Books about Performance from Amazon.com



Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
Expanding on a landmark cover story in Fortune, a top journalist debunks the myths of exceptional performance.

One of the most popular Fortune articles in many years was a cover story called “What It Takes to Be Great.” Geoff Colvin offered new evidence that top performers in any field--from Tiger Woods and Winston Churchill to Warren Buffett and Jack Welch--are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness doesn’t come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades.

And not just plain old hard work, like your grandmother might have advocated, but a very specific kind of work. The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness.

Now Colvin has expanded his article with much more scientific background and real-world examples. He shows that the skills of business—negotiating deals, evaluating financial statements, and all the rest—obey the principles that lead to greatness, so that anyone can get better at them with the right kind of effort. Even the hardest decisions and interactions can be systematically improved.

This new mind-set, combined with Colvin’s practical advice, will change the way you think about your job and career—and will inspire you to achieve more in all you do..
Price: $14.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
The book that shows how to get the job done and deliver results . . . whether you’re running an entire company or in your first management job

Larry Bossidy is one of the world’s most acclaimed CEOs, a man with few peers who has a track record for delivering results. Ram Charan is a legendary advisor to senior executives and boards of directors, a man with unparalleled insight into why some companies are successful and others are not. Together they’ve pooled their knowledge and experience into the one book on how to close the gap between results promised and results delivered that people in business need today.

After a long, stellar career with General Electric, Larry Bossidy transformed AlliedSignal into one of the world’s most admired companies and was named CEO of the year in 1998 by Chief Executive magazine. Accomplishments such as 31 consecutive quarters of earnings-per-share growth of 13 percent or more didn’t just happen; they resulted from the consistent practice of the discipline of execution: understanding how to link together people, strategy, and operations, the three core processes of every business.

Leading these processes is the real job of running a business, not formulating a “vision” and leaving the work of carrying it out to others. Bossidy and Charan show the importance of being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why robust dialogues about people, strategy, and operations result in a business based on intellectual honesty and realism.

The leader’s most important job—selecting and appraising people—is one that should never be delegated. As a CEO, Larry Bossidy personally makes the calls to check references for key hires. Why? With the right people in the right jobs, there’s a leadership gene pool that conceives and selects strategies that can be executed. People then work together to create a strategy building block by building block, a strategy in sync with the realities of the marketplace, the economy, and the competition. Once the right people and strategy are in place, they are then linked to an operating process that results in the implementation of specific programs and actions and that assigns accountability. This kind of effective operating process goes way beyond the typical budget exercise that looks into a rearview mirror to set its goals. It puts reality behind the numbers and is where the rubber meets the road.

Putting an execution culture in place is hard, but losing it is easy. In July 2001 Larry Bossidy was asked by the board of directors of Honeywell International (it had merged with AlliedSignal) to return and get the company back on track. He’s been putting the ideas he writes about in Execution to work in real time..
Price: $5.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]


21 Nights
21 Nights--a first book by Prince and celebrated photographer Randee St. Nicholas is a stunning multimedia volume offering a rare glimpse into the life, lyrics and mystique of one of the most notable and prolific musicians of our time. This beautifully designed photographic essay flows from Prince's sensational, unprecedented, record-breaking, sold-out 21 concerts in 21 Nights at London's 02 Arena in 2007. Giving insight into his dueling worlds of performance and solitude, 21 Nights incorporates Prince's evocative poetry and lyrics to new songs and other selections, and 124 full-color, sumptuous never-before-published images by Randee St. Nicholas. As part of the multi-dimensional experience, it will also include "Indigo Night," a CD--available only with the book--capturing Prince's after-hours, live after-show sessions--rare and profound moments of musical genius.

21 Nights takes the reader from the passenger seat of a limousine zipping through the streets of London to his sleeping quarters in a luxury hotel. In between we see him and his phenomenal band of musicians, singers and dancers backstage in the make up room to onstage, bathed in purple lights and a fog of gray smoke. Like a movie-in-a-book, readers are taken on his journey from London to Prague, in a style that takes glam rock to a new level.

Then there is poetry and lyrics that reveal the heart and soul of Prince--in addition to his incomparable talent. Going beyond the catchy hook, he expresses himself on everything from the destructive forces of war, greed and superficiality the life giving energy of love, beauty, and--of course--music..
Price: $25.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]



Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
National Bestseller
 

The struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision.

 

Atul Gawande, the New York Times bestselling author of Complications, examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in this complex and risk-filled profession. At once unflinching and compassionate, Better is an exhilarating journey, narrated by "arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around" (Salon.com).

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Price: $5.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance
Daniel Amen, M.D., one of the world’s foremost authorities on the brain, has news for you: your brain is involved in everything you do—learn to care for it properly, and you will be smarter, healthier, and happier in as little as 15 days!

You probably run, lift weights, or do yoga to keep your body in great shape; you put on sunscreen and lotions to protect your skin; but chances are you simply ignore your brain and trust it to do its job. People unknowingly endanger or injure their brains, stress them by working at a frenzied pace and not getting enough sleep, pollute them with caffeine, alcohol, and drugs, and deprive them of proper nutrients. Brain dysfunction is the number one reason people fail at school, work, and relationships. The brain is the organ of learning, working, and loving—the supercomputer that runs our lives. It’s very simple: when our brains work right, we work right—and when our brains have trouble, we have trouble in our lives.

Luckily, it’s never too late: the brain is capable of change, and when you care for it, the results are amazing. Making a Good Brain Great gives you the tools you need to optimize your brain power and enrich your health and your life in the process. The principles and exercises in this book, based on years of cutting-edge neuroscience research and the experiences of thousands of people, provide a wealth of practical information to teach you how to achieve the best brain possible. You will learn:

•how to eat right to think right

•how to protect your brain from injuries and toxic substances

•how to nourish your brain with vitamins and do mental workouts to keep it strong

•the critical component of physical exercise, and which kinds work best

•how to rid your brain of negative thoughts, counteract stress, and much more

Full of encouraging anecdotes from Dr. Amen’s many years of experience, Making a Good Brain Great is a positive and practical road map for enriching and improving your own greatest asset—your brain.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $8.06 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance
Beginning with the million-copy bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham jump-started the strengths movement that is now sweeping the work world, from business to government to education. Now that the movement is in full swing, Buckingham's new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strengths for maximum success at work?

Research data show that most people do not come close to making full use of their assets at work -- in fact, only 17 percent of the workforce believe they use all of their strengths on the job. Go Put Your Strengths to Work aims to change that through a six-step, six-week experience that will reveal the hidden dimensions of your strengths. Buckingham shows you how to seize control of your assets and rewrite your job description under the nose of your boss. You will learn:

• Why your strengths aren't "what you are good at" and your weaknesses aren't "what you are bad at."

• How to use the four telltale signs to identify your strengths.

• The simple steps you can take each week to push your time at work toward those activities that strengthen you and away from those that don't.

• How to talk to your boss and your colleagues about your strengths without sounding like you're bragging and about your weaknesses without sounding like you're whining.

• The fifteen-minute weekly ritual that will keep you on your strengths path your entire career.

With structured exercises that will become part of your regular workweek and proven tactics from people who have successfully applied the book's lessons, Go Put Your Strengths to Work will arm you with a radically different approach to your work life. As part of the book's program you'll take an online Strengths Engagement Track, a focused and powerful gauge that has proven to be the best way to measure the level of engagement of your strengths or your team's strengths. You can also download the first two segments of the renowned companion film series Trombone Player Wanted.

Go Put Your Strengths to Work will open up exciting uncharted territory for you and your organization. Join the strengths movement and thrive..
Price: $4.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]



Performance: Richard Avedon
"We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be."
--Richard Avedon, 1974

The preeminent stars and artists of the performing arts from the second half of the 20th century offered their greatest gifts—and, sometimes, their inner lives—to Richard Avedon. More than 200 are portrayed in Performance, many in photographs that have been rarely or never seen before. Of course, the great stars light the way: Hepburn and Chaplin, Monroe and Garland, Brando and Sinatra. But here too are the actors and comedians, pop stars and divas, musicians and dancers, artists in all mediums with public lives that were essentially performances, who stand at the pinnacle of our cultural achievement.

 

The celebrated author and critic John Lahr offers an elegant assessment of Avedon’s achievement. Four supremely talented artists from the performing arts—Mike Nichols, André Gregory, Mitsuko Uchida, and Twyla Tharp—contribute lively and moving memoirs about their collaborations with Avedon.

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Price: $44.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]


2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results
No managerial or administrative task is as universally dreaded as the performance review. Supervisors may know the points they need to get across, but putting them on paper is another matter. This book puts the the right words at their fingertips, with ready-to-use phrases and words, action items, and descriptions that managers, supervisors, and HR professionals can use to evaluate performance, prepare development plans, and address performance problems.

2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Appraisals covers the 25 most commonly rated factors, including productivity, time management, decision making, and teamwork, as well as specific roles such as customer service, finance, sales, and more. The book provides hundreds of phrases to use in performance improvement plans, plus an appendix of helpful individual words..
Price: $6.23 [Notify me when price goes down.]



The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. Now available in a revised paperback edition, this classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played..
Price: $8.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]


The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal
The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and

quality of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to revolutionize the way you live.

As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in their groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance. Their Full Engagement Training System is grounded in twenty-five years of working with great athletes -- tennis champ Monica Seles and speed-skating gold medalist Dan Jansen, to name just two -- to help them perform more effectively under brutal competitive pressures. Now this powerful, step-by-step program will help you to:

· Mobilize four key sources of energy

· Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal

· Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do

· Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals

The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully. It provides a clear road map to becoming more physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned -- both on and off the job.

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Price: $7.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]



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