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What if better questions could change everything?

The questions you ask yourself shape every decision, relationship, and result. This international bestseller—over 500,000 copies sold—gives leaders, coaches, and professionals a proven system called Question Thinking to shift from reactive, stuck thinking to curiosity, clarity, and breakthrough outcomes.

Through an engaging business fable, Dr. Marilee Adams shows exactly how—and why—it works.

The landmark fifth edition includes the following:

• 14 Question Thinking tools, including 2 brand-new tools built from reader feedback
• The Choice Map, a visual framework for recognizing where your thinking is headed
• Q-Storming, a collaborative approach that generates better questions, not just answers
• New chapter on thriving through AI and technological change
• Step-by-step practices for leadership, coaching, team development, and personal growth

Used by Fortune 500 leaders, executive coaches, educators, and therapists worldwide.

With a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author and world's #1 executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith.

The BP oil spill, the 2008 global financial collapse, and revelations of scandalous working conditions at Chinese electronics supplier Foxconn show why so many are suspicious of promises of corporate responsibility. But slowly and fitfully, corporations are changing. It's not just because of the high cost of making amends and a fear of negative publicity. Consumers are demanding better corporate behavior, and an increasing number of executives are eager to make their organizations more of a force for good. But corporations can't act in responsible ways if no “treehuggers” are working inside the system to lead the effort.

For more than two decades, Timothy J. Mohin has worked to improve working conditions, clean up factories, and battle climate change—all while being employed by some of the biggest companies in the world. In Changing Business from the Inside Out he's written the first practical, authoritative insider's guide to creating a career in corporate responsibility. Mohin describes how to get started and what the day-to-day experience of being “the designated driver at the corporate cocktail party” is really like. He recounts colorful case studies from his own career, provides advice on how CSR workers can have greater impact, and even looks into how employees in other corporate functions can make a difference. He details the programs and processes needed to support a comprehensive CSR effort, but perhaps most importantly, he identifies the personal and professional skills needed to navigate corporate politics and get buy-in from sometimes skeptical colleagues.

With more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 now publishing “sustainability reports,” a new career path has been forged in corporate responsibility. From strategy to data mining to supply chains and communication, this book is the “operator's manual” for this new career path.

The BP oil spill, the 2008 global financial collapse, and revelations of scandalous working conditions at Chinese electronics supplier Foxconn show why so many are suspicious of promises of corporate responsibility. But slowly and fitfully, corporations are changing. It’s not just because of the high cost of making amends and a fear of negative publicity. Consumers are demanding better corporate behavior, and an increasing number of executives are eager to make their organizations more of a force for good. But corporations can’t act in responsible ways if no “treehuggers” are working inside the system to lead the effort. For more than two decades, Timothy J. Mohin has worked to improve working conditions, clean up factories, and battle climate change—all while being employed by some of the biggest companies in the world. In Changing Business from the Inside Out he’s written the first practical, authoritative insider’s guide to creating a career in corporate responsibility. Mohin describes how to get started and what the day-to-day experience of being “the designated driver at the corporate cocktail party” is really like. He recounts colorful case studies from his own career, provides advice on how CSR workers can have greater impact, and even looks into how employees in other corporate functions can make a difference. He details the programs and processes needed to support a comprehensive CSR effort, but perhaps most importantly, he identifies the personal and professional skills needed to navigate corporate politics and get buy-in from sometimes skeptical colleagues. With more than 80 percent of the Fortune 500 now publishing “sustainability reports,” a new career path has been forged in corporate responsibility. From strategy to data mining to supply chains and communication, this book is the “operator’s manual” for this new career path.

Tim Mohin argues that environmentalists can do as much good for the earth working "inside" the corporate system as by protesting from the outside. This book outlines how to work in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), either as a new career, of as a leader in a CSR initiative.

From humble beginnings, FedEx has literally revolutionized the way business is conducted. Not too long ago, overnight shipping was barely an option for even the largest companies. Today, thanks to FedEx, it's available to every living room start-up. With annual revenues of $30 billion, more than 250,000 employees, 600 aircraft, and 70,000 surface vehicles, FedEx handles nearly six million shipments a day in two hundred countries. FedEx has become a household name, and has been named one of the top ten of America's Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine.

But it wasn't always easy. From his inside vantage point as the company's first general manager and chief operating officer, Roger Frock reveals the remarkable details of how Fred Smith and his team endured their tumultuous early years—fraught with a seemingly unending series of legal, financial, and operational crises that continually threatened the company's ability to stay in business—and, in the end, created an entirely new industry.

Frock chronicles the dramatic last-minute saves and turnarounds the company engineered from its inception to the present. He entertains with stories of the trials and tribulations of the company's early struggles and victories—from Pilots using personal credit cards to fuel planes, to the courier who hocked his watch to put gas in his delivery van, and, one of the most memorable episodes, the time that founder Fred Smith literally gambled the company's last remaining funds to keep the planes flying.

Frock's story introduces all the players—FedEx's resourceful and resilient leaders and employees—and shows how these remarkable individuals gave Fred Smith's original concept wings and, through flexibility, creativity, and commitment, made a fledgling startup into one of the great success stories in modern business. Changing the Way the World Does Business is an inspirational tale for leaders and entrepreneurs everywhere.

From humble beginnings, FedEx has literally revolutionized the way business is conducted. Not too long ago, overnight shipping was barely an option for even the largest companies. Today, thanks to FedEx, it's available to every living room start-up. With annual revenues of $30 billion, more than 250,000 employees, 600 aircraft, and 70,000 surface vehicles, FedEx handles nearly six million shipments a day in two hundred countries. FedEx has become a household name, and has been named one of the top ten of America's Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine. But it wasn't always easy. From his inside vantage point as the company's first general manager and chief operating officer, Roger Frock reveals the remarkable details of how Fred Smith and his team endured their tumultuous early years--fraught with a seemingly unending series of legal, financial, and operational crises that continually threatened the company's ability to stay in business--and, in the end, created an entirely new industry. Frock chronicles the dramatic last-minute saves and turnarounds the company engineered from its inception to the present. He entertains with stories of the trials and tribulations of the company's early struggles and victories--from Pilots using personal credit cards to fuel planes, to the courier who hocked his watch to put gas in his delivery van, and, one of the most memorable episodes, the time that founder Fred Smith literally gambled the company's last remaining funds to keep the planes flying. Frock's story introduces all the players--FedEx's resourceful and resilient leaders and employees--and shows how these remarkable individuals gave Fred Smith's original concept wings and, through flexibility, creativity, and commitment, made a fledgling startup into one of the great success stories in modern business. Changing How the World Does Business is an inspirational tale for leaders and entrepreneurs everywhere.

From one of the founding executives of FedEx comes the first full inside story of how Fed Ex came to be one of the world's most successful, innovative, and admired companies. Frock reveals the details of how the company was conceived, launched, and kept afloat despite incredible obstacles.

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; the pace is frenetic. 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. Leaders who continue to play checkers when the name of the game is chess 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!

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; the pace is frenetic. 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. Leaders who continue to play checkers when the name of the game is chess 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!

The ever-increasing complexity we face requires a new way to think and work. To effectively lead an organization, bestselling author Mark Miller says, you have to play chess, not checkers. He shows how this mentality enables you to marshal all your available resources, including every employee, to strategically address challenges and opportunities.

In his latest business fable, top leadership author Mark Miller tells the story of newly appointed CEO Blake Brown, who takes over a company distressed by poor performance and low morale. Nothing Blake learned from his previous job seems to help him deal with the bigger, more complex problems he now faces. The game has changed. As his new mentor points out, Blake is playing a simple game of checkers when he should be playing chess.

Miller uses this metaphor to show how leaders can encourage deep, strategic thinking throughout an organization and utilize the unique abilities of each employee (bishops move differently than knights). He explains how to apply the “chess not checkers” mentality in four critical areas: leadership development, employee engagement, organizational alignment, and execution. This is an appealing, accessible guide to helping all leaders think ahead, plan their moves, and avoid getting checkmated by circumstances or competitors.

We all want to do the right thing. But determining the right thing to do isn't always easy. Everytime we pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV, someone tells us how we ought to behave. Rarely, however, do we get much assistance in deciding what to do for ourselves. Meanwhile, technological developments and rapid social changes make the right decisions-especially about the BIG issues-life, death, sex, justice, and so on-harder and harder to identify.
Choosing the Right Thing to Do responds to the growing need that people of all ages have for moral guidance-without moralizing. It contains a rich palette of principles and strategies, stories and examples, ideas and insights that offer real-world help for intelligently addressing the often quite troubling choices we face every day in our personal relationships, jobs, and lifestyles.

We all want to do the right thing. But determining the right thing to do isn't always easy. Everytime we pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV, someone tells us how we ought to behave. Rarely, however, do we get much assistance in deciding what to do for ourselves. Meanwhile, technological developments and rapid social changes make the right decisions-especially about the BIG issues-life, death, sex, justice, and so on-harder and harder to identify. Choosing the Right Thing to Do responds to the growing need that people of all ages have for moral guidance-without moralizing. It contains a rich palette of principles and strategies, stories and examples, ideas and insights that offer real-world help for intelligently addressing the often quite troubling choices we face every day in our personal relationships, jobs, and lifestyles.

We all want to do the right thing. But determining the right thing to do isn't always easy. Everytime we pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV, someone tells us how we ought to behave. Rarely, however, do we get much assistance in deciding what to do for ourselves. Meanwhile, technological developments and rapid social changes make the right decisions-especially about the BIG issues-life, death, sex, justice, and so on-harder and harder to identify.
Choosing the Right Thing to Do responds to the growing need that people of all ages have for moral guidance-without moralizing. It contains a rich palette of principles and strategies, stories and examples, ideas and insights that offer real-world help for intelligently addressing the often quite troubling choices we face every day in our personal relationships, jobs, and lifestyles.

Corporations have a huge influence on the life of every citizen—this book offers a visionary but practical plan to give every citizen a say in how corporations are run while also gaining some supplemental income. It lays out a clear approach that uses the mechanisms of the private market to hold corporations accountable to the public.

This would happen through the creation of what the authors call the Universal Fund, a kind of national, democratic, mega mutual fund. Every American over eighteen would be entitled to a share and would participate in directing its share voting choices. Corporations and wealthy individuals would donate stocks, bonds, cash, or other assets to the fund just like they do to other philanthropic ventures now. The fund would pay out dividends to its citizen-shareholders that would grow as the fund grows.

The Universal Fund is undoubtedly a big idea, but it is also eminently practical: it uses the tools of capitalism, not government, to give all citizens a direct influence on corporate actions. It would be a major institutional investor beholden not to a small elite group of stockholders pushing for short-term gain but to everyone. The fund would reward corporations that made sure their actions didn't harm people, communities, and the environment, and it would enable them to invest in innovations that would take more than a few months to pay off. Which is another reason corporations would donate to the fund—they could be freed from the constant pressure to maximize their quarterly share price and would essentially be subsidized for doing good.

The authors demonstrate that our current economic rules force corporations to be shortsighted and even destructive because for most large investors, nothing matters but share price. The Universal Fund is designed to be a powerful positive balancing force, making the world a better place and the United States a better nation.

Corporations have a huge influence on the life of every citizen—this book offers a visionary but practical plan to give every citizen a say in how corporations are run while also gaining some supplemental income. It lays out a clear approach that uses the mechanisms of the private market to hold corporations accountable to the public.

This would happen through the creation of what the authors call the Universal Fund, a kind of national, democratic, mega mutual fund. Every American over eighteen would be entitled to a share and would participate in directing its share voting choices. Corporations and wealthy individuals would donate stocks, bonds, cash, or other assets to the fund just like they do to other philanthropic ventures now. The fund would pay out dividends to its citizen-shareholders that would grow as the fund grows.

The Universal Fund is undoubtedly a big idea, but it is also eminently practical: it uses the tools of capitalism, not government, to give all citizens a direct influence on corporate actions. It would be a major institutional investor beholden not to a small elite group of stockholders pushing for short-term gain but to everyone. The fund would reward corporations that made sure their actions didn't harm people, communities, and the environment, and it would enable them to invest in innovations that would take more than a few months to pay off. Which is another reason corporations would donate to the fund—they could be freed from the constant pressure to maximize their quarterly share price and would essentially be subsidized for doing good.

The authors demonstrate that our current economic rules force corporations to be shortsighted and even destructive because for most large investors, nothing matters but share price. The Universal Fund is designed to be a powerful positive balancing force, making the world a better place and the United States a better nation.

Top Cornell law professor Lynn Stout and her coauthors Tamara Belinfanti and Sergio Gramitto offer a visionary but practical proposal to provide a guaranteed minimum income-it not only avoids creating a new government program or increasing taxes, but also gives the entire citizenry more influence in the economy.


This book offers a powerful and simple plan for simultaneously accomplishing two far-reaching objectives: (1) providing a basic income for all citizens and (2) making capitalism more democratic and responsive to the will of the people. The authors detail how we can create a universal fund (similar to a mutual fund) through donations of stock and other securities by corporations and individuals. This fund would be owned by, and would provide an income supplement for, all Americans. It would be an independent entity, not a government agency. Its citizen-owners would participate in governing the fund and directing its share voting choices. This would give average citizens more influence over and a larger share of the financial benefits from the corporations that are the engines of our economy. It would make corporations part of the solution to income inequality. The result will be making capitalism work better for all while bringing hope to us, our children, and our society.

America’s safety net is torn and tattered. Income inequality continues to grow—the gap between rich and poor has expanded fivefold in the last 25 years. For millions of working families achieving basic middle class comforts has begun to seem as distant a dream as winning the lottery. What is needed, and what veteran organizer and ACORN founder Wade Rathke provides in this hard-hitting new book, is a comprehensive grassroots strategy to create what he calls citizen wealth: an enduring foundation on which working people can build a future that extends beyond paying next month’s rent. Rathke shares breakthrough strategies that have enabled ACORN and other organizations help people secure the basics of citizen wealth—a house and a decent income—offering from-the-trenches advice on mounting successful living wage campaigns, battling unscrupulous and predatory lending practices, and developing new forms of worker organizations to protect wages and benefits. The anti-poverty programs still out there can provide critical support for citizen wealth-building efforts, but they’re woefully underutilized. Rathke shows how to cut through government indifference and bureaucratic obstacles to provide those in need with access to these vital resources. But community organizations can’t do it alone. Rathke describes ACORN partnerships with HSBC Bank and H & R Block that helped these businesses see building citizen wealth as a new market opportunity—a win for them and for the people they once exploited. And he looks at other examples of strange bedfellows in the fight for citizen wealth, including Citibank, once the target of massive protests by ACORN and now, working with them, a major investor in working class communities. “We need to create a national economic and political consensus that increasing family income, wealth and assets is not `welfare’ or an entitlement ‘give-away” program but an investment in the public good and well-being.” Rathke writes. Based on forty years of hard-won experience, Wade Rathke offers a new blueprint for helping millions to achieve the American Dream.

From the founder of ACORN, the nation's largest grassroots community organization, comes this hard-hitting blueprint for helping working families establish a solid foundation of income and assets that equals true economic security—what Wade Rathke calls citizen wealth. Through compelling stories from the trenches of local, state, and national campaigns, where hardscrabble wins and smart negotiating have produced positive economic change for millions, Rathke shows how activists, government, business, and working people can join together to make citizen wealth a major priority and a visible reality.