How do you find a competitive edge when the obstacles feel insurmountable? How do you get people to take you seriously when they’re predisposed not to, and perhaps have already written you off?
In Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, Huang draws on her groundbreaking research on entrepreneurial intuition, persuasion, and implicit decision-making, to impart her profound findings and share stories of previously-overlooked Olympians, assistants-turned-executives, and flailing companies that made momentous turnarounds. Her framework, EDGE, reveals how to:
- Enrich: Recognize and communicate the unique value you bring—your “basic goods.”
- Delight: Create unexpected moments that surprise others and open doors.
- Guide: Shape and redirect how others perceive you, turning stereotypes into strengths.
- Effort: Channel your hard work where it matters most, so it works harder for you.
Huang shows that success is rarely just about ideas, credentials, and skills, or our effort. Instead, it’s about strategically shaping how others perceive your value—and using authenticity and creativity to make even your weaknesses work in your favor
Author
Laura Huang
Laura Huang is Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University, and has held faculty positions at Harvard Business School and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. A Kauffman Fellow, she was a recipient of the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize given by the National Academy of Sciences, and was named one of the world’s best 40 business school professors by Poets & Quants. In 2021 she was included on the Global Thinkers50 Radar list as one of the top thinkers with the potential to change the world of theory and practice. Her speaking and consulting clients include Google, Microsoft, McKinsey, Lululemon, Sanofi, Pandora, and Asana. She is the author of Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage.
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