Business Book Summaries

Some teams are good at handling routine problems, but fall apart when faced with difficult situations, while other teams can succeed when dealing with the stickiest problems.

In Sometime You Win—Sometimes You Learn, John C. Maxwell suggests that people who are successful view losing differently than most people do. These individuals do not hide from failure or shy away from it.

Jay Elliot, a former senior vice president at Apple, worked hand in hand with Steve Jobs for many years. This close working relationship provided him with many insights into the genius that Jobs brought to the technology world.

Humans have been choosing leaders since they first began organizing tribes and villages. Choosing the right leaders was often the key for group survival, and people wanted proven leaders they could rely on.

Situations that are fraught with risk might turn into crises that inflict damage to corporate and individual reputations. Crises are rarely predictable, and not all issues can be prevented from becoming crises.

Before a company has customers with which to build relationships, it must find an audience to speak to about its products and services. Everyone is a consumer in some capacity, and no one is fully owned by any brand.

Having a focus on the core of their businesses is more important than ever for companies who want to maintain their competitive advantages.

In Redefining Operational Excellence, Andrew Miller discusses several approaches to achieving operational excellence in an organization, including recruiting talented employees, innovating and collaborating, aligning strategy with tactics, and developing.

Improving and maintaining shareholder value keeps companies healthy. The supply chain drives economic profit, which in turn drives shareholder value.

People judge one another based on two categories of social perception: warmth and competence. Individuals who exhibit warmth and competence tend to generate feelings of trust and admiration in others.