Required reading at Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School.Everyone wants to be more appealing and effective, but few believe we can manage the personal magnetism of a Bill Clinton or an Oprah Winfrey. John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut trace the path to influence through a balance of strength (the root of respect) and warmth (the root of affection). Each seems simple, but only a few of us figure out the tricky task of projecting both at once.Drawing on cutting-e...

How People Judge You—And How To Come Out Looking GoodYou will never look at people the same way again—including yourself—after this lively look at how we make character judgments.Drawing on cutting-edge social science research as well as their own work with Fortune 500 executives, members of Congress, and Nobel Prize winners, authors Matt Kohut and John Neffinger demystify the process we use to size each other up. It turns out that we judge each other primarily on two criti...

Insights—like Darwin's understanding of the way evolution actually works, and Watson and Crick's breakthrough discoveries about the structure of DNA-can change the world. We also need insights into the everyday things that frustrate and confuse us so that we can more effectively solve problems and get things done. Yet we know very little about when, why, or how insights are formed—or what blocks them. In Seeing What Others Don't, renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Klein unravels...

A “must-read” (Booklist) from Harvard Business School Professor and Codirector of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership: A guide to making better decisions, noticing important information in the world around you, and improving leadership skills.Imagine your advantage in negotiations, decision-making, and leadership if you could teach yourself to see and evaluate information that others overlook. The Power of Noticing provides t...

What is the definition of assassination? Robert B. Baer’s boss at the CIA once told him, “It’s a bullet with a man’s name on it.” Sometimes assassination is the senseless act of a psychotic, a bloodletting without social value. Other times, it can be the sanest and most humane way to change the course of conflict—one bullet, one death, case closed. Assassination has been dramatized by literature and politicized by infamous murders throughout history, and for Robert Baer, one of the most ac...

Whether you run a Fortune 500 company or serve as CEO of your household, negotiating effectively is crucial to leading wisely and living well.Leading and living are a series of constant negotiations. Consider what goes on during your typical week: Can you influence your client to accept your proposal? Will you persuade colleagues to give you the resources you need to finish your project? How will you ask your neighbor to switch carpool days so that you will finally have time to get...

As our holistic view of the world grows and we become more aware of personal and collective energy, our level of perception is transforming from something singular—the physical form—to a greatly expanded awareness that includes intuition, past and present, right and left brain, and heart and body.As our perceptive ability evolves, we must unlearn and relearn the principles of how we live, create, and grow in order to be successful in the rapidly transforming reality of the Intuitio...

Your projects, programs, and career turn on the difference between "no" and "yes." Yet selling ideas—especially the kinds of ideas that make organizations work—is a skill shrouded in mystery. Part emotional intelligence, part politics, part rhetoric, and part psychology, selling ideas is not like tricking someone out of his money. It's about helping others to see things your way—engaging their minds and imaginations.Charles Lindbergh, for example, needed woo to assemble backers for...

Can you make yourself, your kids, and your parents smarter?Expanding upon one of the most-read New York Times Magazine features of 2012, Smarter penetrates the hot new field of intelligence research to reveal what researchers call a revolution in human intellectual abilities. Shattering decades of dogma, scientists began publishing studies in 2008 showing that “fluid intelligence”—the ability to learn, solve novel problems, and get to the heart of things—can be increased through tr...

You believe in a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it, hoping for enthusiastic support. Instead, you get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets. Before you know what’s hit you, your idea is dead, shot down.It doesn’t have to be this way, say John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to protect good ideas and win the support needed to deliver valuable results. The key? U...

"Embrace the importance of now, and refuse to allow the lull of comfort, fear, familiarity, and ego to prevent you from taking action on your ambitions...The cost of inaction is vast. Don't go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty."Most of us live with the stubborn idea that we'll always have tomorrow to do our most important and valuable work. We fill our days with frantic activity, bouncing from task to task, scrambling to make deadlines and chase t...

Say you want to start going to the gym or practicing a musical instrument. How long should it take before you stop having to force it and start doing it automatically?The surprising answers are found in Making Habits, Breaking Habits, a leading psychologist’s popular examination of one of the most powerful and underappreciated processes in the brain. Although people like to think that they are in control, the vast majority of human behavior occurs without any decision-making or con...