Every book in the Berrett-Koehler catalog, in one place. Browse our full collection of titles spanning leadership, management, workplace culture, social change, and beyond.
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Knowledge Café is a process for creating, exchanging, and optimizing knowledge, whether in-person or virtual. This popular and practical knowledge management tool supports a culture where projects and innovation thrive.
So many project workers are overloaded with useless information and starving for the information they really need. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important and underrated ingredient in successful project management. The Knowledge Café makes KM best practices accessible to project managers everywhere.
Human knowledge is the intellectual capital of organizations, and the consequences for losing it are dire. Knowledge Café is a current, cross-generational, systematic concept designed to retain and manage relevant knowledge--stopping the unchecked "brain drain" that can occur when knowledge is hoarded. This method is as simple to use as a corner café and works in both virtual and real-life settings.
Knowledge Café will help you combine your institutional knowledge from your experienced workers with the fresh ideas bubbling up from the front lines. If our projects (and organizations) are to succeed, we absolutely must make the shift from knowledge hoarding to knowledge sharing. You can't afford to lose the vital institutional wisdom you've built up every time there is turnover in your workforce. Knowledge Café is the solution.
So many project workers are overloaded with useless information and starving for the information they really need. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important and underrated ingredient in successful project management. The Knowledge Café makes KM best practices accessible to project managers everywhere.
Human knowledge is the intellectual capital of organizations, and the consequences for losing it are dire. Knowledge Café is a current, cross-generational, systematic concept designed to retain and manage relevant knowledge--stopping the unchecked "brain drain" that can occur when knowledge is hoarded. This method is as simple to use as a corner café and works in both virtual and real-life settings.
Knowledge Café will help you combine your institutional knowledge from your experienced workers with the fresh ideas bubbling up from the front lines. If our projects (and organizations) are to succeed, we absolutely must make the shift from knowledge hoarding to knowledge sharing. You can't afford to lose the vital institutional wisdom you've built up every time there is turnover in your workforce. Knowledge Café is the solution.
To help large and small businesses repair our broken talent pipeline, Ed Gordon offers counter-intuitive, bottom-up solutions through which corporations partner with NGOs, educational groups, local chambers of commerce and other stakeholders to rebuild the wellspring.
“Dear Black Girl is the empowering, affirming love letter our girls need in order to thrive in a world that does not always protect, nurture, or celebrate us. This collection of Black women's voices… is a must-read, not only for Black girls, but for everyone who cares about Black girls, and for Black women whose inner-Black girl could use some healing.” –Tarana Burke, Founder of the ‘Me Too' Movement
“Dear #DopeBlackGirl,
You don't know me, but I know you. I know you because I am you! We are magic, light, and stars in the universe.” So begins a letter that Tamara Winfrey-Harris received as part of her Letters to Black Girls project, where she asked black women to write honest, open, and inspiring letters of support to young black girls aged thirteen to twenty-one. Her call went viral, resulting in a hundred letters from black women around the globe. In Dear Black Girl, Winfrey-Harris introduces and organizes a selection of these letters, modeling how black women can nurture future generations. Each chapter ends with a prompt encouraging girls to write a letter to themselves, teaching the art of self-love and self-nurturing.
Winfrey-Harris's The Sisters Are Alright explores how black women must often fight and stumble their way into alrightness after adulthood. Dear Black Girl continues this work by delivering personal messages of alrightness for black women-to-be-and for the girl who still lives inside every black woman, who still needs reminding sometimes that she is alright.
“Dear #DopeBlackGirl,
You don't know me, but I know you. I know you because I am you! We are magic, light, and stars in the universe.” So begins a letter that Tamara Winfrey-Harris received as part of her Letters to Black Girls project, where she asked black women to write honest, open, and inspiring letters of support to young black girls aged thirteen to twenty-one. Her call went viral, resulting in a hundred letters from black women around the globe. In Dear Black Girl, Winfrey-Harris introduces and organizes a selection of these letters, modeling how black women can nurture future generations. Each chapter ends with a prompt encouraging girls to write a letter to themselves, teaching the art of self-love and self-nurturing.
Winfrey-Harris's The Sisters Are Alright explores how black women must often fight and stumble their way into alrightness after adulthood. Dear Black Girl continues this work by delivering personal messages of alrightness for black women-to-be-and for the girl who still lives inside every black woman, who still needs reminding sometimes that she is alright.
In their much-anticipated sequel to the bestseller Ideas Are Free (over 50,000 copies sold), Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder explain that employee ideas are no longer a “nice-to-have” but rather the very lifeblood of competitiveness, culture, and strategy. Their new book shows how to align every part of the organization around generating and implementing ideas at the front line.
For newcomers and upper management alike, leadership can be overwhelming and overcomplicated. By building core tenets of leadership around two key words for each chapter, Bill Treasurer simplifies the equation.
Congratulations, new leader! You've joined the ranks during an exceptionally complicated time.
Our current workplace climate is fraught with political divisions, economic disparities, and ever-shifting social dynamics. Leaders are managing remote teams across larger geographic distances and facing new roadblocks to onboarding, giving performance feedback, and nurturing healthy relationships.
Leadership Two Words at a Time speaks directly to the plight of the new leader and is divided into three parts: Leading Yourself, Leading People, and Leading Work. Rather than overintellectualize the practice, Bill Treasurer breaks up the concept into essential and understandable learning nuggets-summed up by two-word headers-that provide the practical guidance and support that leaders often don't get. The result is time-tested wisdom that new leaders can grasp immediately and implement easily-and, with a little practice, master completely. Consider it a personal leadership playbook.
This book gives you the basic building blocks to gain both competence and confidence, take on greater responsibility, and learn what it takes to be and stay a leader.
Congratulations, new leader! You've joined the ranks during an exceptionally complicated time.
Our current workplace climate is fraught with political divisions, economic disparities, and ever-shifting social dynamics. Leaders are managing remote teams across larger geographic distances and facing new roadblocks to onboarding, giving performance feedback, and nurturing healthy relationships.
Leadership Two Words at a Time speaks directly to the plight of the new leader and is divided into three parts: Leading Yourself, Leading People, and Leading Work. Rather than overintellectualize the practice, Bill Treasurer breaks up the concept into essential and understandable learning nuggets-summed up by two-word headers-that provide the practical guidance and support that leaders often don't get. The result is time-tested wisdom that new leaders can grasp immediately and implement easily-and, with a little practice, master completely. Consider it a personal leadership playbook.
This book gives you the basic building blocks to gain both competence and confidence, take on greater responsibility, and learn what it takes to be and stay a leader.
Since the 1980s, Appreciative Inquiry has proven to be one of the most powerful and effective methods for organizational change. Now two top consultants show how leaders can adapt its principles to become more personally and professionally resilient.
Appreciative Inquiry is a venerable and widely used organizational change method that emphasizes identifying what's working and building on those strengths. It is the focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future that makes it so powerful. In answer to numerous requests from their clients, consultants and scholars McArthur-Blair and Cockell show how to apply the lessons of AI to build resilience in leaders. Every leader has moments of despair, that "dark night of the soul" where there seems to be no clear path forward. The authors' ALIVE process (Appreciate, Love and Inquire in order to Venture and Evolve) helps leaders forgive themselves for their own failures and those of others, focus on their strengths in times of despair, and amplify and grow those strengths so that they are better able to build hope in themselves and throughout their organizations. In times of rapid change like ours, building resilience is a vital leadership skill.
Appreciative Inquiry is a venerable and widely used organizational change method that emphasizes identifying what's working and building on those strengths. It is the focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future that makes it so powerful. In answer to numerous requests from their clients, consultants and scholars McArthur-Blair and Cockell show how to apply the lessons of AI to build resilience in leaders. Every leader has moments of despair, that "dark night of the soul" where there seems to be no clear path forward. The authors' ALIVE process (Appreciate, Love and Inquire in order to Venture and Evolve) helps leaders forgive themselves for their own failures and those of others, focus on their strengths in times of despair, and amplify and grow those strengths so that they are better able to build hope in themselves and throughout their organizations. In times of rapid change like ours, building resilience is a vital leadership skill.
By now most authors know they need to market their book online, but many of them have no idea where or how to start. This concise expert's guide to marketing books online-by a woman whose company has been doing it since 1995-helps authors focus their efforts on what really matters.
Authors know they need to market their book online these days, but it can feel overwhelming. Now, on top of your day job, you're supposed to be building a digital empire? Ten minutes into Googling around for tips, and the To-Do List is so long, not even an army could get it all done. Feeling the pressure to do everything, some poor authors end up doing nothing… the pile just looks too big to shovel.
President of one of the first firms to specialize in online book publicity, Fauzia Burke makes the job of online branding not only doable, but fun. She helps authors clarify their goals, sort through the many online options available, and decide what they must do (and what they can let go), when to do it, and how to get it done. By following her advice any author can develop a plan for conquering the Internet.
Burke takes authors by their trembling hands and shows them this journey of a thousand miles can be accomplished step by step. And why is the journey worth it? Fauzia writes, “Once you build your brand, no one can take it away from you. View your digital brand strategy as a continuation of your book. It's a conversation about your book that builds your community one relationship at a time."
Authors know they need to market their book online these days, but it can feel overwhelming. Now, on top of your day job, you're supposed to be building a digital empire? Ten minutes into Googling around for tips, and the To-Do List is so long, not even an army could get it all done. Feeling the pressure to do everything, some poor authors end up doing nothing… the pile just looks too big to shovel.
President of one of the first firms to specialize in online book publicity, Fauzia Burke makes the job of online branding not only doable, but fun. She helps authors clarify their goals, sort through the many online options available, and decide what they must do (and what they can let go), when to do it, and how to get it done. By following her advice any author can develop a plan for conquering the Internet.
Burke takes authors by their trembling hands and shows them this journey of a thousand miles can be accomplished step by step. And why is the journey worth it? Fauzia writes, “Once you build your brand, no one can take it away from you. View your digital brand strategy as a continuation of your book. It's a conversation about your book that builds your community one relationship at a time."
“Maya Hu-Chan shares a blueprint for becoming a more empathetic, self-aware, and inclusive leader. Saving Face guides us to consider different perspectives, to think first and speak last, and to respect others above all else.”
-Frances Hesselbein, former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Organizations now need to attract, retain, and motivate teams and employees across distance, time zones, and cultural differences. Building authentic and lasting human relations may be the most important calling for leaders in this century. According to management and global leadership specialist Maya Hu-Chan, the concept of “saving face” can help any leader preserve dignity and create more empathetic cross-cultural relationships.
“Face” represents one's self-esteem, self-worth, identity, reputation, status, pride, and dignity. Saving face is often understood as saving someone from embarrassment, but it's also about developing an understanding of the background and motivations of others to discover the unique facets we all possess. Without that understanding, we risk causing others to lose face without even knowing it. Hu-Chan explains saving face through anecdotes and practical tools, such as her BUILD leadership model (Benevolence, Understanding, Interacting, Learning, and Delivery). This book illustrates how we can give face to create positive first impressions, avoid causing others to lose face, and, most importantly, build trust and lasting relationships inside and outside the workplace.
-Frances Hesselbein, former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
Organizations now need to attract, retain, and motivate teams and employees across distance, time zones, and cultural differences. Building authentic and lasting human relations may be the most important calling for leaders in this century. According to management and global leadership specialist Maya Hu-Chan, the concept of “saving face” can help any leader preserve dignity and create more empathetic cross-cultural relationships.
“Face” represents one's self-esteem, self-worth, identity, reputation, status, pride, and dignity. Saving face is often understood as saving someone from embarrassment, but it's also about developing an understanding of the background and motivations of others to discover the unique facets we all possess. Without that understanding, we risk causing others to lose face without even knowing it. Hu-Chan explains saving face through anecdotes and practical tools, such as her BUILD leadership model (Benevolence, Understanding, Interacting, Learning, and Delivery). This book illustrates how we can give face to create positive first impressions, avoid causing others to lose face, and, most importantly, build trust and lasting relationships inside and outside the workplace.
“Full of concrete, real-world examples, this guide is written with both understanding and encouragement-'Maybe you're already feeling this. Some days you feel isolated and alone,' they offer. With so many office jobs now being done at home, this couldn't have arrived at a better time.”
-Publishers Weekly
Remote work is growing at nearly 30 percent per year in major economies worldwide, meaning there are millions of people who once worked at a central location every day and are now finding themselves facing an entirely new way of working. This book is the best single resource for remote workers for getting work done effectively, building relationships that are both productive and satisfying, and maintaining a career trajectory when they are not in constant close contact with their employer or the organization.
The Long-Distance Teammate aims to tackle three important issues: the dynamics of remote work, the understanding of virtual strengths and vulnerabilities, and the necessary steps to creating appropriate processes and communication skills. This is a practical guide for both individual workers who want to regain some control over their work and those inside organizations responsible for the ongoing development of their most important resource: people.
-Publishers Weekly
Remote work is growing at nearly 30 percent per year in major economies worldwide, meaning there are millions of people who once worked at a central location every day and are now finding themselves facing an entirely new way of working. This book is the best single resource for remote workers for getting work done effectively, building relationships that are both productive and satisfying, and maintaining a career trajectory when they are not in constant close contact with their employer or the organization.
The Long-Distance Teammate aims to tackle three important issues: the dynamics of remote work, the understanding of virtual strengths and vulnerabilities, and the necessary steps to creating appropriate processes and communication skills. This is a practical guide for both individual workers who want to regain some control over their work and those inside organizations responsible for the ongoing development of their most important resource: people.
When physicians and nurses suffer from burnout, patients suffer as well. This book pinpoints the how and why and shows what healthcare providers and their organizations can do.
Burnout is among the most critical topics in healthcare as it deprives us of our most important resource-the talents and passion of those who perform the difficult work of caring for patients and their families. The purpose of this work is to provide not only a taxonomy of burnout within the landscape of healthcare but also to provide pathways for healthcare professionals to guide themselves and their organizations toward changing the culture and systems of their organization. An additional purpose is to summarize personal strategies to prevent and ameliorate burnout.
Practical tools, techniques, and case studies are used to illustrate specifically how to promote positive, proactive change. The book looks at healthcare workers' roles in promoting change within themselves and their organization and addresses solutions to change the culture and the systems of work. Both are presented with a pragmatic focus, with liberal use of examples and case reviews, including those from several nationally recognized healthcare systems.
Burnout is among the most critical topics in healthcare as it deprives us of our most important resource-the talents and passion of those who perform the difficult work of caring for patients and their families. The purpose of this work is to provide not only a taxonomy of burnout within the landscape of healthcare but also to provide pathways for healthcare professionals to guide themselves and their organizations toward changing the culture and systems of their organization. An additional purpose is to summarize personal strategies to prevent and ameliorate burnout.
Practical tools, techniques, and case studies are used to illustrate specifically how to promote positive, proactive change. The book looks at healthcare workers' roles in promoting change within themselves and their organization and addresses solutions to change the culture and the systems of work. Both are presented with a pragmatic focus, with liberal use of examples and case reviews, including those from several nationally recognized healthcare systems.
A leading expert on risk management describes how to steer your company through a “risk hurricane”-the extreme risk exposure that can lead to major disruption for your business.
Risk management has become a standard part of the strategic tool kit, providing senior leaders with a forward-looking radar to scan the future and give early warnings of approaching threats and opportunities. However, even best-in-class organizations can falter in the face of extreme risk exposure. Special circumstances demand special responses, and extreme risk exposure needs very careful handling. Routine risk management approaches will fall short, but businesses that demonstrate a high degree of flexibility and resilience will have the competitive advantage and the ability to thrive where others fail.
The causes and consequences of meteorological hurricanes have parallels in the way uncontrolled risk exposure can develop in organizations. Both are caused largely by predictable factors, but both are characterized by sustained uncertainty and severe impact once they develop. If we can learn to predict a risk hurricane, prepare for it effectively, and survive its effects, then our organizations will be well placed to address the challenge of extreme risk exposure, if and when we are unfortunate enough to face it.
Risk management has become a standard part of the strategic tool kit, providing senior leaders with a forward-looking radar to scan the future and give early warnings of approaching threats and opportunities. However, even best-in-class organizations can falter in the face of extreme risk exposure. Special circumstances demand special responses, and extreme risk exposure needs very careful handling. Routine risk management approaches will fall short, but businesses that demonstrate a high degree of flexibility and resilience will have the competitive advantage and the ability to thrive where others fail.
The causes and consequences of meteorological hurricanes have parallels in the way uncontrolled risk exposure can develop in organizations. Both are caused largely by predictable factors, but both are characterized by sustained uncertainty and severe impact once they develop. If we can learn to predict a risk hurricane, prepare for it effectively, and survive its effects, then our organizations will be well placed to address the challenge of extreme risk exposure, if and when we are unfortunate enough to face it.
It is time for an emotional reckoning on our path to racial healing, sustainable equity, and the future of DEI. Here's the tool to help us navigate it.
In this groundbreaking book, Esther Armah argues that the crucial missing piece to racial healing and sustainable equity is emotional justice-a new racial healing language to help us do our emotional work. This work is part of the emotional reckoning we must navigate if racial healing is to be more than a dream. We all-white, Black, Brown-have our emotional work that we need to do. But that work is not the same for all of us.
This emotional work means unlearning the language of whiteness, a narrative that centers white people, particularly white men, no matter the deadly cost and consequence to all women and to global Black and Brown people. That's why a new racial healing language is crucial.
Emotional Justice grapples with how a legacy of untreated trauma from oppressive systems has created and sustained dual deadly fictions: white superiority and Black inferiority that shape-and wound-all of us. These systems must be dismantled to build a future that serves justice to everyone, not just some of us. We are the dismantlers we have been waiting for, and emotional justice is the game changer for a just future that benefits all of us.
In this groundbreaking book, Esther Armah argues that the crucial missing piece to racial healing and sustainable equity is emotional justice-a new racial healing language to help us do our emotional work. This work is part of the emotional reckoning we must navigate if racial healing is to be more than a dream. We all-white, Black, Brown-have our emotional work that we need to do. But that work is not the same for all of us.
This emotional work means unlearning the language of whiteness, a narrative that centers white people, particularly white men, no matter the deadly cost and consequence to all women and to global Black and Brown people. That's why a new racial healing language is crucial.
Emotional Justice grapples with how a legacy of untreated trauma from oppressive systems has created and sustained dual deadly fictions: white superiority and Black inferiority that shape-and wound-all of us. These systems must be dismantled to build a future that serves justice to everyone, not just some of us. We are the dismantlers we have been waiting for, and emotional justice is the game changer for a just future that benefits all of us.
NASA, Pixar Animation Studios, and BMW all use the Process Communication Model as a way of training leaders to connect effortlessly with anyone. This book simplifies the complex model to make it easy for anyone to use.
Today, more than ever, leaders need a new style of leadership. They are realizing that true transformation happens through meaningful relationships, and discovering that the key to sustainable connections that create possibility and potential is through communication.
In Seeing People Through, we take a deep dive into The Process Communication Model® (PCM), a behavioral communication model that teaches people how to assess, connect, motivate, and resolve conflict by understanding the personality types that make up a person's whole self, which is the key to leveraging personality diversity.
PCM is more than a lens for understanding how people see things differently; it's a deep journey into self-awareness and self-transformation. In this book, new emerging leaders, senior leaders, and seasoned consultants alike will develop a fresh and relevant framework on leadership that is consistent with emerging trends, and they will learn how individual and collective concerns can be reconciled in leadership.
NASA, Pixar Animation Studios, and BMW are just some of the companies who have all used PCM as a way to build better relationships through authenticity, trust, agility, and positive influence-and now you can, too!
Today, more than ever, leaders need a new style of leadership. They are realizing that true transformation happens through meaningful relationships, and discovering that the key to sustainable connections that create possibility and potential is through communication.
In Seeing People Through, we take a deep dive into The Process Communication Model® (PCM), a behavioral communication model that teaches people how to assess, connect, motivate, and resolve conflict by understanding the personality types that make up a person's whole self, which is the key to leveraging personality diversity.
PCM is more than a lens for understanding how people see things differently; it's a deep journey into self-awareness and self-transformation. In this book, new emerging leaders, senior leaders, and seasoned consultants alike will develop a fresh and relevant framework on leadership that is consistent with emerging trends, and they will learn how individual and collective concerns can be reconciled in leadership.
NASA, Pixar Animation Studios, and BMW are just some of the companies who have all used PCM as a way to build better relationships through authenticity, trust, agility, and positive influence-and now you can, too!
Philanthropic NGOs, foundations, and corporations face endlessly competing needs when deciding to invest or donate for maximum social impact. This book fills an enormous gap by providing a system to measure, operationalize, and improve any organization's impact investments.