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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In this troubling analysis of recent trends in the workplace, Vanderbilt professor of management and sociology Bruce Barry shows how Americans' increasing willingness to sacrifice basic freedoms while on the job undermines both our productivity as workers and our individual and collective ability to cultivate and participate in a free society.
For every company like Zappos that has achieved the Utopia of an egalitarian business model, there are thousands that remain stuck on the corporate ladder. Self-management consultant Samantha Slade shares that the real secret to flattening a hierarchical organization is seemingly obvious: don't do it all at once.
Media is showing us that self-managing organizations, like Zappos, unleash human potential in ways we couldn't have imagined, but so often when we try to transition to a self managed organization, we get stuck. The task seems overwhelming and many organizations just give up. We find ourselves caught between the inspirational stories of these self-organizing companies and the deeply entrenched habits. It can be overwhelming to have such a sense of possibility and yet feel ill equipped in practical methods and strategy. Samantha Slade is the founder of Percolab, an international consulting firm in Quebec that has been helping organizations successfully transition to self-management for over a decade. Too many organizations try to change everything at the same time and fail, concluding that the method is out of their reach. With Seven concrete practices, Slade offers a new way: transition on thing in your organization at a time. The benefits of a self- managed organization- increased engagement, retention, and productivity- can be achieved even by transitioning only one or two areas of your organization. Even if you never become Zappos, your organization will see increased energy and thriving.
Media is showing us that self-managing organizations, like Zappos, unleash human potential in ways we couldn't have imagined, but so often when we try to transition to a self managed organization, we get stuck. The task seems overwhelming and many organizations just give up. We find ourselves caught between the inspirational stories of these self-organizing companies and the deeply entrenched habits. It can be overwhelming to have such a sense of possibility and yet feel ill equipped in practical methods and strategy. Samantha Slade is the founder of Percolab, an international consulting firm in Quebec that has been helping organizations successfully transition to self-management for over a decade. Too many organizations try to change everything at the same time and fail, concluding that the method is out of their reach. With Seven concrete practices, Slade offers a new way: transition on thing in your organization at a time. The benefits of a self- managed organization- increased engagement, retention, and productivity- can be achieved even by transitioning only one or two areas of your organization. Even if you never become Zappos, your organization will see increased energy and thriving.
Management giant Henry Mintzberg turns his attention to health care, arguing that many of the massive issues facing health care stem from the fact that it is not a cohesive system. To heal itself, health care must become less distant and opaque and more engaging and collaborative.
Mintzberg begins in part 1 by confronting myths about health care, including the following:
• We have a system of health care.
• Health-care institutions can be fixed with more heroic leadership.
• The health-care system can be fixed by more administrative engineering.
• The health-care system can be fixed by more categorizing and commodifying to facilitate more calculating.
• The health-care system can be fixed with increased competition.
• Health-care organizations can be fixed by running them more like businesses.
Part 2 examines how health care is organized, in relation to what we know about differentiation, separation, and integration in organizations and systems in general. Mintzberg shows that in health care, the inclination has been to do an awful lot more differentiating than integrating. This has resulted in all sorts of excessive separations: curtains across the specialties, sheets over the patients, and walls and floors between the administrators. The favored form of organizing health care-the professional organization-is the source of its great strength as well as its debilitating weakness.
Part 3 then offers guidelines to reframe the core components of health care: strategy, organization, scale, ownership, management, and the “system” itself. For example, managing has to be about care more than cure, and organizing has to favor communityship over leadership, collaboration over competition.
Mintzberg begins in part 1 by confronting myths about health care, including the following:
• We have a system of health care.
• Health-care institutions can be fixed with more heroic leadership.
• The health-care system can be fixed by more administrative engineering.
• The health-care system can be fixed by more categorizing and commodifying to facilitate more calculating.
• The health-care system can be fixed with increased competition.
• Health-care organizations can be fixed by running them more like businesses.
Part 2 examines how health care is organized, in relation to what we know about differentiation, separation, and integration in organizations and systems in general. Mintzberg shows that in health care, the inclination has been to do an awful lot more differentiating than integrating. This has resulted in all sorts of excessive separations: curtains across the specialties, sheets over the patients, and walls and floors between the administrators. The favored form of organizing health care-the professional organization-is the source of its great strength as well as its debilitating weakness.
Part 3 then offers guidelines to reframe the core components of health care: strategy, organization, scale, ownership, management, and the “system” itself. For example, managing has to be about care more than cure, and organizing has to favor communityship over leadership, collaboration over competition.
How do project managers achieve spectacular results when they have no direct authority over their team members? Here's a foolproof process for engaging your team: one that begins with engaging yourself.
Project managers are frequently given the task of driving results without having any authority to back up their directives. This book helps project managers succeed when the deck is stacked against them. The secret to running spectacular projects is engaging and inspiring every person who's part of your project, so they feel responsible for the outcome. And that engagement starts with you-- you have to feel engaged and inspired yourself before you can inspire others. Ruth Pearce, "The Project Motivator" draws on principles from positive psychology, workplace engagement, and character strengths to come up with a foolproof methodology you can apply in your workplace today.
Project managers are frequently given the task of driving results without having any authority to back up their directives. This book helps project managers succeed when the deck is stacked against them. The secret to running spectacular projects is engaging and inspiring every person who's part of your project, so they feel responsible for the outcome. And that engagement starts with you-- you have to feel engaged and inspired yourself before you can inspire others. Ruth Pearce, "The Project Motivator" draws on principles from positive psychology, workplace engagement, and character strengths to come up with a foolproof methodology you can apply in your workplace today.
In this new paperback reissue of bestselling and award-winning book (hardcover edition sold 25,000 copies sold; Wall Street Journal Bestseller; Silver Medal Winner Axiom Business Book Awards for Best Business Book Fable), Noah Blumenthal shows workers and managers how abandoning our victim stories and embracing our heroic potential can both increase employee engagement and productivity and accelerate professional success.
Nadine Thompson, president and CEO of Warm Spirit, authors Values Sell, a ready-to-use guide for creative sales and distribution strategies. Her booming network marketing company currently employs 20,000 consultants nationwide and her business model has received national media attention from: The Wall Street Journal, O, Ebony, Essence, and others.
In this practical, provocative and inspiring guide, Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen of public relations powerhouse Fenton Communications offer social change organizations key recommendations for leveraging the untapped power of women for positive change through fundraising, advocacy and the ballot box.
Activist,"Green for All" organizer, and blogger Ibrahim Abdul-Matin illustrates the synergies between Islam and environmentalism, and offers Muslim Americans practical steps for going green that help them align their personal and community practices with their aspirations for a better world.
This classic pioneering book provides keen insight into workplace diversity. With new tips, tools, and strategies for peacocks and penguins alike, your organization will flourish and take flight!
This beloved bestseller—over 350,00 copies sold—has helped caregivers worldwide keep themselves emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically healthy in the face of the sometimes overwhelming traumas they confront every day.
A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself.
In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points.
“We can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve,” Lipsky writes. “Taking care of ourselves while taking care of others allows us to contribute to our societies with such impact that we will leave a legacy informed by our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of burdened by our struggles and despair.”
A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself.
In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points.
“We can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve,” Lipsky writes. “Taking care of ourselves while taking care of others allows us to contribute to our societies with such impact that we will leave a legacy informed by our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of burdened by our struggles and despair.”
Paul Polak, whose organization International Development Enterprises (IDE) has directly helped over 17 million people get out of poverty permanently, exposes the top 3 things we are doing wrong in our efforts to end the root causes of poverty. He then, through the story of a Nepali farmer, goes on to detail solutions for what actually works in ending poverty
Bias is real and we all have it, but there is good news: even though bias is part of the human condition, we are not powerless against it. The secret is building authentic, deep relationships across differences.
Everybody's biased. We all harbor unconscious assumptions that get in the way of our good intentions and keep us from working harmoniously and effectively with other people. In our increasingly diverse society this can be a real stumbling block.
Tiffany Jana and Matthew Freeman-consultants who also happen to be a biracial couple-argue that ultimately the only way to really overcome bias is to focus our energy on building relationships. We need to extend our circle of trust to include people who are different from us in many ways – race, religion, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, socioeconomic class, and ability. These differences can enrich our lives and expand our perspectives.
Overcoming Bias doesn't advocate setting some kind of friend quota, merely that we seek out experiences that challenge our presuppositions and expose us to people, cultures, and ideas outside of our usual comfort zone. But this also requires some work on ourselves. Through vivid stories, soul-searching reflection, and fun (yes, fun!) exercises and activities Jana and Freeman help us become aware of our own biases, stereotypes, and unacknowledged privileges. This book will provide you with everything you need to understand bias, talk about it with increased fluency, and overcome it so you can build stronger relationships.
Everybody's biased. We all harbor unconscious assumptions that get in the way of our good intentions and keep us from working harmoniously and effectively with other people. In our increasingly diverse society this can be a real stumbling block.
Tiffany Jana and Matthew Freeman-consultants who also happen to be a biracial couple-argue that ultimately the only way to really overcome bias is to focus our energy on building relationships. We need to extend our circle of trust to include people who are different from us in many ways – race, religion, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, socioeconomic class, and ability. These differences can enrich our lives and expand our perspectives.
Overcoming Bias doesn't advocate setting some kind of friend quota, merely that we seek out experiences that challenge our presuppositions and expose us to people, cultures, and ideas outside of our usual comfort zone. But this also requires some work on ourselves. Through vivid stories, soul-searching reflection, and fun (yes, fun!) exercises and activities Jana and Freeman help us become aware of our own biases, stereotypes, and unacknowledged privileges. This book will provide you with everything you need to understand bias, talk about it with increased fluency, and overcome it so you can build stronger relationships.
“Dr. Alexander . . . brings to this book an acute understanding of both why our cherished form of government-and those who serve us in the civil service-appears to be under such unrelenting attack and how we, as citizens, should and must respond.”
-from the foreword by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
When those we elect descend into partisan tribalism, criminal malfeasance, and emulation of foreign autocracies and oligarchies, Cedric Alexander says it is the unelected apolitical "fourth branch" of government-our nation's public servants, civil servants, and first responders-who must save the nation.
Alexander, a former deputy mayor, police chief, and CNN commentator, argues that these people do not constitute a nefarious "deep state" pursuing a hidden agenda. They are the analysts, scientists, lawyers, accountants, educators, consultants, enforcers of regulations, and first responders of every kind who keep the country running and its people safe. Alexander recounts the evolution of the professional civil service as an antidote to widespread cronyism, offers examples of how it has served as a bulwark against powerful corrupting influences, and describes the role it can play in bringing our badly divided society together. To the general public, many of these 22 million people remain invisible and their contributions hidden. But now is the time to make the invisible visible.
-from the foreword by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
When those we elect descend into partisan tribalism, criminal malfeasance, and emulation of foreign autocracies and oligarchies, Cedric Alexander says it is the unelected apolitical "fourth branch" of government-our nation's public servants, civil servants, and first responders-who must save the nation.
Alexander, a former deputy mayor, police chief, and CNN commentator, argues that these people do not constitute a nefarious "deep state" pursuing a hidden agenda. They are the analysts, scientists, lawyers, accountants, educators, consultants, enforcers of regulations, and first responders of every kind who keep the country running and its people safe. Alexander recounts the evolution of the professional civil service as an antidote to widespread cronyism, offers examples of how it has served as a bulwark against powerful corrupting influences, and describes the role it can play in bringing our badly divided society together. To the general public, many of these 22 million people remain invisible and their contributions hidden. But now is the time to make the invisible visible.
This is the first comprehensive book on all aspects of managing Hispanic employees - who already represent nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce and are projected to represent more than half by 2050 - and it combines practical advice with research knowledge on the unique cultural issues in hiring, motivating, training, supervising, developing, retaining, and other aspects of managing Hispanic workers.