'Everyone would benefit from reading Judkins, if only because he is so entertaining . . . packed with counterintuitive insights and hard truths' - Psychology Today Make Brilliant Work is an inspiring guide to unlocking your creative potential, showing you the methods and techniques that will transform your efforts and help you achieve your best ever work. You don’t have to be brilliant to produce brilliant work. Many of the characters you will meet in this book failed at school, lacked natural talent, were not especially gifted or were repeatedly sacked. But their methods produced brilliant work – and they will work for you, too. Make Brilliant Work is the essential book from Rod Judkins, author of the international bestseller The Art of Creative Thinking. Whatever your creative endeavour, you might find it hard to produce something significant and important. The real-life heroes in this book will show you how to make the transformation from ordinary to extraordinary. From Frida Kahlo to Steve Jobs, and star architect Zaha Hadid: the figures in Make Brilliant Work will show you how to think for yourself, take risks and persevere to create brilliant work. 'Whatever your creative hang-up, Rod Judkins has steps you can take now . . . An admirably straightforward, no-nonsense guide to getting over yourself and getting to work' - Mason Currey, author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Business thinking skills that really work Better creative thinking leads to brilliant decision making and successful, innovative solutions to business problems. Using the proven practical skills, techniques and advice in this book, you will learn how to think better, faster and more productively, enabling you to shape, train and inspire your thinking to deliver more effective results. Improve your critical analysis and thinking skills Become confident in making better and more creative decisions Become faster and more effective at problem solving This book will enable you to become a calm, logical and well-argued decision maker with the ability to deliver better solutions and outstanding results. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

"Warning: Your career might be in danger of going off the rails. You probably have blind spots that are leaving you closer to the edge than you realize. Fortunately, Carter Cast has the solution. In this smart, engaging book he shows you how to avoid career derailment by becoming more self-aware, more agile, and more effective. This is the book you wish you had twenty years ago, which is why you should read it now." -- Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Human The Right -- and Wrong -- Stuff is a candid, unvarnished guide to the bumpy road to success. The shocking truth is that 98 percent of us have at least one career-derailment risk factor, and half to two-thirds actually go off the rails. And the reason why people get fired, demoted, or plateau is because they let the wrong stuff act out, not because they lack talent, energy, experience, or credentials. Carter Cast himself had all the right stuff for a brilliant career, when he was called into his boss's office and berated for being obstinate, resistant, and insubordinate. That defining moment led to a years-long effort to understand why he came so close to getting fired, and what it takes to build a successful career. His wide range of experiences as a rising, falling, and then rising star again at PepsiCo, an entrepreneur, the CEO of Walmart.com, and now a professor and venture capitalist enables him to identify the five archetypes found in every workplace. You'll recognize people you work with (maybe even yourself) in Captain Fantastic, the Solo Flyer, Version 1.0, the One-Trick Pony, and the Whirling Dervish, and, thanks to Cast's insights, they won't be able to trip up your future.

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

A pep talk in your pocket This short, small, highly illustrated book will fill you to the brim with happiness, positivity, wellbeing and, most importantly, success! Andy Cope and Andy Whittaker are experts in the art of happiness and positive psychology and The Art of Being Brilliant is crammed full of good advice, instructive case studies, inspiring quotes, some funny stuff and important questions to make you think about your work, relationships and life. You see being brilliant, successful and happy isn't about dramatic change, it’s about finding out what really works for you and doing more of it! The authors lay down their six common-sense principles that will ensure you focus on what you’re good at and become super brilliant both at work and at home. A richly illustrated, 2 colour, small book full of humour, inspiring quotes and solid advice A great read with a serious underlying message – how to foster positivity and bring about success in every aspect of your life Outlines six common-sense principles that will help you ensure you are the best you can be

Many of us assume that our creative process is beyond our ability to influence, and pay attention to it only when it isn't working properly. For the most part, we go about our daily tasks and everything just "works." Until it doesn't. Adding to this lack of understanding is the rapidly accelerating pace of work. Each day we are face escalating expectations and a continual squeeze to do more with less. We are asked to produce an ever-increasing amount of brilliance in an ever-shrinking amount of time. There is an unspoken (or spoken!) expectation that we'll be accessible 24/7, and as a result we frequently feel like we're "always on." Now business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to unleash your creative potential. Whether you're a creative by trade or an "accidental creative," this book will help you quickly and effectively integrate new ideas into your daily life.

"A classic."—New York Times "Seminal, epochal, path-breaking . . . a Democracy in America for our times."—The Nation From the bestselling author of Bowling Alone, a landmark account of the secret of successful democracies Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, acclaimed political scientist and bestselling author Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970, when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and healthcare, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity. The result is a landmark book filled with crucial insights about how to make democracy work.