When The Heavens Are Brass

Related products

• 

  Great By Choice

  $29.99

  The new question
  Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.

  The new study
  Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins’s prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

  With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness-beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years-in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

  The new findings
  The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as:

  The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
  Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
  Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
  The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.
  The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include: 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe.

  Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck.

  This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncer

  1 in stock

  Add to cart
• 

  Devil At My Heels

  $14.99

  Athletically gifted, Louis Zamperini propelled himself from the tough streets of Southern California to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and to an NCAA mile record at USC that stood for 20 years. When war came he left the track for a B-24-a move that would have heartbreaking consequences. On a routine mission his plane crashed into the shark-infested Pacific and he would drift 2,000 miles for 47 days before being found by the Japanese. As a prisoner of war, Zamperini endured two years of horrible torture and humiliation at the hands of a psychopathic guard nicknamed “The Bird.” Yet Zamperini endured and returned home a hero.

  Unfortunately, the terrible memory of his experiences haunted him. Zamperini turned to alcohol and spiraled into the depths of despair until a young preacher named Billy Graham helped him rediscover the faith that would eventually lead him to return to Japan and personally forgive all his now-imprisoned captors. Moving and unforgettable, terrifying and inspirational, Devil At My Heels is not to be missed.

  1 in stock

  Add to cart
• 

  Grief Observed

  $15.99

  Written by C. S. Lewis with love and humility, this brief but poignant volume was first published in 1961 and courageously encounters the anger and heart-break that followed the death of his wife, an American-born poet, Joy Davidman. Handwritten entries from notebooks that Lewis found in his home capture the doubt and anguish that we all face in times of great loss. He questions his beliefs in this graceful and poignant affirmation of faith in the face of senseless loss.

  in stock within 3-5 days of online purchase

  Add to cart
• 

  Drawing Pad : Available From Anchor

  $4.99

  Games and Toys

  Additional Info
  This generously sized drawing pad provides a clean sheet for every creative whim. Premium white bond paper is ideal for pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, watercolor or poster paints.

  in stock within 3-5 days of online purchase

  Add to cart