Success in business has traditionally meant excelling at the hard skills: controlling costs, boosting speed, effectively managing the supply chain, and superior number-crunching and analytics. For years, mastering these hard virtues was enough--but in today's climate, it's not so simple. The very appeal of the hard stuff, the fact that it can be measured and quantified, also means it can be analyzed and copied by the competition. So what does it really take to get ahead, and stay there?THE SOFT EDGE argues that soft virtues are the key to any business's success in the modern economy. Soft virtues create meaning, inspire trust, and motivatepeople. Soft virtues offer a clear framework for seeing through the disruption of a rapidly changing environment. THE SOFT EDGE identifies 5 key virtues: Design: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence--they make customers feel smart. If your product or service is seen as a badge of intelligence, you're far along the road to lasting success.Teamwork: Team-oriented selling and sales commissions outperform individually focused sales teams by 30 percent.Smarts: In the age of Google, true smartness means the ability to see and recognize patterns--and constitutes the difference between forecasting a likely future or simply following the conventional wisdomTrust: Customers must trust that your product or service is authentic and robust enough to withstand the immediacy of today's media. When things go wrong, customers and stakeholders believe you'll do the right thing.Story: In a world where outsiders can weigh in and have a greater voice on your brand, the ability to create an effective narrative is more important than ever.How can organizations ensure that they get the most out of the soft virtues? THE SOFT EDGE explains that tools like Big Data hold the key and draws on the close collaboration between the authors and NetApp, a major player in the Big Data market. Datasets drive product design, and numbers and statistics can make once-subjective results provable. Since analytics offers a common vocabulary between CMOs, CFOs, and CIOs, Big Data helps companies boost the bottom line across the organization.The post-recession economy can reward you if you do the right things, but will punish you, swiftly and severely, if you don't. THE SOFT EDGE provides the essential tools for any organization to stay competitive, now and in the future.

A winning combination of how-to guide and reference work, The Only Business Writing Book You'll Ever Need addresses a wide-ranging spectrum of business communication with its straightforward seven-step method. These easy-to-follow steps save you time from start to finish, and helpful checklists will boost your confidence as they keep you on track. You'll learn to promote yourself and your ideas clearly and concisely-whether putting together a persuasive project proposal or dealing with daily email. Laura Brown's supportive, no-nonsense approach to business writing is thoughtfully adapted to the increasingly digital corporate landscape. She provides practical tips and comprehensive examples for all the most popular forms of communication, including slide presentations, resumes, cover letters, web copy, and a thorough guide to the art of crafting e-mails and instant messages. Insightful sidebars from experts in various fields demystify the skills of self-editing, creating content, and overcoming writer's block, and Brown's reference-ready resources on style, punctuation, and grammar will keep your writing error-free. Nuanced, personable, and of-the-moment, The Only Business Writing Book You'll Ever Need offers essential tools for success in the rapidly changing world of business communication.

A groundbreaking book that sheds new light on the vital importance of teams as the fundamental unit of organization and competition in the global economy. Teams-we depend on them for both our professional success and our personal happiness. But isn't it odd how little scrutiny we give them? The teams that make up our lives are created mostly by luck, happenstance, or circumstance-but rarely by design. In trivial matters-say, a bowling team, the leadership of a neighborhood group, or a holiday party committee-success by serendipity is already risky enough. But when it comes to actions by fast-moving start-ups, major corporations, nonprofit institutions, and governments, leaving things to chance can be downright dangerous. Offering vivid reports of the latest scientific research, compelling case studies, and great storytelling, Team Genius shows managers and executives that the planning, design, and management of great teams no longer have to be a black art. It explores solutions to essential questions that could spell the difference between success and obsolescence. Do you know how to reorganize your subpar teams to turn them into top performers? Can you identify which of the top-performing teams in your company are reaching the end of their life span? Do you have the courage to shut them down? Do you know how to create a replacement team that will be just as effective-without losing time or damaging morale? And, most important, are your teams the right size for the job? Throughout, Rich Karlgaard and Michael S. Malone share insights and real-life examples gleaned from their careers as journalists, analysts, investors, and globetrotting entrepreneurs, meeting successful teams and team leaders to reveal some "new truths": * The right team size is usually one fewer person than what managers think they need. * The greatest question facing good teams is not how to succeed, but how to die. * Good "chemistry" often makes for the least effective teams. * Cognitive diversity yields the highest performance gains-but only if you understand what it is. * How to find the "bliss point" in team intimacy-and become three times more productive. * How to identify destructive team members before they do harm. * Why small teams are 40 percent more likely to create a successful breakthrough than a solo genius is. * Why groups of 7 (+- 2), 150, and 1,500 are magic sizes for teams. Eye-opening, grounded, and essential, Team Genius is the next big idea to revolutionize business.