SKU: 79838980548

Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits that Hijack Your Business

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Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits that Hijack Your Business2017 Silver Nautilus Winner 2018 Indie Book Award Finalist Take your ego out of the equation, and watch your company thrive! ''I've got a solution,'' Encore's CFO tells Brandon, ''but it's unorthodox.'' It's 2005 and Brandon Black has just been promoted to CEO of Encore Capital, a company struggling to navigate an increasingly difficult business environment. Faced with a rapidly declining stock price and low workplace morale, Brandon knows he needs

2017 Silver Nautilus Winner
2018 Indie Book Award Finalist

Take your ego out of the equation, and watch your company thrive!

''I've got a solution,'' Encore's CFO tells Brandon, ''but it's unorthodox.'' It's 2005 and Brandon Black has just been promoted to CEO of Encore Capital, a company struggling to navigate an increasingly difficult business environment. Faced with a rapidly declining stock price and low workplace morale, Brandon knows he needs changeand fast. Following his CFO's advice, he and his executive team start working with Learning as Leadership (LaL) and its president, Shayne Hughes. Through their partnership, Encore's executive team learns to root out the unproductive ego habits that undermine collaboration and performance.

As they instill these more effective behaviors throughout the organization, Encore begins to solve problems collectively, prioritize resources without infighting, and focus on the initiatives with the greatest strategic value. When the financial crisis of 2008-09 forces 90 percent of its competitors out of business, Encore thrives, with its profits increasing by 300 percent and its stock price by 1200 percent. Told from two lively first-person perspectives, Ego Free Leadershipbrings readers along for Encore's incredible success story. They'll see a CEO overcome his unconscious resistance to modeling the change he wants in his team and discover a time-tested roadmap for eliminating the destructive effects of the ego in teams and organizations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brandon Black
Brandon Black retired as the chief executive officer and director of Encore Capital Group in 2013. During his nine years as president and chief executive officer, the Company built significant cost and operational advantages, expanded into new asset classes, and made acquisitions that established Encore as the industry's leading debt management and recovery solutions provider. In 2011, Encore started the Consumer Credit Research Institute, a groundbreaking effort to develop new knowledge about low- and moderate-income consumers using state-of-the-art research and fieldwork techniques. In addition, in 2013, the Great Places to Work Institute ranked Encore's subsidiary in Gurgaon, India as the 14th best organization in the entire country.
Brandon earned an MBA from the University of Richmond and a bachelor's of business administration degree from The College of William and Mary.
He is currently the president of the board for the Country Montessori School and the chairman of the board for Santa Fe Christian Schools. He also serves as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for a foster youth.


Shayne Hughes
Shayne Hughes is president of Learning as Leadership, a culture change and leadership development firm serving the private and public sectors. His expertise in creating cultures of open communication and collaboration has led to substantial improvements in organizational and personal performance for such clients as Fairchild Semiconductor, NASA, Sandia National Laboratories, Shell Oil, and Capital One, among others. He is also experienced in the complex dynamics of family businesses.
Mr. Hughes has taught leadership at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business, the University of Michigan's Executive MBA Program, and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. He is a frequent keynote speaker at many conferences and corporate retreats.
Fluent in French, Mr. Hughes earned his B.A. from the University of California Berkeley and completed graduate studies in group facilitation at the University of Tours in France. His writing has been published in Harvard's Du Bois Review, Diversity Executive magazine, Forbes.com, and Chief Executive magazine. He has been profiled in Psychology Today, and he blogs for the Huffington Post.
Mr. Hughes also authored the coming-of-age memoir When the Running Began, in which he shares authentically how the pains of his past became infused with substance abuse and the coping strategies of his ego, and what it took to grow beyond them.

REVIEWS:

''Ego Free Leadership chronicles the dynamic struggle of a CEO as his executive coach helps him face his ego triggers. It is unabashedly authentic, with unbridled self-evaluation and unvarnished honesty.''
--Nigel Morris, Cofounder, Capital One

''Brandon Black and Shayne Hughes have landed on a key insight: When leaders let go of ego, they unlock their potential. The story of how they improved culture and performance at Encore Capital is packed with useful lessons for coaches and leaders alike.''
--Marshall Goldsmith, Executive Coach, Business Educator, and New York Times Best-selling Author, ranked Number One Leadership Thinker in the World by Thinkers50

''An authentic read! I partnered with LaL to lead two large-scale organizational turnarounds: first as Center Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, and then later as VP for Operations of the contractor operating the Nevada National Security Site for the Nuclear Security Administration. LaL led both my leadership teams through profoundly successful cultural transformations that produced breakthrough business results. In reading Ego Free Leadership, I could easily replace Brandon's name with my own. This book captures the challengesand solutionsof leading large scale change.''
--Roy Bridges, Air Force Major General and Former Center Director, NASA Kennedy Space Center and NASA Langley Research Center

''The framework presented in Ego Free Leadership has had a profound influence on my research and teaching over the past fifteen years. I'm thrilled to see it finally brought to life in this captivating story of one CEO and his team's transformational leadership journey. This book is a must-read for any leader who wants to make a difference.''
--Robin Ely, Professor and Faculty Chair, Gender Initiative, Harvard Business School

''I'm a big admirer of the work that Shayne Hughes and the team at Learning as Leadership perform. The practices and concepts for 'going deep' in the realm of leadership development are world-class and life changing. What is really happening, inside and out, for a leader trying to create deep change in himself and his organization? And what is happening, inside and out, for the leadership coach who is trying to help him? This groundbreaking book answers those questions by bringing readers into both sides of a transformative relationship. Hughes' and Black's story is instructive, rewarding, and inspiring.''
--Robert Kegan, Meehan Research Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development, Harvard University; Coauthor, Immunity to Change and An Everyone Culture

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SKU: 79838980548

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4.4 ★★★★★
Based on 9 reviews
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pepe
Birmingham, US
★★★★★ 5
interesting analysis of what 'being creative' really means
This easy-to-read absorbing book is based on lengthy interviews with 91 creative individuals ranging from Nobel prize winners to artists to CEOs. Csikszentmihalyi starts by debunking the myth of 'the lone genius having a brilliant idea as if by magic' and defines three necessary ingredients for creativity ('with a capital "C"') - domain, field, and individual. Creativity must take place within a recognised domain (such as physics, painting and so forth); be recognised by experts in that domain (the field, although this may not happen in the individual's lifetime, eg, Van Gogh); and of course come from an individual, although he also adds the painstaking work that precedes and insight, the reality that all creativity builds on what has gone before, and the social elements of the creative process. The book also offers supporting evidence from the lives of the 91 interviewed, which also provides interesting insights into their lives. In many ways, this book is a biography of the creative individual. Also contains a chapter with quite practical guidance on how to live more creatively. Prescient advice for a book published in 1996 given the increasing profile creativity is getting in business and public life. HIghly recommended, one of the most interesting learning experiences i have had in a long while!
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2013
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Charles H. Hooker Jr.
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 5
Very enlightening for those who truly appreciate creativity more than cleverness!
Format: Paperback
I love how the author almost redefines creativity .and sheds new light (for me, at least!)on what what real-for-true creativity is and how it benefits individuals and society. It's far more than simply brightening up a room with new wallpaper and curtains -- it describes how genuine creativity requires a thorough working knowledge of the fundamentals of any given field before one can truly create something new or better, and it reveals how those of us who aren't capable of creating something ourselves can yet be part of the process by demonstrating appreciation and support for those who create, whether as sponsors, patrons, or even just ardent fans!
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Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2023
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Donald Walker
Phoenix, US
★★★★★ 3
instructive but limited
The testimonies of creative people that give this book its flesh and blood provide fascinating examples of creative people at work. That said, if a journalist had written the book, it would be more readable, and I don't think any less of an intellectual contribution. Moreover, the definition of creativity is elitist and stunts the topic (as observed by other reviewers): "Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one. And the definition of a creative person is: someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new domain. It is important to remember, however, that a domain cannot be changed without the explicit or implicit consent of a field responsible for it." Given the people interviewed, much more needs to be said about the function of social institutions in promoting creativity. Many of the accomplishments lauded in this book would never have happened without grant-making agencies (e.g., NSF, NIH, HHMI) or non-profit employers like research universities and hospitals. To offer just one obvious example of the difference made by one's institutional context, the author had advanced students to help him do his research for this book. The elitism of the definition is even clearer in the role that marketplace plays as a judge of creativity. None of us buys books from amazon.com because some official group validated amazon.com as a good idea. We didn't wait for computer programers to affirm and certify it. Amazon.com is not deemed successful because it impressed its peers. It is successful because millions of us purchase goods through it. Similarly, auto-executives did not make the minivan a successful idea, millions of shoppers did. (Obviously I don't think the marketplace fits into the author's definition of creativity. If 300 million American consumers comprise a domain with 300 million judges, then the word no longer has any useful meaning.) The definition also precludes that countless ephemeral acts of creativity that take place daily. I think instantly of two women I have worked with who were great at holidays. Their clever costumes or decorations brightened my day, adding a little element of surprise and delight. Their acts of creativity don't meet the definitions of this book. The way that creativity is defined in this book is simply a filtering mechanism by which the author selected the people he would interview. It is not a definition of creativity. It is only a description of a subsection of creativity, the kind where institutions provide paychecks to highly practiced individuals to work hard at what they love. I also found little new to take away and apply to my own social existence inside the organization where I work. Perhaps I can summarize my dissatisfaction by observing that the subtitle sets out an agenda for the psychology of creativity, but the definitional filter is intrinsically social. This disconnection sets the book up to fail. So, count this as a negative review, yes, but I did enjoy reading the testimonies of the people interviewed, and the author adds some value in the generalizations he draws. Still, much, much more could have been said.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2012
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Judith R. Hert
Fort Morgan, US
★★★★★ 5
Wise and Complete
Format: Paperback
I've read a lot of books, too many, on creativity, and this is by far the best, the most complete, the most interesting. The idea that creativity comes out of immersion in a domain or field seems absolutely right and the idea missed by so many other writers. I'm a writer and a painter and I've learned that I'm not going to be any better than the work I've come to know and love, that I have to live in that work. If you want to be a better string player, play with a better ensemble. In many ways a creative person is someone who is in a conversation with what has come before, with work that excites her, teaches her, challenges her. This book makes that plain. But he has other insights as well, especially about the creative personality, the interesting dichotomies. Just read the book.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2015
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Common Arts Farm
Whiting, US
★★★★★ 4
Creativity which has the power to change the world
A few caveats to those who are generally interested in creativity studies: Csikszentmihalyi's analysis and discussion of creativity does not directly relate to those who are personally creative. People who enjoy engaging in creative activities are not demoted, in his terms, but are simply not a part of the study. It is unfortunate that his language makes it seem this way; he distinguishes between the two by saying that Creativity has the power to shape a domain or the world, while creativity applies to those who enjoy coming up with new recipes, who are engaged in research that may not change a domain, but may "tweak" it, etc. What he is trying to discover are the underlying principles and traits of creativity in those whose work has made a significant change. Think Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Strand: people who are either widely known for their influence, or who have been influential within their area or domain. This book provides an interesting view into the minds and work habits of Creative individuals, and concludes by offering general advice to those who wish to make their own lives and work more creative. It is a useful book, but one which requires a great deal of supplemental reading, in order to truly engage in creativity studies.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2003

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