An award-winning CEO and communications expert shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn't work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.

Driven to succeed under constant pressure, entrepreneurs and business leaders alike can be tempted to exaggerate their strengths, minimize weaknesses, and bend the truth. Through the twin lenses of running her own national public relations firm and advising thousands of executives for a quarter-century, Sabrina Horn revisits the core of leadership; defines authentic, reality-based business integrity; and shows readers how to attain and maintain it.

With firsthand accounts of sticky situations and painful mistakes, Horn lays out workable strategies, frameworks, and mental maps to help leaders gain the clarity of thought necessary to make sound business decisions, even when there are no right answers. In her straightforward, no-nonsense style, she shares the power of humility and empathy, mentorship and self-assessment, and a strong core value system to build a leader's confidence and resilience. Horn's fake-free advice will empower readers to disarm fear, organize risk, manage setbacks and crises, deal with losing and loneliness, and create a culture and brand designed for long-term success.

An award-winning CEO and communications expert shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn't work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.

Driven to succeed under constant pressure, entrepreneurs and business leaders alike can be tempted to exaggerate their strengths, minimize weaknesses, and bend the truth. Through the twin lenses of running her own national public relations firm and advising thousands of executives for a quarter-century, Sabrina Horn revisits the core of leadership; defines authentic, reality-based business integrity; and shows readers how to attain and maintain it.

With firsthand accounts of sticky situations and painful mistakes, Horn lays out workable strategies, frameworks, and mental maps to help leaders gain the clarity of thought necessary to make sound business decisions, even when there are no right answers. In her straightforward, no-nonsense style, she shares the power of humility and empathy, mentorship and self-assessment, and a strong core value system to build a leader's confidence and resilience. Horn's fake-free advice will empower readers to disarm fear, organize risk, manage setbacks and crises, deal with losing and loneliness, and create a culture and brand designed for long-term success.

An award-winning CEO and communications expert shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn't work-at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.


Self-doubt and the intense pressure of facing the unknown are real problems for entrepreneurs and leaders. But there's a difference between feigning confidence and running a con game; Elizabeth Holmes and Billy McFarland thrived on faking it for a short while, but their businesses were all aspiration, no foundation, and so collapsed disastrously. This book revisits the core of leadership, defines authentic, reality-based business integrity, and shows readers how to attain and maintain it.

Through the double lens of running her own PR firm in Silicon Valley and advising hundreds of other executives, award-winning CEO Sabrina Horn shows leaders how to attend to the fundamentals and gain the clarity of thought necessary to make sound business decisions. She delivers real, workable strategies and best practices with firsthand accounts of painful lessons. Horn's fake-free advice will empower leaders to disarm fear and organize risk, manage setbacks, plan for the unexpected, and create a company culture designed for long-term, sustainable growth.

Highly talented employees are the key to every organization's success. Yet despite their best intentions, for most managers growing talent while successfully doing their ‘day jobs' and staying on top of results seems like a pipe dream. But it doesn't have to be.

Wendy Axelrod and Jeannie Coyle show you how exceptional managers make this dream a reality. These managers go way beyond the usual coaching and performance management to integrate development into their everyday workflow rather than making it a separate “to do.” Axelrod and Coyle draw from their research with exceptional managers from companies like Corning, Microsoft, Siemens, Merck, and many more to illustrate five powerful practices that can be used in any organization, of any size, in any industry.

Despite considerable investment in resources and tools, many companies struggle to meet the demand for the talent they require. Make Talent Your Business\u201d gets to the heart of the matter: Managers themselves are in the best position to help people learn from experience (the uncontested major source of development) and shows managers how to do it by using the five practices that work for managers who are exceptional at building talent. This set of practices goes well beyond the usual managerial coaching and performance management. It moves the focus from performance today to development of skills that truly "raise the game" of employees—skills such as in-the-moment judgment, customer relationship building and collaborative decision-making. Managers who grow talent enhance their own reputations and get better results, retain people, attract talent and make their organizations more agile and capable to deal with future challenges.

Most managers focus on near-term results, struggling to find the time and motivation to develop direct reports in any significant way. Yet fast-paced business environments demand managers who can grow their employees' skills. Axelrod and Coyle's work offers managers guidance on how to develop their staff in significant ways, while getting results, every day.

How is it that companies spend billions on recognition programs, yet most employees feel unrecognized? Here Cindy Ventrice zeroes in on what truly makes employees feel valued and lays out proven recognition tactics that will provide a genuine, lasting boost for your business. Ventrice demonstrates that integrating the intangible rewards people crave—praise, thanks, opportunity, and respect—into the daily routine is far more effective than typical recognition awards, events, perks, and privileges, and she shows exactly how to do it. Follow her advice and you'll save money while obtaining better results than ever before.

This second edition features new examples from innovative companies like Best Buy, Cisco Systems and Google, as well as detailing how to provide recognition in increasingly virtual workplaces, account for cultural differences in reward preferences, and ensure that rewards are perceived as fair and equitable.

In this thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling guide (over 20,000 of the 1st edition sold) to employee recognition, author Cindy Ventrice explores how managers need to adapt their recognition strategies to deal with global, virtual, and generational realities. Additions include chapters on workplace culture, fairness, and remote communication.

In this thoroughly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling guide (over 20,000 of the 1st edition sold) to employee recognition, author Cindy Ventrice explores how managers need to adapt their recognition strategies to deal with global, virtual, and generational realities. Additions include chapters on workplace culture, fairness, and remote communication.

Most companies today have some commitment to corporate social responsibility, but implementing these initiatives can be particularly challenging. While a lot has been written on ethical and strategic factors, there is still a dearth of information on the practical nuts and bolts. And whereas with most other organizational initiatives the sole objective is improved financial performance, sustainability broadens the focus to include social and environmental performance, which is much more difficult to measure.

Now updated throughout with new examples and new research, this is a complete guide to implementing and measuring the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. It draws on Marc Epstein's and new coauthor Adriana Rejc Buhovac's solid academic foundation and extensive consulting work and includes best practices from dozens of companies in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa. This is the ultimate how-to guide for corporate leaders, strategists, academics, sustainability consultants, and anyone else with an interest in actually putting sustainability ideas into practice and making sure they accomplish their goals.

Most companies today have some commitment to corporate social responsibility, but implementing these initiatives can be particularly challenging. While a lot has been written on ethical and strategic factors, there is still a dearth of information on the practical nuts and bolts. And whereas with most other organizational initiatives the sole objective is improved financial performance, sustainability broadens the focus to include social and environmental performance, which is much more difficult to measure.

Now updated throughout with new examples and new research, this is a complete guide to implementing and measuring the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. It draws on Marc Epstein's and new coauthor Adriana Rejc Buhovac's solid academic foundation and extensive consulting work and includes best practices from dozens of companies in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa. This is the ultimate how-to guide for corporate leaders, strategists, academics, sustainability consultants, and anyone else with an interest in actually putting sustainability ideas into practice and making sure they accomplish their goals.

Now completely updated, Making Sustainability Work is the bible for applying real metrics and best practices to the often-nebulous realm of business sustainability. Mark Epstein and Adriana Rejc Buhovac provide concrete tools for measuring and increasing social and environmental impacts in a manner that businesses can understand and put to real use.

In our materialist culture, the idea of “the good life”—fancy cars, designer clothes, once-in-a-lifetime vacations—leaves even those few who can afford it feeling anxious, empty, and dissatisfied. Michael Schuler deconstructs the assumption that consumption and constant stimulation equal happiness. He shows how, by applying the principles of sustainability to our personal lives, we can discover treasures of perennial value: a beautiful and healthy earth home, enduring relationships, strong communities, work that contributes to the common good, and play that restores our bodies and lifts our souls.

So many of us are beset by anxiety, depression, loneliness, and spiritual malaise, tense and unhappy despite our gadgets and goodies. Michael Schuler, leader of the nation’s largest Unitarian Universalist congregation, says it’s because, urged on by an aggressively materialist culture, we too often opt for short-term gratification and long-term denial. In this thoughtful and deeply honest book, he helps us find a life path that leads to treasures of perennial value: a beautiful and healthy earth home, enduring relationships, strong communities, work that contributes to the common good, and play that restores our bodies and lifts our souls. Deconstructing the assumption that consumption, stimulation, and constant motion comprise the good life, Schuler urges the wholesale embrace of sustainability as both an operational principle and a life-sustaining core value. His book presents sustainability as a coherent frame of reference that can ground us spiritually, heal us internally, and deepen our relationships. Schuler identifies four behavioral principles for living sustainably—Pay Attention, Stay Put, Exercise Patience, and Practice Prudence—and shows how to apply them in our daily lives. He uses stories from his own life to illuminate the rewards and challenges of sustainable living and shares insights from environmentalists, social commentators, writers, poets, businesspeople, and spiritual leaders. Sustainability means more than mere survival—for individuals, just as for natural and social systems, it’s the key to thriving rather than burning out. For those seeking a more profoundly satisfying way of life, Schuler’s heartfelt explorations offer a counter intuitive answer: the sustainable life is the good life.

In a revolutionary, multi-disciplinary approach, Unitarian Universalist Pastor Michael Schuler shows how we only truly experience “the good life” when we de-prioritize short-term attainments and instead embrace sustainability as both an operational model and a life-sustaining core value.

In this alternately amusing and appalling exposé of the standardized test industry, fifteen-year veteran Todd Farley describes statisticians who make decisions about students without even looking at their test answers; state education officials willing to change the way tests are scored whenever they don’t like the results; and massive, multi-national, for-profit testing companies who regularly opt for expediency and profit over the altruistic educational goals of teaching and learning.

In this alternately amusing and appalling exposé of the standardized test industry, fifteen-year veteran Todd Farley describes statisticians who make decisions about students without even looking at their test answers; state education officials willing to change the way tests are scored whenever they don't like the results; and massive, multi-national, for-profit testing companies who regularly opt for expediency and profit over the altruistic educational goals of teaching and learning. Although there are absurd moments--as when Farley and coworkers had to grade students based on how they described the taste of their favorite food-- the enormous importance of standardized tests in the post “No Child Left Behind” era make this no laughing matter.

“This book is dynamite! The nice personal voice makes it utterly accessible and enticing, wholly apart from the terribly important ammunition it provides to those of us in the `testing wars' at national and local levels.”—Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequities

Just as American educators, parents, and policymakers reconsider the No Child Left Behind Act and its heavy emphasis on standardized testing, Todd Farley's Making the Grades raises questions about the validity of large-scale educational assessments. His behind-the-scenes account of the for-profit testing industry is provocative, hilarious, and instructive.