A Washington Post Bestseller Three Principles for Managing—and Avoiding—the Problems of Growth Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What’s more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further—and can actively lead to decline. The key insight from Zook and Allen’s research is that managing these choke points requires a “founder’s mentality”—behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder—to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers: • An insurgent’s clear mission and purpose • An unambiguous owner mindset • A relentless obsession with the front line Based on the authors’ decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder’s Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds—not just start-ups—and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader—not only a founder—can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Every great business founder has an origin story. For Leslie Wexner, that story began in 1963 when he concluded that he could create a retail business that would achieve better results than the one run by his parents. #2 Wexner’s company, The Limited, was successful in its first year, enough to reduce his anxiety. He continued to grow the company by opening a new store in each of the next five years, and each succeeded thanks in large part to his force of will. #3 Wexner, the head of L Brands, has made a success of not only The Limited but also Express, Bath Body Works, Abercrombie Fitch, Henri Bendel, La Senza, and Victoria's Secret. He has produced a return of nearly 20 percent per year for his shareholders. #4 The founder’s mentality is made up of three traits: the insurgent mission, the front-line obsession, and the owner’s mindset. It is key to cultivating these traits that leads to success.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.

Originally published in 1968 The Founders of Psychical Research is centred upon the lives and work of Henry Sidgwick, Edmund Gurney and Frederic Myers – prominent in the Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R) - during its early years: it is not a history of the Society. It passes over important aspects of the S.P.R.’s story and deals at some length with matters quite outside it. The book frequently gives accounts of ‘paranormal’ phenomena which if indeed they occurred, would not be explainable through any recognisable hypothesis, but are treated throughout as unexplained.

Organizations need to contend with issues related to disruptive psychopathological behavior that in years past may have been swept under the rug. Also, clinicians are more aware that their clients′ mental health concerns are influenced by the workplace and that treatment without regard to what happens at work is not apt to be successful. The Handbook of Mental Health in the Workplace explores how psychological disorders impact the ability to work and recommends treatments and their likely side effects. It is designed to give the mental health clinician, I/O psychologist, and human resources manager the information they need to determine the employee′s fitness for work and what, if any, accommodations may be needed. The handbook is divided into five parts: Part I: General Issues Presents an overview of the field and outlines the legal rights and responsibilities for employees and employers. Part II: Working Conditions, Life Stressors, and Mental Health Presents the current research on job stress and its effects on mental health, the effects of work-family conflicts, women′s health issues, and organizational interventions for reducing stress and conflict. Part III: Effects of Psychopathology on Work Provides detailed descriptions of the most common forms of psychopathology that may affect the workplace. Part IV: Effects of Disruptive Behavior at Work Explores behavior that may not relate to standard diagnostic categories but has clear mental health implications. This includes anger and violence, poor social skills, the effects of abuse, exposure to traumatic events, passive-aggressive behavior, and grieving. Part V: Organizational Practice and Mental Health Presents the mental health considerations for designing organizational policy, job analysis, and accommodations for the disabled. This handbook should prove beneficial to human resources professionals, mental health practitioners, I/O psychologists, and administrators of employee assistance programs (EAPs). Graduate students and professors in psychology and management will also find this a valuable reference.

FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE MONTH 'Full of powerful, practical lessons on changing how we think and act.' Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman of Google 'Many principles mentioned in the book helped us build Zoom, and they will help you as well.' Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO, Zoom Inspired by venture capitalists' unique way of thinking, The Venture Mindset offers a transformative playbook for delivering results in a rapidly changing world from a top Stanford professor and a technology executive. Venture capitalists are known for their extraordinary ability to spot opportunities. They know how to identify emerging trends, how to bring new industries into being, and when to hold them and when to fold. Their unique way of thinking has made them the force behind world-changing companies such as Amazon, Google, Moderna, SpaceX, and Zoom. Stanford Professor Ilya Strebulaev has devoted two decades to studying VCs' counterintuitive approaches to decision-making and the reasons behind the successes and failures of corporate innovations. Alex Dang has witnessed up close how VCs' thinking and mechanisms can create successful businesses at companies like Amazon and McKinsey. Combining their insight and extensive experience, they present nine distinct principles that will help you make better decisions, transform your business, and achieve remarkable results, no matter your industry. In The Venture Mindset, you'll learn: - One question VCs ask that will change the way you evaluate opportunities - Why you should encourage dissent and be wary of consensus - The number one killer of innovation in traditional corporate environments - Why it's crucial to learn when to 'pull the plug' on initiatives - Why failure is not just an option, but a necessity Packed with entertaining stories and scientific precision, The Venture Mindset is a must-read for anyone who wants to be better equipped for the era of uncertainty when industry, company, and career can be disrupted overnight. The Venture Mindset will teach you more than how to simply survive. It'll teach you how to win big.

It takes a special kind of magic for a challenger brand to achieve seemingly impossible customer-centric results. It’s that magic that makes Australian telecommunications company Macquarie Technology world leaders in award-winning customer experience. Joseph A. Michelli—the bestselling author of books about brands renowned for their stellar service and outstanding growth, such as The Ritz-Carlton, Mercedes-Benz, and Starbucks—was so impressed by Macquarie’s ability to deliver transformative customer experiences that he felt compelled to write this book. Customer Magic is a practical, easy-to-read guide that, consistent with Macquarie’s commitment to delivering customer value, shares transferrable knowledge on how to identify and solve customer pain points; craft a compelling unique value proposition; attract, select, grow, and retain customer service talent and subject matter expertise; set, measure, track, and incentivize mission-critical business goals and customer-driven growth; innovate solutions that meet your customers’ stated and unstated needs; and maintain a growth mindset and leave a legacy of success.