disasters await. Still, in spite of everything, he clings to the hope that a happy ending might still be possible. This is the movie business, right?