Right Career

We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. After decades of award-winning research, Amy Edmondson is here to upend our understanding of failure and make it work for us. In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson provides the framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely.

What will separate you from the rest early in your career? The ability to take ownership, manage expectations, navigate people dynamics, and communicate professionally - skills that school doesn't teach.

Your inbox is overflowing. You're paralyzed because you have too much to do but don't know where to start. Your to-do list never seems to get any shorter. You leave work exhausted but have little to show for it. It's time to learn how to get the right work done. In the HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done, you'll discover how to focus your time and energy where they will yield the greatest reward. Not only will you end each day knowing you made progress—your improved productivity will also set you apart from the pack.

The law of market failure: Most new products will fail in the market, even if competently executed.

At last! Best-selling author and Secret movie star Dr. Joe Vitale reveals for the first time how to instantly manifest what you desire. He explains the truth about the Law of Attraction and guides you into understanding the hard-wired principles of the Universe.

Sportswriter Sally Jenkins has spent her entire adult life observing and writing about great coaches and athletes. With her engaging and expert prose, she has helped shape the way we view these talented sports icons. But somewhere along the line, she realized, they had begun to shape her. Now, she presents the astonishing inner qualities in these same people that pushed them to overcome pressure, elevate their performances, and discover champion identities.

New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. A mash-up of the best elements of "Crush It!" and "The Thank You Economy" with a fresh spin, "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook" is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really works. When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the "right hook"—their next sale or campaign that's going to knock out the competition.

Hopper shares 50 lessons to help you overcome your mental blocks, find your work-life balance, and achieve the career of your dreams. No matter where you are on your freelance journey, the five sections on getting started, pitching, doing the work, caring for clients, and finding work-life balance have something for everyone. With short chapters and practical advice, What Gives You the Right to Freelance? is sure to help creative folks make more money and love their work.

Small business owners possess a unique advantage, one that Scott Grates has honed to perfection. Forget trying to emulate corporate giants in your small business endeavors. Their conventional marketing tactics won't deliver the consistent results you crave. Instead, leverage your strength-the power of genuine relationships. By fostering authentic connections that yield a continuous flow of referrals, you'll unlock your Infinite Referral Advantage®.

Acting on values—doing good for the benefit of all—can substantially benefit the bottom line, but many business leaders mistakenly believe that doing the right thing lowers profits. This belief is the greatest barrier holding businesses back from being more financially and competitively successful—and delivering more good for the world. Not only can it be a winning business strategy to act on values, as Daniel Aronson suggests in The Value of Values, but it is also a savvy choice, increasing a company’s power, profit, and competitive advantage.

Not all customers are created equal. Despite what the tired old adage says, the customer is not always right. Not all customers deserve your best efforts: in the world of customer centricity, there are good customers…and then there is pretty much everybody else. Upending some of our most fundamental beliefs, renowned behavioral data expert Peter Fader, helps businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers.

Babson College business educator and consultant Mary Gentile challenges the assumptions about business ethics at companies and business schools. She gives business leaders, managers, and students the tools not just to recognize what is right, but also to ensure that the right things happen. She explains why past attempts at preparing business leaders to act ethically too often failed, arguing that the issue isn't distinguishing what is right or wrong, but knowing how to act on your values despite opposing pressure.

Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”

It's not enough to build a company full of people with leadership skills. The Performance Pipeline digs deep into the real work of executing business results at each leadership layer. It is filled with lessons and examples from the author's 40 years of experience, and explains how to set performance standards, make sure the right work is being done, and remove performance barriers.

Nearly a quarter century ago Carter Cast seemed to have it all together: he had a first-class education, an all-American athletic career, and was a very bright and energetic rising star on the fast track at a Fortune 100 company, PepsiCo. But blissfully unaware of how negative perceptions were shaped, he was stunned when called into his boss's office, and told he was "unpromotable" because he was "obstinate", "resistant", and "insubordinate".

Many professionals aspire to work for a start-up. Yes, start-ups look magical, but they can also be chaotic and inaccessible. Many books are written for those who aspire to be founders, but a company only has one or two of those. What's needed are hundreds of employees to do the day-to-day work. This practical, step-by-step guide provides an insider's analysis of various start-up roles and responsibilities, including product development, marketing, growth strategy, and sales, to help you figure out if you want to join a start-up and what to expect if you do.

We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies - neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.

In workplaces nationwide, women of color need frank talk and honest advice on how to deal with microaggressions, heal from racialized trauma, and find relief from invisible workplace burdens. Filled with Minda Harts’ signature wit and warmth, Right Within offers strategies for women of color to speak up during racialized moments with managers and clients, work through past triggers they may not even know still cause pain, and reframe past career disappointments as opportunities to grow into a new path.

For decades, Peter F. Drucker was widely regarded as "the dean of this country's business and management philosophers" ( Wall Street Journal). In this concise and brilliant work, he looks to the most influential position in management - the executive. The measure of the executive, Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done". This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive.

Visionary business leader Greg Brenneman has written the 21st-century companion to Stephen Covey's classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Like Covey before him, Brenneman believes that true business success and personal fulfillment are two sides of the same coin. The techniques that will grow your business will also help you achieve a rich, purposeful, and integrated life.