The Design of Everyday Things

First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier. The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how-and why-some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

Included in Design. 

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty?

In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why.

Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire.

Included in Your Creative Career.

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

Simon Sinek’s mission is to help people wake up every day inspired to go to work and return home every night fulfilled by their work. His first book, Start With Why, offered the essential starting point, explaining the power of focusing on WHY we do what we do, before getting into the details of WHAT and HOW. Start With Why became an instant classic, with a loyal following among Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, governments, and the highest levels of the U.S. Military.

Now Sinek is back to reveal the next step in creating happier and healthier organizations. He helps us understand, in simple terms, the biology of trust and cooperation and why they’re essential to our success and fulfillment. Organizations that create environments in which trust and cooperation thrive vastly out perform their competition. And, not coincidentally, their employees love working there.

But “truly human” cultures don’t just happen; they are intentionally created by great leaders. Leaders who, in hard times, would sooner sacrifice their numbers to protect their people, rather than sacrifice people to protect their numbers, are rewarded with deeply loyal teams that consistently contribute their best efforts, ideas and passion.

As he did in Start With Why, Sinek illustrates his points with fascinating true stories from many fields. He implores us to act sooner rather than later, because our stressful jobs are literally killing us. And he offers surprisingly simple steps for building a truly human organization.

Included in Your Creative Career.

The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese

In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as “the telling room.” Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets—usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine.
 
It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong. . . .
 
By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale–like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta.
 
What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing.
 
Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers. A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us.

Included in True Stories.