The classic on the universal laws of business success, completely revised and updated for today's leaders. Completely rewritten for today's business world, What the CEO Wants You to Know, expanded and updated, describes the fundamentals behind every business, from street vendors in Mumbai, to Fortune 500 companies. Drawing on stories from Uber, Amazon, Apple, Toyota, Netflix, Lyft, The Limited, Walmart, GE and Starbucks, Charan, in the most accessible language imaginable, explains the ins and outs of how companies work, from gross revenue and operating costs, to inventory and cash flow, from turnover, profits and margins, to return on capital and accounts payable and receivable, from product quality to sales
"The phenomenon of uncertainty is not new; what is new is its intensity and potential to change industries and destroy companies. Business leaders can be on the defensive, or they can be on offense, prepared to lead decisively. The ability to deal with uncertainty is perhaps the paramount skill leaders must have to be successful in this era. Without it they risk becoming personally obsolete and driving their companies off a cliff. In The Attacker's Advantage, renowned business expert and bestselling author Ram Charan shows what skills are needed to be able to spot the disruption that is coming, and what actions are necessary to take advantage of these changes. While many leaders know how to cope with operational uncertainty--when, for example, revenue fluctuates--the same cannot be said for dealing with structural uncertainty that can alter the money-making patterns of a company, industry or entire economic sector. Charan demonstrates the huge upside offered by structural uncertainty and provides the concepts and tools--such as being able to spot the catalysts of disruption, building organizational preparedness, developing a financial understanding of the consequences--to take advantage of forces that are creating new customer needs, market segments and ways to make money"--
"A Call to Leadership. The role of the corporate board has changed. Today's smartest CEOs have used this to their benefit. But increased board control and involvement also has its downsides. This book, from three leading experts in the field, serves as a guide to help take advantage of board oversight while avoiding the pitfalls. Boardroom veterans Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useem have this to say to today's leaders: Chief executives must run the corporation, but directors must also lead the corporation on the most crucial issues. Monitoring and governance matters, but the time has come to rebalance the responsibilities of the board. Directors need to know when to take charge, when to partner, and when to get out of the way. Charan, Carey, and Useem describe this emerging trend and argue that its overall impact on business performance will be positive. They offer a new roadmap both to CEOs and directors so that senior executives can better balance board oversight with their day-to-day operations of the firm, and directors have a better understanding of when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way. Based on work with and study of board leaders and chief executives of Fortune 500 firms across the globe, Boards that Lead is that new roadmap, showing what this new partnership model of leadership looks like-and how to make it work. "--
Machine generated contents note: 1 High-Potential Leaders Are Crucial to Helping Businesses Adapt and Thrive in the Digital Age 1 The Urgent Need for High-Potential Leaders 1 What "High Potential" Means Now 2 An Important Distinction 7 Getting Hipos There Faster 8 How Hipos Can Use This Book 11 How Leadership Developers Should Use This Book 13 A Final Word 14 Tips for Hipos -- How to Use This Book 18 Tips for HR and Leadership Developers -- How to Use This Book 20 PART I Five Essential Skills for High-Potential Leaders 23 2 Increase the Return on Your Time (ROYT) 25 Get Comfortable with People Better Than You 25 Set and Reset Your Priorities 28 Customize Your Information Flow 31 Delegate and Follow Through 33 Trust But Verify 34 Decide How to Leverage Yourself 35 Create Repeatable Processes 37 Be Decisive 38 Additional Resources 43 3 Multiply the Energy and Skills of Those Around You 45 Identify a Person's God-Given Talent 46 Build Other People's Strengths 50 Make Necessary Changes Quickly 52 Manage the Intersections 53 Lead the Dialogue 56 Be a Social Architect 58 How Tony Palmer Became a Talent Magnet 60 Additional Resources 68 4 Be a Master of Big Ideas and Execution 71 Make Your Big Ideas Better 71 How to Assess Your Good Ideas 72 Getting Big Ideas Executed 76 Execution Basics 78 The Art of Asking Incisive Questions 80 A Hipo's Vision and Execution at Fingerhut 81 Additional Resources 90 5 Get to Know Customers, Competitors, and the Macro Environment 91 Observe the End-to-End Consumer Experience 92 Know the Competition 94 Dissect Ecosystems 98 See Your Business from the Outside In 100 Keep Up with Technology 103 Additional Resources 108 6 Build Your Mental Capacity 109 Widen Your Lens 109 Keep Learning 111 Build Diverse Networks 114 Seek Information from Everywhere 116 Stay Mentally Flexible 120 Additional Resources 129 PART II Taking Charge of Your Growth and Choosing Your Next Big Career Move 131 7 How, When, and Why to Make a Leap 133 The Virtue of Leaps 134 Making Leaps Without Leaving Your Company 139 Build Your Own Support System 141 Bonnie Hill's Multiple Leaps 143 Leaps Outside the Company 146 Weighing a Job Change 148 Your Exit Plan 150 Your Entrance Plan 151 Additional Resources 159 8 Track Your Mental Health and Work/Life Balance 161 Business Achievement 162 Life Satisfaction 163 Find a Meaningful Focus 168 Protect Your Mental Health 172 How Aaron Greenblatt Found His Focus 173 Additional Resources 181 PART III The Care and Feeding of High Potentials -- Every Organization's Precious Resource 183 9 Identifying, Recruiting, and Retaining Hipos 185 Redefi ne and Find High-Potential Leaders 186 Create Opportunities for Growth 189 Clear the Path for Hipos 192 Improve Feedback Loops 193 Refresh the Leadership Pool 196 How to Use This Book to Develop Your Organization's Hipos 197 Key Points for Talent Management Leaders 197 Additional Resources 209 Acknowledgments 211 Index 213
Most executives today recognize the competitive advantage of human capital, and yet the talent practices their organizations use are stuck in the twentieth century. Typical HR talent-planning processes (which are too expensive and take too long to implement) are designed for predictable environments, traditional ways of getting work done, and organizations where "lines and boxes" still define how people are managed. As work and organizations have become more fluid--and business strategy is no longer about planning years out but about sensing and seizing new opportunities and adapting to a constantly changing environment--companies must deploy talent in new ways to remain competitive. Written for CEOs and leaders across the organization, Talent Rules provides a much-needed framework for transforming how companies acquire, manage, and deploy talent--for today's agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment--and for creating the HR function the business needs. With examples of companies that are well along the path of reinventing their approaches to talent, such as Amgen, AT&T, BlackRock, GE, Haier, J&J, and PepsiCo, as well as the juggernauts and the start-ups of Silicon Valley, this book provides leaders with a seven-part plan for: Integrating talent and capital Making talent drive strategy Designing and redesigning the work of the organization Scaling up individual talent Creating an M&A strategy for talent Reinventing the role of HR Living the talent agenda Providing deep, expert insight and advice for what needs to change and how to change it, Talent Rules is the definitive book for reimagining and creating the talent-driven organization.--
"In business, leadership at every level is a requisite for company survival. Yet the leadership pipeline -- the internal strategy to grow leaders -- in many companies is dry or nonexistent. Drawing on their experiences at many Fortune 500 companies, the authors show how organizations can develop leadership at every level by identifying future leaders, assessing their corporate confidence, planning their development, and measuring their results. They integrate the leadership development process with a succession planning process for a proven system that enables companies to constantly renew their pipeline without having to overspend for outside talent. Their comprehensive breakdown of the six primary leadership transitions in the pipeline apply to almost any company structure. The new edition will have a new foreword and preface;chapters will each have new "Observations from the Field Sections" with updates to the model, new stories and additional advice and a "Frequently Asked Questions" section. In sum they have added 25% new material. "--
"Leadership has become among the handful of most critical elements for business success in the knowledge era. Companies increasingly compete on the strength of their intellectual capital, those intangibles but priceless assets that reside in the people and processes of the firm. But even the strongest intellectual capital base can be worthless if not guided by leaders at all levels of the organization. And having leaders at all levels requires a constantly renewing pipeline of new leaders. The problem is, the pipeline at most companies is bone dry. Companies invest in leadership development programs and establish elaborate succession frameworks, but don't knit the two together nor take into account the fact that talented people are often recruited away. They prepare leaders in the image of the existing leaders, assuming those same skills will be meaningful into the future - when, in fact, most companies don't have a clue about what skills will be needed of their leaders in the future"--
