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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A modern, feminist take on the classic choose-your-own-journey book, inspiring readers to embrace the fact that there is no singular right path-just your own!
So many women enter their adult lives believing that they should know where they are going and how to get there. This can make life decisions feel intimidating and overwhelming. While some choices that lie ahead are fairly predictable, such as those surrounding career, partnership, and motherhood, the effects of these choices can lead to more complicated and unexpected turns that are seldom discussed.
Rather than suggesting a rule book, Rebekah Bastian, vice president at Zillow and recognized thought leader, inspires you to Blaze Your Own Trail. “I have the benefit of being a living example of crooked paths, magnificent screw-ups, and shocking successes,” she writes. Through storylines and supportive data that explore workplace sexism, career changes, marriage, child-rearing, existential crises, and everything in between, you will learn to embrace and feel less alone in your own nonlinear journey. Even better, you can turn back decisions and make different ones. Blaze Your Own Trail includes nineteen possible outcomes and many routes to get there. You will find that you have the strength to make it through any of them.
So many women enter their adult lives believing that they should know where they are going and how to get there. This can make life decisions feel intimidating and overwhelming. While some choices that lie ahead are fairly predictable, such as those surrounding career, partnership, and motherhood, the effects of these choices can lead to more complicated and unexpected turns that are seldom discussed.
Rather than suggesting a rule book, Rebekah Bastian, vice president at Zillow and recognized thought leader, inspires you to Blaze Your Own Trail. “I have the benefit of being a living example of crooked paths, magnificent screw-ups, and shocking successes,” she writes. Through storylines and supportive data that explore workplace sexism, career changes, marriage, child-rearing, existential crises, and everything in between, you will learn to embrace and feel less alone in your own nonlinear journey. Even better, you can turn back decisions and make different ones. Blaze Your Own Trail includes nineteen possible outcomes and many routes to get there. You will find that you have the strength to make it through any of them.
Firms that restructure through downsizing are not more profitable than those that don't, and often end up hurting themselves in the long run. Responsible Restructuring draws on the results of an eighteen-year study of S&P 500 firms to prove that it makes good business sense to restructure responsibly-to avoid downsizing and instead regard employees as assets to be developed rather than costs to be cut.
Wayne Cascio explodes thirteen common myths about downsizing, detailing its negative impact on profitability, productivity, quality, and on the morale, commitment, and even health of survivors. He uses real-life examples to illustrate successful approaches to responsible restructuring used by companies such as Charles Schwab, Compaq, Cisco, Motorola, Reflexite, and Southwest Airlines. And he offers specific, step-by-step advice on what to do-and what not to do-when developing and implementing a restructuring strategy that, unlike layoffs, leaves the organization stronger and better able to face the challenges ahead.
Wayne Cascio explodes thirteen common myths about downsizing, detailing its negative impact on profitability, productivity, quality, and on the morale, commitment, and even health of survivors. He uses real-life examples to illustrate successful approaches to responsible restructuring used by companies such as Charles Schwab, Compaq, Cisco, Motorola, Reflexite, and Southwest Airlines. And he offers specific, step-by-step advice on what to do-and what not to do-when developing and implementing a restructuring strategy that, unlike layoffs, leaves the organization stronger and better able to face the challenges ahead.
Management icon Henry Mintzberg dismantles twenty dangerous business myths in this essential guide for thoughtful leaders.
Henry Mintzberg, legendary management thinker and recipient of the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent decades challenging conventional wisdom about how organizations work. In this powerful distillation of his life's work, Mintzberg tackles the most persistent and damaging myths in business—from “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it” to the blind worship of “strategic planning.”
With characteristic wit and clarity, Mintzberg offers refreshing alternatives that will transform how you think about leadership, structure, and organizational effectiveness. He replaces tired maxims like “managing is controlling” with more nuanced approaches that embrace “controlled disorder” and suggests that “ordinary creativity” often matters more than exceptional genius.
Drawing from his extensive body of work across sixty years, Mintzberg provides a masterclass in critical thinking for anyone who leads teams or organizations. His irreverent style makes complex ideas accessible without sacrificing depth, making this book as intellectually stimulating as it is practically valuable.
Whether you're a seasoned executive, an aspiring manager, or a student of organizational behavior, this concise volume will challenge your assumptions and provide a clear-eyed framework for more effective, humane management.
Henry Mintzberg, legendary management thinker and recipient of the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent decades challenging conventional wisdom about how organizations work. In this powerful distillation of his life's work, Mintzberg tackles the most persistent and damaging myths in business—from “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it” to the blind worship of “strategic planning.”
With characteristic wit and clarity, Mintzberg offers refreshing alternatives that will transform how you think about leadership, structure, and organizational effectiveness. He replaces tired maxims like “managing is controlling” with more nuanced approaches that embrace “controlled disorder” and suggests that “ordinary creativity” often matters more than exceptional genius.
Drawing from his extensive body of work across sixty years, Mintzberg provides a masterclass in critical thinking for anyone who leads teams or organizations. His irreverent style makes complex ideas accessible without sacrificing depth, making this book as intellectually stimulating as it is practically valuable.
Whether you're a seasoned executive, an aspiring manager, or a student of organizational behavior, this concise volume will challenge your assumptions and provide a clear-eyed framework for more effective, humane management.
Former director of the Young Democrats of America, the California Democratic Party and HUD Special Counsel to the Clinton-Gore administration, Christine Pelosi updates her classic leadership guide for leaders and campaign managers to reflect the changes in the political and social climate that have taken place since the first edition was published in 2007.
This is not a book about starting your own business. Then again, it is. By now there is ample evidence that an "employed" attitude-believing that you work for an employer and acting as though by doing your work your job will be secure-is defunct. An employed attitude is the antithesis of what you need now to endure and prosper. In this revised edition of his prescient bestseller, Cliff Hakim shows how to replace your employed attitude with a self-employed attitude.
"We are all self-employed" is an empowering belief that you can steer your own direction and influence the quality of your life. You're the boss--a self-leader-- whether you work inside or outside of an organization. You are the decision-maker and ultimately, the onus is on you to imagine, plan, explore, and create the worklife that you want.
In We Are All Self-Employed Hakim presents and clarifies the minimum critical requirements needed to develop, deepen, and sustain a self-employed attitude. He takes you on a journey of assimilating and constructing this new, more empowered attitude toward work and life. Each chapter features checklists and exercises to deepen your understanding of what a self-employed attitude is and how you can cultivate and maintain it, as well as examples of the self-employed attitude in action. The book's lessons are summarized in an inspiring and energizing Worklife Creed for this exciting and challenging new world of work. We Are All Self-Employed will call out and nourish the self-leader in you so that you can create a successful and satisfying life.
"We are all self-employed" is an empowering belief that you can steer your own direction and influence the quality of your life. You're the boss--a self-leader-- whether you work inside or outside of an organization. You are the decision-maker and ultimately, the onus is on you to imagine, plan, explore, and create the worklife that you want.
In We Are All Self-Employed Hakim presents and clarifies the minimum critical requirements needed to develop, deepen, and sustain a self-employed attitude. He takes you on a journey of assimilating and constructing this new, more empowered attitude toward work and life. Each chapter features checklists and exercises to deepen your understanding of what a self-employed attitude is and how you can cultivate and maintain it, as well as examples of the self-employed attitude in action. The book's lessons are summarized in an inspiring and energizing Worklife Creed for this exciting and challenging new world of work. We Are All Self-Employed will call out and nourish the self-leader in you so that you can create a successful and satisfying life.
Provides practical solutions to the business problem of distributing training to multiple locations
Introduces a new and practical way to use assessment to create a sustainable training and development function
Shows how those involved with training and development can make bottom line contributions to the company
Provides a model for calculating return on investment (ROI) for technology based programs
In this era of rapid globalization, human resource development professionals in every type of organization face the problem of managing training and development across many different, often widely dispersed, sites. Training Across Multiple Locations offers a comprehensive, proven model for designing, building and assessing every aspect of a multiple location training and development (T&D) system. Stephen Krempl and R. Wayne Pace detail how to integrate training from multiple locations into a comprehensive organizational strategy, and how corporate training can align those multiple locations with a single corporate vision.
Training Across Multiple Locations draws from numerous real-life examples to show how distance learning technology-including intra-nets, web-based training, and computer-based training-is being used to manage multi-point training at companies like Motorola, Ford, Boeing, Kinko's, Hewlett-Packard, and others. With technology, the authors reveal, training organizations are able to extend their reach and distribute training over a far wider audience in ways that may make current approaches to training less relevant and even obsolete. And perhaps most importantly, they provide a model for calculating return on investment (ROI) for these technology-based programs.
Krempl and Pace present a detailed review process for evaluating the effectiveness of multiple location training and development systems and provide specific advice on how to conduct the review and how to share data to enhance unit effectiveness. They also include a unique questionnaire that helps teams assess how well they are carrying out their T&D responsibilities and how well they are integrating their activities into the corporate business plan.
Training and development functions survive by maintaining relationships with critical decision-makers at all levels in the organization. This process is often described in terms of politics and power-but Training Across Multiple Locations treats the issue simply in terms of how to get the job done. The unique process described in this book will encourage better preparation and more informed discussions and decisions, allowing managers to better anticipate problems and stay on top of key issues.
Introduces a new and practical way to use assessment to create a sustainable training and development function
Shows how those involved with training and development can make bottom line contributions to the company
Provides a model for calculating return on investment (ROI) for technology based programs
In this era of rapid globalization, human resource development professionals in every type of organization face the problem of managing training and development across many different, often widely dispersed, sites. Training Across Multiple Locations offers a comprehensive, proven model for designing, building and assessing every aspect of a multiple location training and development (T&D) system. Stephen Krempl and R. Wayne Pace detail how to integrate training from multiple locations into a comprehensive organizational strategy, and how corporate training can align those multiple locations with a single corporate vision.
Training Across Multiple Locations draws from numerous real-life examples to show how distance learning technology-including intra-nets, web-based training, and computer-based training-is being used to manage multi-point training at companies like Motorola, Ford, Boeing, Kinko's, Hewlett-Packard, and others. With technology, the authors reveal, training organizations are able to extend their reach and distribute training over a far wider audience in ways that may make current approaches to training less relevant and even obsolete. And perhaps most importantly, they provide a model for calculating return on investment (ROI) for these technology-based programs.
Krempl and Pace present a detailed review process for evaluating the effectiveness of multiple location training and development systems and provide specific advice on how to conduct the review and how to share data to enhance unit effectiveness. They also include a unique questionnaire that helps teams assess how well they are carrying out their T&D responsibilities and how well they are integrating their activities into the corporate business plan.
Training and development functions survive by maintaining relationships with critical decision-makers at all levels in the organization. This process is often described in terms of politics and power-but Training Across Multiple Locations treats the issue simply in terms of how to get the job done. The unique process described in this book will encourage better preparation and more informed discussions and decisions, allowing managers to better anticipate problems and stay on top of key issues.
Most businesses spend far too much of their time and energy struggling to get new customers or hang on to existing ones-even customers who are ultimately more trouble than they're worth. Attracting Perfect Customers invites readers to move beyond the notions that "business is war" and winning market share means "beating" the other guy. The authors outline a simple strategic process for making businesses so highly attractive that perfect customers and clients are naturally drawn right to them.
Sound too good to be true? Hall and Brogniez have successfully shown clients how to do it for years, and now they share their secrets. They prove that it is no longer productive or profitable to conduct business using the war-like marketing techniques of targeting customers and outmaneuvering the competition. In fact, these techniques seem antiquated and labor-intensive when compared to the Strategic Attraction Planning process, which requires just five minutes each day and enables any business to easily attract customers that are a perfect fit for their organization-the kind of customers it is a pleasure to serve.
Attracting Perfect Customers takes you step by step through the entire strategic attraction process. The authors reveal the six success standards of strategic synchronicity and share simple, fun, and easy-to-follow exercises that can be applied to any organization. They walk you through the process of creating your own personalized Strategic Attraction Plan and provide 21 supportive tips for making any company more attractive to its perfect customers.
Attracting Perfect Customerswill take you to a place where there is an abundance of perfect customers and clients with whom you can build strong, satisfying, profitable, and lasting relationships.
Sound too good to be true? Hall and Brogniez have successfully shown clients how to do it for years, and now they share their secrets. They prove that it is no longer productive or profitable to conduct business using the war-like marketing techniques of targeting customers and outmaneuvering the competition. In fact, these techniques seem antiquated and labor-intensive when compared to the Strategic Attraction Planning process, which requires just five minutes each day and enables any business to easily attract customers that are a perfect fit for their organization-the kind of customers it is a pleasure to serve.
Attracting Perfect Customers takes you step by step through the entire strategic attraction process. The authors reveal the six success standards of strategic synchronicity and share simple, fun, and easy-to-follow exercises that can be applied to any organization. They walk you through the process of creating your own personalized Strategic Attraction Plan and provide 21 supportive tips for making any company more attractive to its perfect customers.
Attracting Perfect Customerswill take you to a place where there is an abundance of perfect customers and clients with whom you can build strong, satisfying, profitable, and lasting relationships.
If you influence change in the lives of those around you, then you are engaged in an act of leadership. Your Leadership Legacy is the sum total of the difference you make in people's lives, directly and indirectly, formally and informally. The challenge is how to live in a way that creates a legacy that will make a positive difference in the lives of those around you. Your Leadership Legacy shows you how to leave a meaningful legacy.
Seven practical habits for people ready to stop observing broken systems and start changing them, whether at the neighborhood level or the global stage.
Adam Kahane, bestselling author of Collaborating with the Enemy and a veteran facilitator who has worked with presidents, executives, and community organizers across dozens of countries, distills decades of real-world experience into a clear, actionable framework for everyday changemakers.
This book is built for people working on problems that feel too big or too entrenched to move, including climate advocates, healthcare reformers, nonprofit leaders, local activists, and organizational managers who want their work to have lasting impact.
Inside, you will find
Rather than offering inspiration without instruction, Kahane gives readers concrete behaviors they can practice in their existing roles and communities.
If you work within systems that feel resistant to change, this is a grounded, experience-backed guide to making progress anyway.
Adam Kahane, bestselling author of Collaborating with the Enemy and a veteran facilitator who has worked with presidents, executives, and community organizers across dozens of countries, distills decades of real-world experience into a clear, actionable framework for everyday changemakers.
This book is built for people working on problems that feel too big or too entrenched to move, including climate advocates, healthcare reformers, nonprofit leaders, local activists, and organizational managers who want their work to have lasting impact.
Inside, you will find
- the 7 habits that help ordinary people become effective agents of systemic change,
- strategies for collaborating across deep political and organizational divides,
- methods for identifying leverage points that others overlook,
- real examples from peacebuilding and community transformation, and
- guidance for sustaining momentum through setbacks.
Rather than offering inspiration without instruction, Kahane gives readers concrete behaviors they can practice in their existing roles and communities.
If you work within systems that feel resistant to change, this is a grounded, experience-backed guide to making progress anyway.
Richard Leider and David Shapiro helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people discover the true purpose of their lives with their classic bestseller Repacking Your Bags. Now they focus their attention on the second half of life, showing readers how to claim their rightful place as new elders, men and women who, the authors write, "use the second half of life as an empty canvas, a blank page, a hunk of clay to be crafted on purpose."
Claiming Your Place at the Fire uses dozens of inspiring and surprising stories of new elders, as well as thought-provoking exercises like the Fireside Chats that conclude each chapter, to help readers address four key questions:
Who am I? How do I stoke the wisdom gained in the first half of my life to burn more brightly in the second half?
Where do I belong? What makes a place the right place for me in the second half?
What do I care about? Where do I want to use my gifts and talents in the second half? What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones?
What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones?
For the next 12 years, there will be 10,000 people a day in the U.S. alone turning 50. Never before have so many entered into the second half of life so vital, healthy, and free. And never before have so many had such a hunger for direction in how to live this stage of their lives in a purposeful way. Claiming Your Place at the Fire shows how to embrace the lessons that we learn as we age and share these lessons in a manner that is relevant and meaningful to ourselves and the people whose lives we touch.
Claiming Your Place at the Fire uses dozens of inspiring and surprising stories of new elders, as well as thought-provoking exercises like the Fireside Chats that conclude each chapter, to help readers address four key questions:
Who am I? How do I stoke the wisdom gained in the first half of my life to burn more brightly in the second half?
Where do I belong? What makes a place the right place for me in the second half?
What do I care about? Where do I want to use my gifts and talents in the second half? What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones?
What is my purpose? How do I leave a legacy that has real meaning for myself and my loved ones?
For the next 12 years, there will be 10,000 people a day in the U.S. alone turning 50. Never before have so many entered into the second half of life so vital, healthy, and free. And never before have so many had such a hunger for direction in how to live this stage of their lives in a purposeful way. Claiming Your Place at the Fire shows how to embrace the lessons that we learn as we age and share these lessons in a manner that is relevant and meaningful to ourselves and the people whose lives we touch.
Bestselling authors Chip Bell and John Patterson (more than 500,000 book copies sold collectively) describe the new rules for coping with demanding customers in a wired, want-it-now world.
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
New businesses need money, but entrepreneurs are sometimes anxious about raising capital from traditional sources like venture capitalists, fearing there'll be strings attached. Jenny Kassan's book explains how to raise “grassroots” capital from supporters and allies who believe in mission as much as in returns.
Too many entrepreneurs, particularly mission-driven ones, try to avoid raising capital, assuming that they can't offer the kind of returns they think investors demand. Or they're worried that investors will end up taking control of the business. But an underfinanced business is a nightmare for the entrepreneur and a major reason new businesses fail. Jenny Kassan shows how anyone can build capital without relying on traditional methods.
Based on over ten years working with small businesses, Kassan says the landscape of investment capital is far larger and more diverse than many would have you believe. Venture capitalists looking for a tenfold return on their investment are a tiny minority, and many investors are just as mission-driven as entrepreneurs. Kassan takes readers through a six-step process to create a customized capital-raising plan, one that inspires them, excites them, and is in complete agreement with their business, their values, and their lives. This book will help as many people as possible turn their big, bold, world-changing visions into reality.
Too many entrepreneurs, particularly mission-driven ones, try to avoid raising capital, assuming that they can't offer the kind of returns they think investors demand. Or they're worried that investors will end up taking control of the business. But an underfinanced business is a nightmare for the entrepreneur and a major reason new businesses fail. Jenny Kassan shows how anyone can build capital without relying on traditional methods.
Based on over ten years working with small businesses, Kassan says the landscape of investment capital is far larger and more diverse than many would have you believe. Venture capitalists looking for a tenfold return on their investment are a tiny minority, and many investors are just as mission-driven as entrepreneurs. Kassan takes readers through a six-step process to create a customized capital-raising plan, one that inspires them, excites them, and is in complete agreement with their business, their values, and their lives. This book will help as many people as possible turn their big, bold, world-changing visions into reality.
Never before have so many people felt the American Dream crashing down around them. The corporate framework-which values competition and the bottom line above all else-keeps many of us running after an elusive goal and impinges on our personal lives. Advertising-driven culture causes material desires to grow with no corresponding increase in personal time or energy to pursue them. These artificially amped-up needs cause a pressure-cooker lifestyle that threatens health and happiness.
Ellen Schwartz and Suzanne Stoddard show the links between our own everyday struggles and the global corporate economy, image-driven media, and the relentless pace which consumes us all-and they tell us what we can do to change things. Detailing 75 action steps for retaking control of our lives, they teach us how to find balance by simplifying, paring down on material possessions, and reevaluating corporate careers. Their provocative questions will shock, prod, and jump-start you into thinking about what matters most to you.
Ellen Schwartz and Suzanne Stoddard show the links between our own everyday struggles and the global corporate economy, image-driven media, and the relentless pace which consumes us all-and they tell us what we can do to change things. Detailing 75 action steps for retaking control of our lives, they teach us how to find balance by simplifying, paring down on material possessions, and reevaluating corporate careers. Their provocative questions will shock, prod, and jump-start you into thinking about what matters most to you.
The New Social Learning demonstrates how social media can transform the workplace by harnessing the brainpower and experiences of colleagues working across the globe as easily as if they were side by side. Together these emerging solutions create a new kind of value chain and new kind of knowledge building ecosystem, with people at the center. Co-authors Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner, widely respected leaders in the workplace revolution, have loaded this book with compelling stories from companies using social media to innovate, collaborate, and inform decisions in effective and innovative ways. The New Social Learning is the most authoritative guide available for leveraging these powerful new approaches to increase organizational IQ.
In a wonderfully readable and fun way, SEEING SYSTEMS (over 30,000 copies sold) presents a unique and innovative theory of power dynamics that provides the reader with a new way of looking at, understanding, surviving, and prospering in the many systems of which we are part.
For the past 20 years, corporations have been receiving huge tax breaks and subsidies in the name of "jobs, jobs, jobs." But, as Greg LeRoy demonstrates in this important new book, it's become a costly scam.
Playing states and communities off against each other in a bidding war for jobs, corporations reduce their taxes to next-to-nothing and win subsidy packages that routinely exceed $100,000 per job. But the subsidies come with few strings attached. So companies feel free to provide fewer jobs, or none at all, or even outsource and lay people off. They are also free to pay poverty wages without health care or other benefits.
All too often, communities lose twice. They lose jobs--or gain jobs so low-paying they do nothing to help the community--and lose revenue due to the huge corporate tax breaks. That means fewer resources for maintaining schools, public services, and infrastructure. In the end, the local governments that were hoping for economic revitalization are actually worse off. They're forced to raise taxes on struggling small businesses and working families, or reduce services, or both.
Greg LeRoy uses up-to-the-minute examples, naming names--including Wal-Mart, Raytheon, Fidelity, Bank of America, Dell, and Boeing--to reveal how the process works. He shows how carefully corporations orchestrate the bidding wars between states and communities. He exposes shadowy "site location consultants" who play both sides against the middle, and he dissects government and corporate mumbo-jumbo with plain talk. The book concludes by offering common-sense reforms that will give taxpayers powerful new tools to deter future abuses and redirect taxpayer investments in ways that will really pay off.
Playing states and communities off against each other in a bidding war for jobs, corporations reduce their taxes to next-to-nothing and win subsidy packages that routinely exceed $100,000 per job. But the subsidies come with few strings attached. So companies feel free to provide fewer jobs, or none at all, or even outsource and lay people off. They are also free to pay poverty wages without health care or other benefits.
All too often, communities lose twice. They lose jobs--or gain jobs so low-paying they do nothing to help the community--and lose revenue due to the huge corporate tax breaks. That means fewer resources for maintaining schools, public services, and infrastructure. In the end, the local governments that were hoping for economic revitalization are actually worse off. They're forced to raise taxes on struggling small businesses and working families, or reduce services, or both.
Greg LeRoy uses up-to-the-minute examples, naming names--including Wal-Mart, Raytheon, Fidelity, Bank of America, Dell, and Boeing--to reveal how the process works. He shows how carefully corporations orchestrate the bidding wars between states and communities. He exposes shadowy "site location consultants" who play both sides against the middle, and he dissects government and corporate mumbo-jumbo with plain talk. The book concludes by offering common-sense reforms that will give taxpayers powerful new tools to deter future abuses and redirect taxpayer investments in ways that will really pay off.
Two widely respected leaders of the sustainability movement team up to provide a hands-on practical guide for small and medium-sized businesses looking to "green" their business practices.