Performance Culture

Few television shows revolutionized comedy as profoundly or have had such an enormous and continued impact on our culture as In Living Color. Inspired by Richard Pryor, Carol Burnett, and Eddie Murphy, Keenen Ivory Wayans created a television series unlike any that had come before it. In Living Color shaped American culture in ways both seen and unseen. Now, Homey Don't Play That! reveals the complete, captivating story of how In Living Color overcame enormous odds to become a major, zeitgeist-seizing hit.

The second volume of the Lost & Found Sound collection explores how recorded sound has shaped and captured the history of the last 100 years. Drawing from the archives and attics of the nation, this historic and intimate collection of radio documentaries presents a compelling array of sonic pioneers and legends, eccentric collectors, and original American voices.

While experiencing firsthand the chaos at Wisdom Health Care Center, Grace Holden, its new CEO, questions if she made the right decision in accepting the job. Yet Grace knows she couldn’t have turned it down. It was an opportunity she had worked for her entire career. Still, what she could not have anticipated was just how broken the culture was at the health care center. She quickly discovers Wisdom will challenge her in ways she never imagined. In The Wisdom Story, best-selling author Tim Burningham presents another compelling and enlightening leadership fable. Using his storytelling ...

For almost a century, movie fans have been riveted by the Academy Awards and the stars who have won Oscars. 50 Oscar Nights takes listeners behind the scenes of Hollywood’s most storied awards show through new and exclusive interviews with dozens of A-list actors, filmmakers, and craftspeople spanning sixty years of the Oscars. Here these artists reflect on their winning work and recount all the details of how they got ready, how they felt when they heard their name and got up on stage to accept their award, what they wore, how the entire experience impacted their life, and more.

The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream is the story of how Walt Disney's greatest creation was conceived, nurtured, and how it grew into a source of joy and inspiration for generations of visitors. Despite his successors' battles with the whims of history and their own doubts and egos, Walt's vision maintained momentum, thrived, and taught future generations how to do it Walt Disney's way.

HR 2.0: Rebooting the People & Profit Engine of Tomorrow – Redefining Talent Strategy and Performance Culture for Sustainable Growth: Unlock the Future of HR. Transform People into Performance. HR 2.0 is not just a book—it's a blueprint for reimagining Human Resources as a strategic powerhouse in the age of digital disruption, ESG mandates, and rapid workforce evolution. Packed with real-world Case Studies, Futuristic insights, and Field-tested Frameworks, this book equips CHROs, HR leaders, and CEOs with the tools to: Build high-impact competency-based hiring systems Create agile ...

Audiobook includes a special foreword on "Jerry Seinfeld, Jean Shepherd, and Compassionate Humor," by the author-narrator. For the first time, author Quentin Schultze, who taught storytelling with screenwriter Jean Shepherd, reveals the “secret” parables that Shepherd included in his screenplay for A Christmas Story. Now you won't need a decoder ring to learn why the Old Man’s leg lamp is his “trophy wife,” why the bully is named “Scut,” why there is a “Bumpus” in all of us, why Mom and the kids give a “Bronx cheer” after singing “Jingle Bells” in the Olds, and so much more.

In Planet Funny, Ken Jennings explores this brave new comedic world and what it means - or doesn’t - to be funny in it now. Tracing the evolution of humor from the caveman days to the bawdy middle-class antics of Chaucer to Monty Python’s game-changing silliness to the fast-paced meta-humor of The Simpsons, Jennings explains how we built our humor-saturated modern age, where lots of us get our news from comedy shows and a comic figure can even be elected president of the United States purely on showmanship.

Ted Lasso and Philosophy explores the hidden depths beneath the vibrant veneer of AppleTV's breakout, award-winning sitcom. Blending philosophical sophistication with winsome appreciation of this feel-good comedy, the collection features original essays canvassing the breadth of the series and carefully considering the ideas it presents.

Drive long-term profits and growth by making the company a place your employees love. In Great Company presents a practical approach to ensure that your employees perform at their highest possible levels. It's not about increasing salaries, offering huge bonuses, or investing in the latest employee engagement tools. The real answer is simpler, deeper, and longer-lasting: getting your people to love where they work.

For decades, alarms have sounded about declining engagement. Yet companies continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the low productivity and unhappiness that go with them. Why is "culture" so difficult to improve? What makes so many good employees check out? Neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers. It all boils down to trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate.

Every team has a manager.... But not every team is lucky enough to have a true leader. Get ready to break the mold! Did you know that 82 percent of employees would consider quitting their job because of a bad boss? And it isn’t just that you don’t want to be a bad boss…. You don’t want to be a boss at all – you want to be a leader.

There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past. Modern pundits would have us believe that Americans of a previous generation had tougher skin and seldom complained. But does this argument hold up to scrutiny? In Outrageous, celebrated cultural historian Kliph Nesteroff demonstrates that Americans have been objecting to entertainment for nearly two hundred years, sometimes rationally, often irrationally.

Exception to the Rule links ancient wisdom with contemporary science on high performance, teamwork, and engagement. Building an organizational culture based on classical virtues - of trust, compassion, courage, justice, wisdom, temperance and hope - is both strategically smart and a better way to live. Exception to the Rule walks you through the steps of helping everyone in your organization focus on character defined by virtue.

The Program: Lessons from Elite Military Units for Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Leaders and Teams offers a hands-on guide to the winning techniques and tactics of The Program, the acclaimed team-building and leadership development company. Drawing on the actual experiences of The Program's instructors from their personal combat stories to working with world-class athletic teams and successful corporations, the audiobook clearly shows how The Program's training operations can help to achieve life goals and ambitions.

Why were the American POWs imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton so resilient in captivity and so successful in their subsequent careers? This book presents six principles practiced within the POW organizational culture that can be used to develop high-performance teams everywhere. The authors offer examples from both the POWs’ time in captivity and their later professional lives that identify, in real-life situations, the characteristics necessary for sustainable, high-performance teamwork.

Timothée Chalamet is not a man. He is an image, a mood, a myth cultivated by a culture that mistakes softness for substance and introspection for rebellion. In this piercing examination written in the voice of existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, The Myth of Timothée Chalamet dissects the structure of modern celebrity through the lens of one of its most enigmatic avatars. Chalamet is adored, not for who he is, but for what he represents: curated vulnerability, commodified depth, and the illusion of freedom. Chapter by chapter, the book unveils how Chalamet has been transformed ...

What happens to a regular guy who dopes? Surprised to learn that pro athletes aren’t the only ones taking performance-enhancing substances, journalist Andrew Tilin goes in search of the average juicing Joe, hoping to find a few things out: Why would normal people take these substances? Where do folks get them? Does the stuff really work? But these controversial drugs often silence their users, and so his queries might have gone unanswered had Tilin not looked in the mirror and succumbed to curiosity....

As successful CEOs devote their time and energy to growing their companies in a fast-paced world of global trade, high technology, and fierce competition, the how of business—also known as organizational culture—can be neglected. The repercussions include losing your most talented people, damaging your reputation, and wreaking havoc on company growth. Through the use of real-life examples and client conversations, organizational psychologist and master coach Dr. Shahrzad Nooravi shares three models for driving a strong culture.

Will we ever get tired of watching Cher navigate Beverly Hills High School and discover true love in the movie Clueless? As if! Written by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone, Clueless is an enduring comedy classic that remains one of the most streamed movies on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes even 20 years after its release. In the first book of its kind, Jen Chaney has compiled an oral history of the making of this iconic film using recollections and insights collected from key cast and crew members.