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"Ego is the invisible line item on every company's profit and loss statement. It is the unseen, but not unfelt, force that ultimately decides whether a team is held back by performance that's 'good enough,' or breaks through that barrier to reach great.

And because ego's subtly out of sight on the P&L, that's precisely why for decades, if not centuries, we've become no better, and maybe no worse, at managing the most pervasive, powerful force inside every person on every team in every company."

So begins Marcum and Smith's highly-acclaimed Simon & Schuster book, egonomics: what makes ego our greatest asset, or most expensive liability. Our latest book has received the acclaim of Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, Amy Edmondson, Marshall Goldsmith, Christine Pearson, and Warren Bennis among others. Our work is now published in 24 languages in over 50 countries.

egonomics was sparked by Jim Collins' landmark work in Good to Great. Collins carefully researched 1,435 companies and discovered only 11 who broke the gravity of "good" performance to reach great. Those 11 companies surpassed their competitors by an average of 688% over 15 years. In each case, those good-to-great companies had leaders with two, rare characteristics: 1) fierce personal resolve/ego drive, 2) extreme personal humility. He called that combination "Level 5 Leadership."

Even with equal ambition, talent and resources, companies without "Level 5" characteristics couldn't make the cut. We wanted to answer the question; "Can you learn to become a 'Level 5' leader who then transforms a team, a project, or even a company from good to great?" Picking up where Good to Great left off, we now have answers to that question.

If you would like to read the acclaim for egonomics from some of world's foremost thought-leaders, and from "regular" people all over the world, visit www.readegonomics.com. There you can also download a free book discussion guide.