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Upskill with the world’s most influential books in bite-sized lessons.

Insights On Leadership

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Financial Management

Insights On Communication

Business Essentials

INSIGHTS FROM BEST-SELLING BOOKS

Upskill with business leaders, subject matter experts and faculty from top universities.

Lessons From Unusual Leaders

Team Building 

Lessons On Change Management

Lessons From Rising Leaders

Lessons From Big Brands

INSIGHTS FROM FACULTY & EXPERTS

In this course, leadership expert Audrey Daniels teaches you how to embody the traits of an assertive leader, and how to show empathy in a way that motivates others. By leveraging the art of assertiveness, you'll learn how to lead with confidence and compel others without alienating them. As one of the most challenging traits for leaders, developing your own assertive leadership style is crucial to your success and your organization’s.

Developing Assertive Leadership By Audrey Daniels

As one of the most challenging traits for leaders, developing your own assertive leadership style is crucial to your success and your organization’s.

Assertive Leadership: Increasing Your Visibility As A Leader

A common myth is assertive leadership can be damaging to the morale of a team. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to examine the benefits assertiveness provides to your organization.

Being an assertive leader has many advantages. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to identify advantages for your leadership style.

It is critical for you to be aware of yourself and who you are as a leader if you're going to be leading others. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to improve your self-awareness as a leader.

The Importance Of Self-Awareness In Assertive Leadership

Module 3: Assertive Leadership And Emotional Intelligence

Empathy allows us to relate to others and in some cases compels us to take action. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to identify the advantages of demonstrating empathy.

Taking out the time to improve our actions helps us to respond in a positive manner.  After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to examine how altering how we manage ourselves helps us improve as leaders.

Knowing how to respond in different work situations is critical for effective leadership. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to improve your awareness of your surroundings, especially in your work environment.

Successful leaders are learners first and foremost. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to craft a learning plan for continually developing yourself.

Module 4: Communicating With Diplomacy And Tactfulness

Words can help convey or undermine what you're trying to say including the actions you want to execute. Are you effectively communicating with your team? After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to distinguish the best ways to inspire those you lead.

Nearly 93% of communication relates to our body language, tone, and other complex gestures and sounds. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to identify the best ways to communicate in a positive and assertive manner to get your point across.

Leaders who truly change lives have the extraordinary ability to captivate others by embracing differences and forming strong connections with employees. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to use three simple ways to get your team onboard with your vision.

Module 5: Intention Matters: Leading With Purpose

At its most fundamental level, effective communication is the exchange of thoughts, information, ideas, and messages between people or groups. When your message is clear and concise, it is easier for others to understand and respond. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to use precise language to motivate your team.

As a leader, it is important to set standards. This includes drawing the line and maintaining choices. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to be more comfortable saying "no" when needed so you can focus and say yes on what's important.

When we talk about adaptability, we often think of the platinum rule which includes taking individual's values, styles, needs and emotions, then connecting with them in a way that is effective. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to implement practices for motivating and encouraging your team.

The Power Of Meeting People Where They Are

Responsible leadership is all about having a mindset that says, “I am the person who must make this happen.” As Forbes puts it, "responsible behavior in leadership is a willingness to take charge and not shirk from decisions." After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to answer the question "Exactly what is responsible leadership?"

Two authors, Kouzes and Posner, caution organizations about hiring the most talented and the brightest individual when they do not possess the personal and social skills needed to be an effective leader. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to recognize how you behave in calm and stressful situations.

A leader is someone who inspires confidence with everyone in the organization. The idea of doing "small" things regularly over time is a powerful tool we often overlook in our hurry to show grand results now.  After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to identify three key components of being a consistent leader.

Admirable leadership starts with understanding our personality and character. Being aware of our habits helps us in positioning a positive leadership presence. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to take steps to be fully attentive and aware of your overall conduct.

Plan, intent, direction, and goals are all words to describe purpose. As leaders how we engage and motivate others often depends on how we communicate those words with our excitement for the project.  After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to communicate with enthusiasm without offending others.

Keeping your word, following through on promises, and delivering on time is important not only to your team but your reputation and the organization. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to follow three important rules to being trustworthy.

Being accountable is about being responsible for the result. Ownership is about initiative and accountability is about follow-through.  After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to acknowledge your actions and see how they affect your team members' abilities to accomplish their goals.

Being a leader is not a position but a behavior. There are certain standards to uphold when leading others. After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to provide compelling impressions of your leadership.

“Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect" — Ralph Waldo Emerson. Great leaders have to be valued in order to be successful. When employees respect you, they are more likely to work harder to accomplish a shared goal they believe in.  After listening to this lesson, you'll be able to identify key principles that leaders should keep in mind when appealing to their team.

In this video, the instructor shares a few more resources to improve your leadership skills.

Since Toyota's founding in 1937, its success has been shaped by its philosophy, processes, people, and problem-solving approach. This course covers insights from Jeffrey K Liker’s “The Toyota Way” to bring the much-admired culture, consistency, and operations of Toyota into practice. In this course, Mike Lynn, a principal at thoughtLEADERS, LLC, shares insights and lessons that can help learners understand systems thinking, continuous improvement, operating principles, and collaboration approaches.

Toyota’s success measures tell the external story and results of its unique culture and continuously evolving approach. This video introduces the course and the key learning objectives to help learners apply small changes that might drive broader personal and organizational transformation.

Toyota’s founding fathers accomplished extraordinary successes through tinkering and invention, a passion for always making things better, a principled approach to work, an eye for detail, and a zeal to eliminate wasted effort. After watching this video, you’ll be able to apply some of their approaches.

The Toyota Production System, or TPS, is an integrated company approach that incorporates philosophy, process, people, and problem-solving. After watching this video, you’ll learn how each individual can drive the overall long-term success.

Individuals can begin to learn and apply an understanding of systems thinking to take a holistic view of their own work and life. After watching this video, you’ll understand how systems thinking helps individuals to make decisions that have a longer-term impact.

One of the operational elements of the Toyota Production System is the concept of “one-piece flow.” After watching this video, you’ll understand how people and processes are interconnected through a slow, steady operating model, attention to eliminating waste, and empowerment of each contributor.

Continuous process flow can be applied in everyday work by considering core principles of continuous improvement and efficiency. After watching this video, you’ll be able to take a look at your processes and break them down into smaller steps.

Lesson: Continuous Process Flow In Everyday Work

Toyota’s production process has many inter-related components. After watching this video, you will have a high-level understanding of some of these components so that you can consider ways to apply them in your own business processes.

Toyota instills a mindset that helps each individual contribute to efficiency and effectiveness. After watching this video, you’ll have an understanding of the mindset that can drive efficiencies and transform your own work.

The concept of Jidoka is an important element of Toyota’s production process, which empowers workers to stop the assembly line if they notice a quality defect. After you watch this video, you’ll appreciate how it empowers workers to actively own quality in every step of assembly.

By incorporating color, clear signs, visual signals and principles of cleanliness and order, Toyota creates a production environment that allows workers to focus on their tasks and on problem-solving. After you watch this video, you can incorporate them into your own work environment and processes.

Lesson: The Principle Of Visual Management

By building its leadership principles from the start with each employee, Toyota builds consistency and shared mindsets. After watching this video, you will have a better understanding of these principles including observation, accountability, thinking, and continuous improvement.

Toyota’s approach is derived from the philosophies and mindsets of Toyota’s founders and Japanese culture. After watching this video, you’ll have a new perspective on the model including a sense of purpose, collaboration, interconnectedness, observation, and mindfulness.

Lesson: Fostering Toyota-Like Personal Beliefs

Toyota’s scientific problem-solving approach is one of the core aspects of its culture. After watching this video, you will understand the core aspects of this approach, including gathering evidence, applying the “Five Whys” of root cause analysis, testing ideas, and the Plan, Do, Check, Act model.

The problem-solving mindset of Toyota is one that can be applied in everyday life. After watching this video, you will be able to use a structured approach in any problem-solving situation, get clear about the situation, map processes, form and test hypotheses, and implement solutions.

The Toyota Way includes many examples of ways to modify personal and organizational behaviors for long-term, transformational success.  After watching this last video of the series, you will be able to shape the road ahead for continued personal and organizational transformation.

Is it possible for a business to grow at a faster pace? According to the authors of Hacking Growth, Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown, it is! Whether you are a small enterprise or a conglomerate, you can growth hack your way to greater heights. In this series, Mike Figliuolo, managing director at thoughtLEADERS LLC shows you how to achieve it.

Hacking Growth By Sean Ellis And Morgan Brown

What is growth hacking? It is about creating an innovative and collaborative skilled team using qualitative and quantitative data to understand users, and building rapid testing and evaluation. Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS Mike Figliuolo explores how to springboard your business using tested tactics.

Achieving a growth spurt is possible with the right team of skilled individuals collaborating to succeed. Hacking Growth details six key roles that need to be filled with candidates who have the industry knowledge as well as the skillset and attitude. Are they on your team?

Six roles to fill for successful business development: growth lead, product manager, software engineers, marketing specialists, data analysts, and product designers.

Go into expansion mode only when you find your product creating a deep craving in the customer. The must-have product has to pass two tests. This episode explores further.

Determining If Your Product Is A Must-Have

Two-part assessment to determine a must-have product: 1. How disappointed will customers be if it stops existing tomorrow, and 2. Higher retention rate than competitors.

A must-have product is vital to a sustainable high-growth strategy. If you are seeking a must-have status for your product, you need to do three things urgently.

Three essentials to become a must-have: 1. Survey customers, 2. Run product change experiments, and 3. Deep analysis of user data. Gathering data can give insights into important patterns, which can help in improving the product.

Customers are known for their erratic behavior, yet your knowledge of the user will stand you in good stead as you aim higher. Learn more about the psychological principles behind their actions.

Principles For Influencing Consumer Behavior

Psychological principles influencing customers: Reciprocity, commitment and consistency, and social proof. Find out what motivates consumers to buy and integrate them into your strategy.

Set up a viral loop with your must-have product to drive growth. Whether you incentivize the use of your product or promote it through visible referrals, you can't go wrong if you have tapped into a successful loop.

A viral loop begins with an incentive in line with the product's core value, uses referrals to bring in new users, and ensures a great user experience.

A great user experience makes for repeat customers. Make sure your landing page works in these three ways to speak volumes for your product.

Ensure a smooth user experience on the landing page by 1. Single sign-on, 2. Allowing product interaction before buying. Reducing friction during user experience on the landing page increases the acquisition rate.

Now that you have got your users, the focus shifts to retaining them. Know how stored value plays a crucial role in this, and the three phases of customer retention.

The user decides whether they would like to stick with the product in the initial retention period. As excitement for the product diminishes in the medium-term, focus on turning them into habitual users. In the long-term phase, aim to deliver increased value.

The 5 Languages of Appreciation by Gary Chapman and Paul White

Trusted Leader: 8 Pillars That Drive Results by David Horsager

Extreme Ownership By Jocko Willink And Leif Babin

Trillion Dollar Coach By Alan Eagle, Eric Schmidt, And Jonathan Rosenberg

The Five Levels Of Leadership By John C. Maxwell

The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership By John C. Maxwell

Our Iceberg Is Melting: John Kotter And Holger Rathgeber

The New One Minute Manager: Ken Blanchard And Spencer Johnson

Everyone Deserves A Great Manager: Scott Jeffrey Miller, Todd Davis, And Victoria Roos-Olsson

Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps : Jennifer Garvey Berger

The Leadership Pipeline: Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter And James Noel

Leapfrog By Nathalie Molina Nino And Sara Grace

Leadership Vertigo By S. Max Brown And Tanveer Naseer

Leading From Your Best Self By Rob Salafia

Leadership By Algorithm By David De Cremer

The Five Temptations Of A CEO By Patrick M. Lencioni

The Littlest Green Beret: Jan R. Rutherford, Jr.

The Three Commitments Of Leadership: Jon Wortmann, Jay Therrien, And Tom Endersbe

Humility And Leadership By Dr. Franziska Frank

Popular podcast host, author and creator of The 4-Hour Workweek,Tim Ferriss, succeeded against all odds. Track his journey to understand why success needs to be sustainable, and based on a personal well-being code.

Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek is a fervent advocate of sustainable success. What set him on this path, and why does he advocate the importance of well-being in achieving goals? Refocus on your mental health to outperform yourself, he says.

Work-life balance is foundational to sustainable success. The better you feel about yourself and your well-being, the more effectively you will perform at work.

Self-love is often equated with complacency. Tim Ferriss shows why embracing yourself, even when struggling, is vital. Self-acceptance is the first step towards heightened productivity.

Accept Yourself, Even Without The Big Wins

Putting pressure on yourself can have a negative effect on performance. Even when things aren't going your way, find a way to focus on your strengths.

Did you think you would never learn how to swim? Never say never is the Tim Ferriss mantra. He demonstrates why the impossible is usually possible if you put your mind to it. All you have to do is figure out what motivates you.

Never say never to overcoming any seemingly difficult obstacle. Find a defined sense of purpose and that will help you fight your fear and achieve what may seem impossible.

Learn to tell the difference between productive discussions and unnecessary disagreements. Rather than waste time on counterproductive debate, be open to different perspectives, says Tim Ferriss.

Arguing does not make us more inclined to listen. Approaching a debate with humility and an awareness of other possibilities opens the floor to better discussion.

Tim Ferriss relies on Stoicism to cope with bipolar depression. Learn how this tool has also helped him make sound business decisions. Follow this three-step process to tackle fear and emerge on top.

The future is uncertain and fear of the unknown can be paralyzing. You can battle uncertainty by focusing on what you can control, like the Stoics do.

How to keep motivated to achieve a far-fetched goal? Learn what Tim Ferriss does to achieve the bigger goal. Stop procrastinating, he says, and find incentives to do the things you set out to.

To achieve what we want, we often have to do things we don't want to do. One solution is to create compelling incentives that will help keep you from giving up.

Tim Ferriss does not let the status quo dictate his style. Unfazed by good examples around him, he set out to rewrite the rules for himself.

Don't Be Afraid To Challenge The Status Quo

When the status quo isn't working, it may be necessary to lead change. This means pausing to think and examine behaviors, organizations and systems, and tweak them.

Saying 'yes' might be good for your career initially. However, Tim Ferriss learned that in the long run, saying 'no' spells personal well-being. Get more done by doing less. It works!

Too many opportunities can become overwhelming and unproductive. Do less, focus on the important few and ignore the rest for greater well-being and results.

Like all of us, Tim Ferriss deals with procrastination too. Here are a set of questions he asks himself to avoid postponing the important tasks at hand.

Why You Procrastinate And How To Fight It

When it's hard to start a task or project, set lower standards and achievable goals. Work for small wins that will motivate you to keep going.

You can influence others in many ways. Learn how to maximize your impact in meaningful ways from this example. Know your audience and recalibrate your message, as Tim Ferriss did.

With leadership comes responsibility. In sharing your experience with others, you have the power to influence and help.

Until 2008, Chris Voss was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI. Enough reason for Never Split the Difference to have become a classic handbook on negotiation techniques, and this series a must-watch for anyone looking to improve their bargaining game.

Never Split The Difference By Chris Voss With Tahl Raz

Meet Chris Voss, a master negotiator for the FBI who has had to get what he wants out of the world's most notorious criminals and masterminds.

Voss shows you how, sometimes, you have to put the science of negotiation aside and focus on the heart.

In any negotiation, show empathy and build trust: smile, slow down, know your voices (calm, playful, assertive) and when to use them.

Take a step back to understand what the other side wants. Mirroring can help you gain the confidence of your opponent.

During a negotiation, use the tactic of mirroring - repeating three key words said by your opponent. This will help you gain their confidence.

Open-ended questions buy you valuable time. They also make the other side think about solutions while giving them the illusion of control.

In any negotiation, open-ended questions buy you time and information. Ask your opponent how, why or what.

Voss offers six tactical ways to use loss aversion to your advantage. The fear of losing out in any deal is bound to make your opponent give in.

In any negotiation, make sure your opponent sees there is something to lose if the deal falls through

His FBI experience gave Voss an insight into the three  types of negotiators. Learn what type you are and to figure out the others' type.

A key step to win a negotiation is to understand what kind of negotiator you - and your opponent - are: Analyst, accomodator, or assertor?

A myriad problems pervade the world today and institutions fall short in tackling them. Believe in People by Charles Koch and Brian Hooks offers a refreshing new paradigm for action to social entrepreneurs, trying to find innovative ways to change the world for better. In this series, Jan Rutherford, a principal at thoughtLEADERS LLC builds a compelling case for why empowering, instead of controlling, others is a healthier way to stand against society’s biggest challenges.

Believe In People: Charles Koch And Brian Hooks

The solution to many societal problems often comes from the most unlikely sources. Harnessing people’s talents can help find real solutions to many of these issues. Learn how empowering yourself and others can help unlock unique talents that can improve the world.

Authors Koch and Hooks believe that four core institutions—community, education, business, and government—play a crucial role in building an ideal society. Understand how these institutions support us and why their failure results in societal breakdown.

It is not possible to solve societal problems with a top-down approach – they can only be solved by trusting and empowering people to use their own talents and abilities to achieve self-reliance, so they can then help others learn to do the same.

What sets social entrepreneurs apart is not just their desire to inspire change but also their success in finding innovative ways to do this. The story of Antong Lucky is one such example of a of a former gang leader turned social entrepreneur, who pioneered new initiatives to help former convicts re-integrate into society.

To become an effective social entrepreneur, it is important to find your passion and vision to be able to find new ways to drive change.

Communities play a vital role in providing safe environments for people to grow and learn. When communities struggle social problems take hold.  Learn what it takes to repair a community, in this episode.

Strong Individuals Depend On Strong Communities

It is important for policymakers to change their mindset and not see people as the problem, but as a part of the solution; and utilize their unique talents while empowering them to rebuild communities.

According to authors Koch and Hooks, the standard, one-size-fits-all education system has failed to create strong, motivated, passionate individuals who can lead society to a better future. Learn how to execute a bottom-up approach to create educational models for each individual student, in this video.

The clearest path to a better educational system is to individualize it and help students discover how they learn best, instead of dictating what they should learn.

We live in a profit-driven world but need to turn it around and strive for a world that creates value to enable enduring success. Understand the concept of ‘principled entrepreneurship’ and how it helps create value for others and build strong communities in this video.

Our economy will work better if we build businesses with cultures of contribution, practice a philosophy of mutual benefit and create more opportunities for individuals to succeed.

Many of us are acutely troubled by the state of affairs characterised by partisan politics, a rigged economy and a deeply divided, fractured society. Koch and Hooks call for united action by people to bring in meaningful change, in this episode.

Meaningful change can only happen from a bottom-up approach where people unite and drive the change they want to see by demanding it from their government.

What makes people’s movement successful? How do you effect meaningful change in society? This video is a call to action for a new bottom-up movement that challenges the status quo and offers a solution-oriented approach.

To run a successful movement – one that introduces change, there needs to be a large, diverse group of people supporting the cause and backing your solution.

Jack Straight From the Gut is the autobiography of one of the most iconic CEOs of General Electric, Jack Welch. Watch this series to see how Welch introduced a radical new management style that helped turned an elephantine, hierarchical behemoth into an agile, nimble and efficient powerhouse of corporate innovation.

Jack: Straight From The Gut By Jack Welch

Jack: Straight From The Gut traces GE's legendary CEO Jack Welch’s journey as he reshaped a bureaucracy-ridden company into a lean, nimble and extremely profitable business whose processes are seen as a model for executives and organizations all over the world.

All great leaders are different but they all possess one key quality—self-confidence. Understand its importance and learn how to build your team’s confidence such that they are self-assured and constantly learning and growing together.

It is important to build and engender self-confidence in your team. It gives them the courage to take risks and achieve far beyond the realms of possibility.

When Jack Welch took over as CEO of GE, he found himself signing expenditure requests that 16 people had already approved. This video explains how he eliminated unnecessary layers of management and streamlined operations such that he never had to sign any such request in his tenure as CEO.

Large companies often have needless hierarchies that hamper flexibility and speed of operations. Build lean organizations that are agile, adaptable and high-spirited.

Early on in his tenure, Welch decided that the best way forward for GE was to only focus on businesses that would pay off in the long term. Find out how Welch worked out a rule of thumb to eliminate superfluous businesses and focus on operations that would lead GE to unprecedented growth.

Unless you are a market leader, your profitability does not count in the long run. It is good to take stock of where you may be lagging in the market and refocus your resources on ventures that will provide enduring growth.

Welch argues that it is important to evaluate and reward people according to their abilities and performance. This also includes making the tough call and sacking those who are not up to par. Find out how to sack people in the most humane and amicable manner possible.

Exceptional performers should be rewarded so they continue to push the envelope, while poor performers need to be removed from the talent pool to effectively streamline the workforce and ensure consistent growth.

One of the toughest asks of leadership is to let people go. Find out how to sack people in the most humane and amicable manner possible.

Avoid any element of surprise when firing an employee. Ensure your workplace is built on constructive criticism and feedback and you are expressing your disappointment on performance where necessary.

Jack Welch classifies managers into four broad types depending on their ability to deliver on commitments and whether they share the values of the company. Find out how to use this classification to decide who should stay and who should go in this video.

True leaders energize and inspire rather than control and direct. A manager who typically forces performance out of people rather than inspires it needs to be let go.

Jack Welch was a great believer in cultivating leaders from within the company. Learn how he created an entire training program at GE’s Crotonville institute to train leaders in-house.

Leadership is all about nurturing others within your team to become good leaders. Not only does this ensure smooth transitions within organizations, but also keeps people motivated.

When a company’s performance starts to energize employees, it’s a sure-fire path to growth. Learn how Jack Welch made this a reality by tying rewards to GE performance.

Consider tying rewards to company performance to get employees to start viewing the company’s overall growth and goal as their own.

Learn how Jack Welch adopted Six Sigma processes to reduce error and get as close to perfect efficiency as possible.

Relentlessly measuring, evaluating and improving performance in every function should be a core part of any business, as it brings you as close to 100% efficiency as possible, enabling you to grow your business.

Data Strategy By Bernard Marr

Data Strategy By Bernard Marr

Data Strategy By Bernard Marr

Episodes

1. Navigating The World Of ‘Big Data’

2. Using Data To Improve Decision-Making

3. Using Data To Improve Operations

4. 2 Ways To Monetize Your Data

5. Collecting The Right Data

6. Data Governance

7. 5 Key Data Science Skills

8. Creating A Culture Of Data At Your Organization