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The international bestselling coauthor of The Secret shares essential lessons for changing your leadership strategy as your business evolves. As organizations grow in volume and complexity, the demands on leadership change. The same old moves won't cut it any more. In Chess Not Checkers, Mark Miller tells the story of Blake Brown, newly appointed CEO of a company troubled by poor performance and low morale. Nothing Blake learned from his previous roles seems to help him deal with the issues he now faces. The problem, his new mentor points out, is Blake is playing the wrong game. The early days of an organization are like checkers: a quickly played game with mostly interchangeable pieces. Everybody, the leader included, does a little bit of everything. But as the organization expands, you can't just keep jumping from activity to activity. You have to think strategically, plan ahead, and leverage every employee's specific talents—that's chess. At that point, continuing to play checkers is a sure way to lose. On his journey, Blake learns four essential strategies from the game of chess that transform his leadership and his organization. The result: unprecedented performance!
Mark Miller
Mark Miller is Chief Strategy Officer at Team One, Publicis Groupe's premium and luxury brand agency. He is also the founder of The Legacy Lab, a research and consulting practice within Team One. With more than two decades of experience in the communications industry, Miller has earned a reputation for intersecting creativity with intelligence to help global brands drive change. His work has been awarded by the Advertising Research Foundation's David Ogilvy Awards, by the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Jay Chiat Awards, and by Effie Worldwide which recognizes marketing effectiveness. He was also named a Trendsetter and an Agency Innovator for thought leadership on global branding by The Internationalist. Miller's modern legacy is building and restoring great brands through finding more relevant ways to continue their stories.
Lucas Conley is a journalist and a contributing researcher and writer with The Legacy Lab. He began his career at The Atlantic Monthly and has written for The Boston Globe, Fast Company, ESPN: The Magazine, SPIN, and The Wall Street Journal Magazine. Conley is the author of Obsessive Branding Disorder and coauthor of The Method Method. He has been invited to speak about his work on The Colbert Report, ABC World News, CNN's BookTV, NPR, and at South by Southwest. His modern legacy is exploring the human dimension of business through journalism.
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