From one of the most respected names in business and leadership, a rare look at the specifics of how great leaders achieve "common purpose" and success within their organizations. What is common purpose? It is that rare, almost-palpable experience that happens when a leader coalesces a group, team or community into a creative, dynamic, brave and nearly invincible we. It happens the moment the organization's values, tools, objectives and hopes are internalized in a way that enables people to work tirelessly toward a goal. Common purpose is rarely achieved. But Kurtzman has observed that when a leader is able to bring it about, the results are outsized, measurable and inspiring. Based on Kurtzman's all-new interviews with more than 50 leaders, including Ron Sargent, Ilene Lang, Micky Arison, Simon Cooper, Joel Klein, Janet Field, Steve Wynn, Shivan Subramaniam, Michael Dell, Richard Boyatzis, Tom Kelley, Michael Milken, and Warren Bennis Contains research on leadership Kurtzman has conducted during his years at The New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, Booz & Company, as well as with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mercer, and Korn/Ferry Based on all new interviews with some of the most dynamic, successful, and enduring leaders, Common Purpose sheds new light on the meaning of leadership, the crucial qualities of leaders, and most importantly, how to lead.

Political gridlock in Washington... the lingering effects of the financial crisis... structural problems such as unemployment and the skills gap of our work force... the mediocre K-12 educational system. Are our best days behind us? Joel Kurtzman persuasively shows why all the talk about America’s decline is not only baseless but dead wrong. Our best days, are, in fact, ahead of us. Four transformational forces—unrivaled manufacturing depth, soaring levels of creativity, massive new energy sources, and gigantic amounts of capital waiting to be invested—have been gathering steam. When combined they will provide the foundation for a much stronger economy, robust growth, and broad-based prosperity that will propel the United States to new heights. One endlessly repeated anxiety is that “we don’t make anything here, anymore.” The reality, though, is that the US is the world’s dominant manufacturing power—and growing. American companies produce 20 percent of the world’s goods in the US and perhaps another 15 to 20 percent outside our country. And much of what we make is recession-proof—such as software, jetliners, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and food. Kurtzman reveals the stories of the unsung heroes who are the creative force leading the second American century, describing the payoff of the investment in our best minds. American companies have stunning levels of talent and creativity at work in the world’s fastest growing economic sectors—biotech, pharmaceuticals, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, advanced manufacturing, materials science, and aeronautical and space engineering. In these fields, Americans are without peer and consistently break new ground. We are coming to the realization that America is no longer beholden to the despots of foreign energy. Thanks to advances in technology developed in the US, we now have among the world’s largest energy reserves, and are richer in energy resources than Saudi Arabia and second only to Russia. These three strengths—manufacturing, soaring levels of creativity, and energy independence—will be magnified and synergistically combined with the unprecedented amount of capital that now lies idle. US companies of all types are hoarding cash and securities worth more than $4 trillion—an amount larger than the world’s fourth largest economy, Germany. When the money starts flowing and is invested, it will rapidly propel every part of the economy forward.

Practical ideas from the best brains in Business A sharp, jargon-free guide to the core curriculum of an MBA program, MBA in a Book shows how to master the big ideas of business and use them in a practical way to build and enhance career success. “In the world of business, ideas matter. . . . Some of the sharpest minds in the business world give perceptive looks into innovation, marketing, finance, strategy, and leadership, providing stimulating, useful perspectives on these core topics.” —Larry Bossidy, retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell International and coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Great business thinkers such as Michael Porter, Rosabeth Kanter, and Bill George of Harvard Business School; Paul Argenti of the Tuck School at Dartmouth; Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale; Peter Senge of MIT; the entrepreneur and inventor Dean Kamen; and the financial innovator Michael Milken are just a few of the best brains in business, providing the intellectual nourishment that will help you play the game of business at the highest level.

The best minds in business—at your service MBA in a Box brings together some of the best brains in business who show how the core curriculum of an MBA program works in the real world. People like Michael Porter, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Adrian J. Slywotzky, Warren Bennis, and Bill George give you a box full of ideas and tools that can boost your career and help you add value to your organization. For example: • Why finance is not just about manipulating numbers but of immense importance in sustaining growth, building widespread wealth, and creating jobs. • The profit zone and how to tell if a business is in one. • The skill of turning an idea or invention into a product that solves a problem for a market. • Merging the need of business to produce and grow with the environment so they are both sustained. • The latest thinking in marketing about branding, pricing, reversing a product’s life cycle, and turning what has become a commodity into a specialty. • And much more.

"Ever wonder why today's corporate leaders can't seem to plan for the long term? Why government can't control inflation? Why the stock market is more volatile than ever? Why interest rates rise and fall like the tides? Why economic forecasts never seem to be right? In The Death of Money, Joel Kurtzman, an economist and business columnist for The New York Times, brilliantly and convincingly argues that economic stability and a rapid rate of growth, once America's hallmarks, have been lost because the fundamental nature of money has changed." "Money - in the traditional sense - died two decades ago with a single stroke of Richard Nixon's presidential pen. What followed was twenty years of a new economic disorder that began with soaring oil, gold, and real estate prices and continued with an unprecedented consumption binge by government agencies and the citizenry alike. In the twenty years of chaos, we've seen the savings and loan industry collapse, the banking system become weaker, eclipsed by the economy of finance, and an entirely new global medium of exchange created that Kurtzman calls "megabyte money."" "Most economists, Kurtzman argues, still don't know what - or how - it all happened." "Megabyte money is different from anything that has preceded it - and from the money jingling in your pocket or purse. It is part of an intricate and fragile electronic system of truly global dimensions and of amazing complexity. It is a nonstop, seven-day-a-week, 24-hour network that links tens of thousands of computers in places as lofty as the Federal Reserve and the Tokyo Stock Exchange and as lowly as the automated gasoline pump that accepts credit cards." "Megabyte money has created an entirely new global economy, one which, Kurtzman warns, is still largely unregulated, where government agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, have ceded much power to the world's bankers, speculators, corporate treasurers, financiers, and computer programmers." "In The Death of Money, Kurtzman vividly explains how this new megabyte economy enables brokers to electronically bundle up your home mortgage with dozens of others, convert them into jumbo securities like a bond, and sell those securities to investors in Germany or Japan. In the new megabyte economy, Nobel Prize-winning equations are programmed into the computers at mutual fund companies, and mathematicians, physicists, and even rocket scientists are replacing the stock pickers of the past." "In the megabyte economy, money is nothing more than the "1's" and "0's" of the computer's code. Moving instantly along electronic highways, $1.9 trillion changes hands each day in New York alone. Information - even wrong or incomplete information - instantly affects prices around the world." "The death of money has created a strange new world most people have little knowledge of. It is a world that is far more volatile and chaotic than anything that has preceded it. Though this new world economic order evolved without a plan, Kurtzman warns that efficient new mechanisms must now be put into place to bring the economy under control. If we do so, he says, the vast, productive resources of our nation can again serve our needs."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

With globalization a reality, companies no longer have a choice about whether to do business across borders. But it contains hidden risks—and firms need strategies and tactics for recognizing and managing those risks. In Global Edge, Joel Kurtzman and Glenn Yago offer two breakthrough tools for better managing the hard-to-see perils of going global. Their CLEAR framework explains the specific—and potentially expensive—challenges businesses face overseas: corruption, the legal system, enforcement policy, accounting standards and governance, and regulatory developments. And the Opacity Index (a proprietary tool updated online for readers) measures how countries are ranked relative to each CLEAR factor, so companies can balance their exposure. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork with companies and governments, the authors present a new way to anticipate, analyze, and manage hidden global business risks. In an age when a systematic understanding of global risks is still in its infancy, this insightful and practical guide takes the subject from the realm of academic interest and plants it squarely in management circles.

Be an online success story with the built-to-last Internet strategies used by today's leading e-businesses General Electric Plastics Enron Victoria's Secret Nortel Networks David Bowie (DavidBowie.com) General Motors Southwest Airlines Progressive Staples "The Networked Economy is not about overfunded, overvalued start-ups run by recently minted MBAs. It is about the biggest business opportunity in decades. Radical E skips the hype (thank God) and gets right to the strategies and ideas that matter. It's packed with insider information on how smart managers are reshaping their thinking to take advantage of the Web, the most powerful business tool in our lifetime." —James Daly, Editor in Chief, Business2.0 magazine "In Radical E, Kurtzman and Rifkin invite us to 'learn from the best' nine players who did e-business right by combining traditional business methods with innovative thinking and ignoring the hype. The case studies are fascinating; the lessons, widely applicable. These nine did it right. In Radical E, Kurtzman and Rifkin show us how." —Shailesh Mehta, CEO, Providian Financial "Radical E is reason for rational exuberance. At last, a provocative yet pragmatic guidebook for global 2000 companies rushing to cross the chasm to bona fide e-businesses in one leap." —Michael Ruettgers, Executive Chairman, EMC Corporation "Radical E reveals the winning strategies of companies who have successfully embraced the Web. The authors examine exactly what it takes to survive in today's competitive online economy-from the tough decisions to the amazing innovations. This book will help you learn today's new rules." —George Conrades, CEO, Akamai

Several years ago, Joel Kurtzman was covering a meeting between a group of Russian economists and politicians and some of America's best thinkers from business and academia. The Russians were trying to get a handle on exactly who was in charge of the markets and how long the founder of a failed start-up would be sentenced to jail. It's easy to see why Joel's Russian friends were befuddled. But how many of us really understand how the markets work, despite the fact that we live and work in a society that practically worships "the market" as a religion? And when people today are investing more money in mutual funds than in banks, this can be a problem. The markets are big, complex, and completely unforgiving. If you make a major mistake, you risk losing a major amount of money. That's why it's vital to peel back the layers of mystery shrouding the markets. In How the Markets Really Work, Joel Kurtzman provides a lucid explanation of one of the fundamental forces shaping our lives. In clear, accessible language, Kurtzman explains: * How markets, which are so vital to the world's economies, are able to function without any central control * How they create wealth and spread the risk of the world's most uncertain, but potentially lucrative, bets * How markets package and resell debt, connect financial institutions, and set prices * Why volatility has increased and what this means for the boom and bust of investing Kurtzman illuminates the musty corners of the markets, showing how the system is both a single network linked together globally and a highly coordinated dance of free-wheeling, unchoreographed dancers that constitutes a massive social mechanism for layingoff some of the world's riskier bets. He explains the kinds of products that traders trade within the network (stocks, bonds, options, etc); how money circulates within the network; and how banks fit into the global network. This is a book that will help you think strategically about investing. If you understand the markets and the instruments and vehicles that are traded on those markets before thinking about individual stocks and mutual funds, you'll be a smarter, savvier investor. "The Crown Business Briefings series offers an appealing solution to the dilemma of today's business audience: how to keep up with the rapid pace of change in knowledge while leading time-crunched lives. The series features short books on important topics of immediate and measurable benefit to today's broad audience of business readers.