The Hockey Stick Principles

Many business books fuel unrealistic notions about what a good idea looks like, how fast a founder should attract investment, and how quickly growth will take off. The problem with this mythology is that it can sometimes end with entrepreneurs abandoning their dreams too soon if they don't see immediate results. In The Hockey Stick Principles, author Bobby Martin shifts his focus away from all the hype about rapid growth and the pursuit of funding and instead takes a look at the real process behind getting a good idea off the ground. Using a hockey stick as a metaphor and highlighting four key phases, Martin shows the healthy way a business should grow and uses entertaining stories and interviews with successful entrepreneurs like the founders of LendingTree, Under Armour, and iContact, woven throughout the book to not only share a wealth of advice, but to chronicle the ins and outs of these different phases: -The Tinkering Period: The tip of the stick, or the time when you first develop and hone your idea. -The Blade Years: The formative years when growth can be flat and navigating the unpredictable process of creating a company can be rocky. -The Inflection Point: The crucial point in time right before your business takes off when it's important for entrepreneurs to prepare and make decisions to properly manage rapid growth. -Surging Growth: Once your company proves that they have potential, you need to optimize that growth and scale up in a sensible way. Innovation almost always involves a number of challenges, misdirections, and uncertainty and can take several years of struggle. But The Hockey Stick Principles gives aspiring entrepreneurs and those in the midst of the messy process a realistic, human, and inspiring understanding of what starting an innovative business is like, while teaching you what to look out for along the way as you shepherd your business through to success.

Beat the odds with a bold strategy from McKinsey & Company "Every once in a while, a genuinely fresh approach to business strategy appears" —legendary business professor Richard Rumelt, UCLA McKinsey & Company's newest, most definitive, and most irreverent book on strategy—which thousands of executives are already using—is a must-read for all C-suite executives looking to create winning corporate strategies. Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick is spearheading an empirical revolution in the field of strategy. Based on an extensive analysis of the key factors that drove the long-term performance of thousands of global companies, the book offers a ground-breaking formula that enables you to objectively assess your strategy's real odds of future success. "This book is fundamental. The principles laid out here, with compelling data, are a great way around the social pitfalls in strategy development." —Frans Van Houten, CEO, Royal Philips N.V. The authors have discovered that over a 10-year period, just 1 in 12 companies manage to jump from the middle tier of corporate performance—where 60% of companies reside, making very little economic profit—to the top quintile where 90% of global economic profit is made. This movement does not happen by magic—it depends on your company's current position, the trends it faces, and the big moves you make to give it the strongest chance of vaulting over the competition. This is not another strategy framework. Rather, Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick shows, through empirical analysis and the experiences of dozens of companies that have successfully made multiple big moves, that to dramatically improve performance, you have to overcome incrementalism and corporate inertia. "A different kind of book—I couldn't put it down. Inspiring new insights on the facts of what it takes to move a company's performance, combined with practical advice on how to deal with real-life dynamics in management teams." —Jane Fraser, CEO, Citigroup Latin America

INNOVATIVE COMPANIES THAT OBTAIN HOCKEY STICK REVENUE GROWTH AREN'T CREATED OVERNIGHT. Successful startups result from hard-fought, multi-year projects that require trial-and error, short-term failures, wasted money, and experimentation. These are the "blade years"-the first three years when revenue and growth are low. This is a scrappy stage when founders must figure things out. In The Blade Years, you'll get the inside stories from founders of all types and how they managed their biggest challenges-but hung in there to eventually obtain hockey stick growth. Dig in; the stories are entertaining, educational, and downright interesting. Bobby Martin has cofounded two successful start-ups, one of which, First Research, a leader in sales intelligence, was sold to Dun & Bradstreet. He's deeply involved with eight other start-ups as an angel investor and advisor. Martin is chairman and cofounder of Vertical IQ, a leading provider of sales research insight for banks. He speaks frequently about entrepreneurship at universities around the United States and at corporate events. He was the recipient of the Triangle Business Journal's 2006 "40 Under 40" Award in Raleigh.

Despite enormous investments of time and money, are we making a dent on the social and environmental challenges of our time? What if we could exponentially increase our impact? Around the world, a new generation is looking beyond greater profits, for meaningful purpose. But, unlike business, few social interventions have achieved significant impact at scale. Inspired by the modern innovation practices, popularized by bestseller The Lean Startup, that have fueled technology breakthroughs touching every aspect of our lives, Lean Impact turns our attention to a new goal - radically greater social good. Social change is far more complicated than building a new app. It requires more listening, more care, and more stakeholders. To make a lasting difference, solutions must be embraced by beneficiaries, address root causes, and include an engine that can accelerate growth to reach the scale of the need. Lean Impact offers bold ideas to reach audacious goals through customer insight, rapid experimentation and iteration, and a relentless pursuit of impact. Ann Mei Chang brings a unique perspective from across sectors, from her years as a tech executive in Silicon Valley to her most recent experience as the Chief Innovation Officer at USAID. She vividly illustrates the book with real stories from interviews with over 200 organizations across the US and around the world. Whether you are a nonprofit, social enterprise, triple bottom line company, foundation, government agency, philanthropist, impact investor, or simply donate your time and money, Lean Impact is an essential guide to maximizing social impact and scale.

The ultimate hockey dad, Karl Subban is a former school principal and father of five, including three sons--P.K., Malcolm and Jordan--who have been drafted to the NHL. Karl's inspirational story follows the hockey journey from house league to the big leagues and shows how to grow the unlimited potential that is in every child. In his thirty-plus years of coaching, teaching and parenting, Karl Subban has proved to be a leader with the gift of inspiring others. He has dedicated his life to helping young people grow their potential--to be better at what they do, and to be better people. Originally from Jamaica, Karl Subban, along with his wife, Maria, have raised five accomplished children. Their oldest son is P.K. Subban, who won the Norris Trophy for top defenceman in the NHL and whose trade from the Canadiens to the Nashville Predators shocked the hockey world. Their two daughters are teachers, one a university basketball star and the other a talented visual artist. Their two youngest children, goaltender Malcolm and defenceman Jordan, are also rising through the professional ranks, drafted and signed by NHL teams--the three sons adding up to what Karl calls "the Subban hat trick." Now, from the backyard hockey rink to the nail-biting suspense of draft days, Karl Subban shares tales of his family's unique hockey journey. Mixing personal stories with lessons he learned as a coach and principal--lessons about goal-setting, perseverance and accomplishment--How We Did It will allow other parents, teachers, coaches and mentors to apply the same principles as they help the young people in their lives to identify, develop and live their dreams.

"This is intro to hockey, and it's time to begin!" Lucy and her family are skating on an outdoor rink when she sees a game of hockey going on. It looks like fun, but maybe too challenging. Supported by her parents, Lucy enrolls in an introductory hockey clinic, and thanks to an encouraging instructor, she and her friends learn basic hockey skills, have fun on the ice and decide to add hockey to their list of favorite sports! The Lucy Tries Sports series encourages children to get active and participate in sports and recreation.

Originally published in 1951, and rejected at the time by one NHL coach as “the product of a three-year-old mind,” Lloyd Percival’sThe Hockey Handbookwent on to become an internationally recognized classic. Russian and European coaches seized on the book as the first authoritative, analytical treatment of hockey fundamentals and based their training regimes on the principles Percival described. The father of Russian hockey, Anatoli Tarasov, wrote to Percival: “Your wonderful book which introduced us to the mysteries of Canadian hockey, I have read like a schoolboy.” Now, nearly half a century later,The Hockey Handbookremains in a class by itself. It is the first book required by players or coaches at all levels of proficiency who are setting out to develop their own or their team’s hockey skills. Wayne Major, Larry Sadler, and Robert Thom are all experienced amateur hockey coaches who came to appreciate the practical value of Percival’s pioneering work. In revising the text, they drew upon the expertise of a variety of specialists, including, for example, Dr. Tom Sawa, who updated the chapter on training and conditioning, to giveThe Hockey Handbooka new relevance to modern hockey coaches. Now redesigned and issued in an easy-to-use format, the book will serve as an inspiration and guide to future generations of players and coaches.