This is a book for managers who know that their organisations are stuck in a mindset that thrives on fashionable business theories that are no more than folk wisdom, and whose so-called strategies that are little more than banal wish lists.It puts forward the notion that the application of uncommon sense - thinking or acting differently from other organisations in a way that makes unusual sense - is the secret to competitive success.The book consists of some 75 short essays and is divided into four parts: winners and losers, strategy and tactics, organisation and management, biases and remedies. Some of the arguments of the book are grounded in recent economic and psychological research, but most of them are the fruit of working with executives who have attended the management development programmes run by the authors at London Business School over the past 30 years. For those who want to succeed and stand out from the herd - and who dare to be different - it is a book full of useful insights and invaluable uncommon sense.

This is a book for managers who know that their organisations are stuck in a mindset that thrives on fashionable business theories that are no more than folk wisdom, and whose so-called strategies that are little more than banal wish lists. It puts forward the notion that the application of uncommon sense - thinking or acting differently from other organisations in a way that makes unusual sense - is the secret to competitive success. For those who want to succeed and stand out from the herd this book is a beacon of uncommon sense and a timely antidote to managerial humbug.

Winner of the Gold Medal, Top Sales & Marketing Book of 2017, Top Sales & Marketing Awards You’re a talented sales professional, but you face big hairy sales challenges every day and you just can’t seem to get anywhere. • Why can’t I get time with my prospects and clients? • Why are my benefit-loaded e-mails and phone calls falling on deaf ears? • How do I loosen the stranglehold of an established supplier? • How do I convert more leads into sales? • How do I stand out when my competition claims the exact same benefits? Same old questions, but in today’s market they call for different answers. Uncommon Sense shows you how to shift your thinking and behavior to stand out from the pack and achieve bigger, better sales, faster. It’s time to dispense with the common nonsense of dusty old selling imperatives (like, elevator pitches, unique value propositions, and Always Be Closing). Stop thinking like a seller, and start thinking like your customers and prospects. Uncommon Sense shows you how to shift the way you sell . . . and the results you get: • Provides a toolkit of practical strategies and tactics that will improve your access to prospects, enrich engagements with your customers, and transform your results. • Features dozens of examples of calls gone seriously wrong, career-changing stories of real salespeople, eye-opening statistics, and tips for thinking your way out of self-defeating behaviors into providing real value for clients. • Presents counter-intuitive sales thinking in bite-sized chunks for the busy salesperson who wants practical advice on specific topics. Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or a novice, a sales manager who wants to launch the team to new levels of performance, or a small business owner struggling with the selling role, Uncommon Sense is the personal sales coach you need to shift your thinking, shift your habits, and shift your performance to new heights.

The book is about the mind. The most interesting interdisciplinary conversations and the best idea sessions are held inside our mind. The mind is our neural suitcase. Our neural suitcase tells the tales of so many minds. The tales are beautiful, moral, vulnerable, quiet, chaotic, hungry, obese, real, fictional, memorable, forgetful, creative, curious, humorous, trustworthy, biased, wise, foolish, friendly, hateful, meaningful, blind, and questioning. The mind also builds castles in the air. It is for us to put foundations under these castles. It is for us to pack our neural suitcase carefully. Our questioning mind asks many interesting questions, such as: Should we design a perfect mind? Why does time have no mind of its own? Why is it hard to walk straight? Why do we make deliberate mistakes? Why is boredom not for everyone? What is the right dose of grief? Why is poison not always poisonous? Should we always hate our enemy? Why are memoirs fabricated? Why we are not totally dishonest? Why are all worries not worth worrying? Why shall some questions remain unresolved forever? The book is about the mind of a teacher, a mother, a beautiful woman, a gossiper, a liar, a fool, a corrupt person, a winner, etc.

Employee surveys represent an established tool for many executives and HR professionals alike. However, there is often a lack of orientation when it comes to interpreting the results. What does a certain result mean? The same number can be excellent, good, aver-age, bad or even alarming. This is where this book comes in. It offers background information on all es-sential dimensions of a survey and provides concrete advice on interpretation. This makes it a valuable aid for all those who have to work practically with em-ployee survey results.

‘A breakthrough book. Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell.’ Nassim Nicholas Taleb Why is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste? Discover the alchemy behind original thinking, as TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy advertising legend Rory Sutherland reveals why abandoning logic and casting aside rationality is the best way to solve any problem. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. He shows how economists, businesses and governments have got it all wrong: we are not rational creatures who make logical decisions based on evidence. Instead, the big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by thinking less logically. To be brilliant, you have to be irrational.

What might common sense be? Is it a mental capacity? Or does it consist of just truisms and precepts? If the latter is the case, is this knowledge innate or empirical? Or is it like “human nature”-a term that has played its role in rhetoric, but that does not appear to have a definite, agreed-upon meaning? Indeed we can learn a great deal about some of the most influential modern philosophers, from the Enlightenment to Ludwig Wittgenstein and W.V.O. Quine, by examining what they have to say about common sense, whilst the anthropologist Clifford Geertz observed that common sense “has become a central category, almost the central category, in a wide range of modern philosophical systems.” This book investigates the nature of common sense through a selection of key writings on epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, meta-ethics and the philosophy of economics and political philosophy. The authors included are representative of the Scottish School, such as David Hume, the Ordinary Language School, and members of the Analytic tradition, including Karl Popper, but they also incorporate thinkers like John Dewey from the American pragmatist tradition, the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, recent popular writers on economics, and even pamphleteers, from Thomas Paine to contemporary engaged journalists. This is the first reader to provide such a comprehensive overview of the central writings on common sense. It features review questions and further reading lists at the end of each section.

Computer security touches every part of our daily lives from our computers and connected devices to the wireless signals around us. Breaches have real and immediate financial, privacy, and safety consequences. This handbook has compiled advice from top professionals working in the real world about how to minimize the possibility of computer security breaches in your systems. Written for professionals and college students, it provides comprehensive best guidance about how to minimize hacking, fraud, human error, the effects of natural disasters, and more. This essential and highly-regarded reference maintains timeless lessons and is fully revised and updated with current information on security issues for social networks, cloud computing, virtualization, and more.