The Book That Started It All -- And an Invitation to You

Few books published in the last 20 years have been more influential than Leadership and the New Science. It has profoundly altered people’s understanding around the world of how organizations and leadership work, including the dynamics of order and change, control and participation, structure and chaos, planning and innovation, and much more. And it has deeply influenced the work of thousands of other business and management writers, scholars, and practitioners, who have incorporated its ideas into their programs, interventions, strategies, and curricula.

When Berrett-Koehler Publishers was founded in 1992, we were blessed to publish Margaret Wheatley’s pioneering book as one of our first three books. It quickly became a bestseller and continues to be a bestseller today, with nearly 400,000 copies sold in 18 languages. It has won numerous awards, including being named “One of the Top Ten Business Books of All Time” by Xerox Business Services Magazine. And it has had tremendous impact on the culture and organization of our company as well as on my own thinking and leadership.

Now we are blessed that Margaret Wheatley has agreed to prepare a 20th Anniversary Edition of Leadership and the New Science, to be published in July 2012. And this is where you come in. If your work, your relationships, your organization, or your communities have benefitted in some way from the ideas in Leadership and the New Science, we invite you to send Margaret Wheatley an example or story describing this benefit and what you have learned from it. Margaret will then select examples and stories to include in the 20th Anniversary Edition, and Berrett-Koehler and Margaret will place other stories and examples on websites promoting the 20th Anniversary Edition.

Please send your stories and examples by October 30, 2011, to Margaret Wheatley at [email protected] and to me at [email protected]. The stories and examples can be written (up to 500 words), or they can be videos (up to five minutes), or they can be pictures or artwork or poems or some other mode of expression.

I hope that you will join us in spreading awareness of the wonderful contributions of this revolutionary book.

Steven Piersanti

President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers