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A practical leadership framework for the era beyond VUCA, built to help organizations build resilience when systems are brittle, anxiety is constant, and complexity defies explanation.
The BANI framework, developed by futurist Jamais Cascio and expanded here with leadership expert Bob Johansen and United Way Worldwide CEO Angela F. Williams, gives leaders a shared language for conditions that traditional strategic tools were never designed to handle. Where VUCA described volatility and uncertainty, BANI goes further, naming the deeper texture of today's disruption.
The book moves in two directions, first diagnosing each BANI condition with real-world examples, then offering a counterpart for each one:
Designed for executives, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and teams navigating sustained disruption, the book closes with 7 leadership strategies grounded in future scenarios and includes a discussion guide for group use.
If your organization is operating in conditions that no longer respond to standard playbooks, this is a structured starting point.
The BANI framework, developed by futurist Jamais Cascio and expanded here with leadership expert Bob Johansen and United Way Worldwide CEO Angela F. Williams, gives leaders a shared language for conditions that traditional strategic tools were never designed to handle. Where VUCA described volatility and uncertainty, BANI goes further, naming the deeper texture of today's disruption.
The book moves in two directions, first diagnosing each BANI condition with real-world examples, then offering a counterpart for each one:
- Brittle systems → build Bendable resilience
- Anxious environments → lead with Attentive empathy
- Nonlinear causality → develop Neuroflexible, improvisational thinking
- Incomprehensible complexity → respond with Interconnected, full-spectrum perspectives
Designed for executives, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and teams navigating sustained disruption, the book closes with 7 leadership strategies grounded in future scenarios and includes a discussion guide for group use.
If your organization is operating in conditions that no longer respond to standard playbooks, this is a structured starting point.
This bestselling conflict resolution book has helped thousands of people effectively collaborate across deep divides. Now it’s been updated with 50 percent new material for an increasingly polarized world.
“Adam Kahane worked with us on the future of our country. The four scenarios we built have come to life one after another, and today we are living the best one....Kahane explains how scenario planning can transform the future. In Colombia we can attest that such transformation is really possible.” —Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
In today’s fractured world, collaboration is increasingly difficult yet more crucial than ever. Often, to get something done that really matters, we need to work with people we don’t agree with, like, or trust. Drawing from thirty-plus years of experience working with leaders in over fifty countries, Adam Kahane shows why conventional collaboration—requiring harmony and agreement—is obsolete. Instead, he provides a groundbreaking approach that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation.
Kahane introduces three key stretches to navigate difficult collaborations:
“Adam Kahane worked with us on the future of our country. The four scenarios we built have come to life one after another, and today we are living the best one....Kahane explains how scenario planning can transform the future. In Colombia we can attest that such transformation is really possible.” —Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
In today’s fractured world, collaboration is increasingly difficult yet more crucial than ever. Often, to get something done that really matters, we need to work with people we don’t agree with, like, or trust. Drawing from thirty-plus years of experience working with leaders in over fifty countries, Adam Kahane shows why conventional collaboration—requiring harmony and agreement—is obsolete. Instead, he provides a groundbreaking approach that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation.
Kahane introduces three key stretches to navigate difficult collaborations:
- Stretch to embrace conflict and connection
- Stretch to experiment and learn
- Stretch to step into the game
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.
A practical leadership framework for the era beyond VUCA, built to help organizations build resilience when systems are brittle, anxiety is constant, and complexity defies explanation.
The BANI framework, developed by futurist Jamais Cascio and expanded here with leadership expert Bob Johansen and United Way Worldwide CEO Angela F. Williams, gives leaders a shared language for conditions that traditional strategic tools were never designed to handle. Where VUCA described volatility and uncertainty, BANI goes further, naming the deeper texture of today's disruption.
The book moves in two directions, first diagnosing each BANI condition with real-world examples, then offering a counterpart for each one:
Designed for executives, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and teams navigating sustained disruption, the book closes with 7 leadership strategies grounded in future scenarios and includes a discussion guide for group use.
If your organization is operating in conditions that no longer respond to standard playbooks, this is a structured starting point.
The BANI framework, developed by futurist Jamais Cascio and expanded here with leadership expert Bob Johansen and United Way Worldwide CEO Angela F. Williams, gives leaders a shared language for conditions that traditional strategic tools were never designed to handle. Where VUCA described volatility and uncertainty, BANI goes further, naming the deeper texture of today's disruption.
The book moves in two directions, first diagnosing each BANI condition with real-world examples, then offering a counterpart for each one:
- Brittle systems → build Bendable resilience
- Anxious environments → lead with Attentive empathy
- Nonlinear causality → develop Neuroflexible, improvisational thinking
- Incomprehensible complexity → respond with Interconnected, full-spectrum perspectives
Designed for executives, nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and teams navigating sustained disruption, the book closes with 7 leadership strategies grounded in future scenarios and includes a discussion guide for group use.
If your organization is operating in conditions that no longer respond to standard playbooks, this is a structured starting point.
Almost 3 million copies sold. The classic that changed how we think about leadership—now fully updated.
What if the problem isn't your team, your boss, or your organization?
What if it's you—and you can't see it?
Leadership and Self-Deception reveals an uncomfortable truth: We systematically blind ourselves to our real motivations, then wonder why our relationships and results suffer. We tell ourselves stories that cast us as the hero and others as the obstacle. And those stories keep us stuck.
Through a compelling narrative, this book exposes the hidden patterns of self-deception that sabotage even our best intentions—in the workplace, at home, and in every relationship that matters. More importantly, it shows you how to break free.
For over two decades, this book has transformed how leaders, teams, and organizations work together.
The fourth edition is completely rewritten with
The problem you can't see is the one you can't solve. This book will change what you see—and everything that follows.
What if the problem isn't your team, your boss, or your organization?
What if it's you—and you can't see it?
Leadership and Self-Deception reveals an uncomfortable truth: We systematically blind ourselves to our real motivations, then wonder why our relationships and results suffer. We tell ourselves stories that cast us as the hero and others as the obstacle. And those stories keep us stuck.
Through a compelling narrative, this book exposes the hidden patterns of self-deception that sabotage even our best intentions—in the workplace, at home, and in every relationship that matters. More importantly, it shows you how to break free.
For over two decades, this book has transformed how leaders, teams, and organizations work together.
The fourth edition is completely rewritten with
- fresh stories and a broader, more diverse cast of characters;
- new individual study and group discussion guides; and
- practical tools for applying these insights at the personal, team, and organization-wide level.
The problem you can't see is the one you can't solve. This book will change what you see—and everything that follows.
Don't risk the dire consequences of your work processes becoming obsolete-discover a powerful model for constant, ongoing, enterprise-wide process evolution and optimization.
If you have a great product, but don't have the operations in place to efficiently and effectively support it-production, manufacturing, sales, finance, human resources, etc.-you won't succeed. Product innovation is seen as flashier and so gets far more attention, but you can create an enduring competitive advantage by revolutionizing business operations.
The problem is most attempts to improve business operations are reactive, sporadic, and siloed. Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini's Dynamic Process Transformation model provides a living model for constant, ongoing process evolution and optimization.
The authors focus on maximizing three drivers of change. First, open market rules-each business process must be run as a separate business, instead of via monolithic mandates coming down from on high. Second, there must be unified accountability- outcomes must be clear and consistent across the company, instead of being siloed within departments. And third, there needs to be a dynamic operating engine, a methodology to convert the constantly changing business process goals into tactical day-to-day employee actions.
With numerous examples from leading companies, this book shows how to proactively keep business processes across the company from becoming obsolete and take advantage of a neglected key to success.
If you have a great product, but don't have the operations in place to efficiently and effectively support it-production, manufacturing, sales, finance, human resources, etc.-you won't succeed. Product innovation is seen as flashier and so gets far more attention, but you can create an enduring competitive advantage by revolutionizing business operations.
The problem is most attempts to improve business operations are reactive, sporadic, and siloed. Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini's Dynamic Process Transformation model provides a living model for constant, ongoing process evolution and optimization.
The authors focus on maximizing three drivers of change. First, open market rules-each business process must be run as a separate business, instead of via monolithic mandates coming down from on high. Second, there must be unified accountability- outcomes must be clear and consistent across the company, instead of being siloed within departments. And third, there needs to be a dynamic operating engine, a methodology to convert the constantly changing business process goals into tactical day-to-day employee actions.
With numerous examples from leading companies, this book shows how to proactively keep business processes across the company from becoming obsolete and take advantage of a neglected key to success.
Winner of the 2025 North American Book Award Bronze Medal for Leadership and Management, selected by Porchlight Book Company as one of the Best Business Books of 2025, and recipient of the 2026 Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Nonfiction. Winner of the 2026 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Winter Competition for Nonfiction Business/Finance.
“What’s wrong with nice?!” A simple and powerful question. It demands we interrogate the unspoken rules that shape our lives, often without our realizing it.
“It costs nothing to be nice!” What a travesty of logic. Niceness is not free—it comes at a steep price. It’s a velvet glove over an iron fist, stifling dissent, prioritizing comfort over progress, and conditioning us to accept the status quo. Niceness is one of the most insidious social constructs, keeping us compliant, silent, and complicit in inequity. If we don’t question it, we stay exactly where power wants us—agreeable, easy to manage, and stuck.
The Price of Nice is about breaking free. Amira Barger deconstructs our cultural obsession with niceness, exposes its hidden costs, and offers a practical framework for real change. With sharp analysis and personal insight, she helps readers disrupt the narratives that keep them stuck and reclaim their power.
Guided by four dimensions rooted in social psychology—think, feel, do, revisit—this book offers immediate, adaptable practices for creating change. Because breaking free isn’t only what you know—it’s what you do next.
If you're tired of “good enough,” this book will challenge you, change you, and call you to more.
“What’s wrong with nice?!” A simple and powerful question. It demands we interrogate the unspoken rules that shape our lives, often without our realizing it.
“It costs nothing to be nice!” What a travesty of logic. Niceness is not free—it comes at a steep price. It’s a velvet glove over an iron fist, stifling dissent, prioritizing comfort over progress, and conditioning us to accept the status quo. Niceness is one of the most insidious social constructs, keeping us compliant, silent, and complicit in inequity. If we don’t question it, we stay exactly where power wants us—agreeable, easy to manage, and stuck.
The Price of Nice is about breaking free. Amira Barger deconstructs our cultural obsession with niceness, exposes its hidden costs, and offers a practical framework for real change. With sharp analysis and personal insight, she helps readers disrupt the narratives that keep them stuck and reclaim their power.
Guided by four dimensions rooted in social psychology—think, feel, do, revisit—this book offers immediate, adaptable practices for creating change. Because breaking free isn’t only what you know—it’s what you do next.
If you're tired of “good enough,” this book will challenge you, change you, and call you to more.
This bestselling conflict resolution book has helped thousands of people effectively collaborate across deep divides. Now it’s been updated with 50 percent new material for an increasingly polarized world.
“Adam Kahane worked with us on the future of our country. The four scenarios we built have come to life one after another, and today we are living the best one....Kahane explains how scenario planning can transform the future. In Colombia we can attest that such transformation is really possible.” —Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
In today’s fractured world, collaboration is increasingly difficult yet more crucial than ever. Often, to get something done that really matters, we need to work with people we don’t agree with, like, or trust. Drawing from thirty-plus years of experience working with leaders in over fifty countries, Adam Kahane shows why conventional collaboration—requiring harmony and agreement—is obsolete. Instead, he provides a groundbreaking approach that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation.
Kahane introduces three key stretches to navigate difficult collaborations:
“Adam Kahane worked with us on the future of our country. The four scenarios we built have come to life one after another, and today we are living the best one....Kahane explains how scenario planning can transform the future. In Colombia we can attest that such transformation is really possible.” —Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
In today’s fractured world, collaboration is increasingly difficult yet more crucial than ever. Often, to get something done that really matters, we need to work with people we don’t agree with, like, or trust. Drawing from thirty-plus years of experience working with leaders in over fifty countries, Adam Kahane shows why conventional collaboration—requiring harmony and agreement—is obsolete. Instead, he provides a groundbreaking approach that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation.
Kahane introduces three key stretches to navigate difficult collaborations:
- Stretch to embrace conflict and connection
- Stretch to experiment and learn
- Stretch to step into the game
Winner of the 2025 North American Book Award Bronze Medal for Leadership and Management, selected by Porchlight Book Company as one of the Best Business Books of 2025, and recipient of the 2026 Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Nonfiction. Winner of the 2026 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Winter Competition for Nonfiction Business/Finance.
“What’s wrong with nice?!” A simple and powerful question. It demands we interrogate the unspoken rules that shape our lives, often without our realizing it.
“It costs nothing to be nice!” What a travesty of logic. Niceness is not free—it comes at a steep price. It’s a velvet glove over an iron fist, stifling dissent, prioritizing comfort over progress, and conditioning us to accept the status quo. Niceness is one of the most insidious social constructs, keeping us compliant, silent, and complicit in inequity. If we don’t question it, we stay exactly where power wants us—agreeable, easy to manage, and stuck.
The Price of Nice is about breaking free. Amira Barger deconstructs our cultural obsession with niceness, exposes its hidden costs, and offers a practical framework for real change. With sharp analysis and personal insight, she helps readers disrupt the narratives that keep them stuck and reclaim their power.
Guided by four dimensions rooted in social psychology—think, feel, do, revisit—this book offers immediate, adaptable practices for creating change. Because breaking free isn’t only what you know—it’s what you do next.
If you're tired of “good enough,” this book will challenge you, change you, and call you to more.
“What’s wrong with nice?!” A simple and powerful question. It demands we interrogate the unspoken rules that shape our lives, often without our realizing it.
“It costs nothing to be nice!” What a travesty of logic. Niceness is not free—it comes at a steep price. It’s a velvet glove over an iron fist, stifling dissent, prioritizing comfort over progress, and conditioning us to accept the status quo. Niceness is one of the most insidious social constructs, keeping us compliant, silent, and complicit in inequity. If we don’t question it, we stay exactly where power wants us—agreeable, easy to manage, and stuck.
The Price of Nice is about breaking free. Amira Barger deconstructs our cultural obsession with niceness, exposes its hidden costs, and offers a practical framework for real change. With sharp analysis and personal insight, she helps readers disrupt the narratives that keep them stuck and reclaim their power.
Guided by four dimensions rooted in social psychology—think, feel, do, revisit—this book offers immediate, adaptable practices for creating change. Because breaking free isn’t only what you know—it’s what you do next.
If you're tired of “good enough,” this book will challenge you, change you, and call you to more.
Don't risk the dire consequences of your work processes becoming obsolete-discover a powerful model for constant, ongoing, enterprise-wide process evolution and optimization.
If you have a great product, but don't have the operations in place to efficiently and effectively support it-production, manufacturing, sales, finance, human resources, etc.-you won't succeed. Product innovation is seen as flashier and so gets far more attention, but you can create an enduring competitive advantage by revolutionizing business operations.
The problem is most attempts to improve business operations are reactive, sporadic, and siloed. Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini's Dynamic Process Transformation model provides a living model for constant, ongoing process evolution and optimization.
The authors focus on maximizing three drivers of change. First, open market rules-each business process must be run as a separate business, instead of via monolithic mandates coming down from on high. Second, there must be unified accountability- outcomes must be clear and consistent across the company, instead of being siloed within departments. And third, there needs to be a dynamic operating engine, a methodology to convert the constantly changing business process goals into tactical day-to-day employee actions.
With numerous examples from leading companies, this book shows how to proactively keep business processes across the company from becoming obsolete and take advantage of a neglected key to success.
If you have a great product, but don't have the operations in place to efficiently and effectively support it-production, manufacturing, sales, finance, human resources, etc.-you won't succeed. Product innovation is seen as flashier and so gets far more attention, but you can create an enduring competitive advantage by revolutionizing business operations.
The problem is most attempts to improve business operations are reactive, sporadic, and siloed. Tony Saldanha and Filippo Passerini's Dynamic Process Transformation model provides a living model for constant, ongoing process evolution and optimization.
The authors focus on maximizing three drivers of change. First, open market rules-each business process must be run as a separate business, instead of via monolithic mandates coming down from on high. Second, there must be unified accountability- outcomes must be clear and consistent across the company, instead of being siloed within departments. And third, there needs to be a dynamic operating engine, a methodology to convert the constantly changing business process goals into tactical day-to-day employee actions.
With numerous examples from leading companies, this book shows how to proactively keep business processes across the company from becoming obsolete and take advantage of a neglected key to success.
Build real trust in the remote workplace by mastering proven strategies for leading employees who work from home, the corner coffee shop, or the downtown office.
The shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how we build and maintain trust in organizations. Drawing on extensive research and experience, trusted leadership expert David Horsager and communication scholar Dr. Peggy Kendall present essential strategies that create strong virtual and hybrid workplace relationships.
Readers will learn to do the following:
The shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how we build and maintain trust in organizations. Drawing on extensive research and experience, trusted leadership expert David Horsager and communication scholar Dr. Peggy Kendall present essential strategies that create strong virtual and hybrid workplace relationships.
Readers will learn to do the following:
- Amplify communication
- Clarify direction
- Build predictability
- Redefine accountability
- Create connections
- Leverage in-person experiences
This radical and rigorous rethinking of the traditional MBA program combines solid business principles with a commitment to environmental and social justice.
Many current and aspiring entrepreneurs are looking for a solid business education that also deeply aligns with their progressive values. Based on a course field-tested with over 500 students, this book fills that gap. It covers traditional topics such as business strategy and structure, finance, marketing, recruiting, and branding from a socially just and environmentally regenerative perspective. And it also touches on topics such as strategies to reverse climate change, nonviolent communication, self-managing organizations, locally self-reliant economies, racial justice, and more.
Traditional MBA programs are based on outdated principles that were developed during the Industrial Revolution-and they can be hugely expensive. Sustainable MBA programs, while laudable, are too incremental to make a sufficient impact. The Next Economy MBA is for entrepreneurs seeking to make business an active force for good. It draws on the authors' experience of working with over 300 social enterprises, from small organizations like Winona's Hemp and Heritage Farm to household names like Ben & Jerry's and Patagonia.
Our current economy, what the authors call the Business as Usual Economy, has created a massive wealth gap, a climate crisis, racial division, and needless housing, food, and healthcare shortages. This book shows how businesses can pave the way to a Next Economy that meets the basic needs of all people and restores and protects the planetary ecosystem.
Many current and aspiring entrepreneurs are looking for a solid business education that also deeply aligns with their progressive values. Based on a course field-tested with over 500 students, this book fills that gap. It covers traditional topics such as business strategy and structure, finance, marketing, recruiting, and branding from a socially just and environmentally regenerative perspective. And it also touches on topics such as strategies to reverse climate change, nonviolent communication, self-managing organizations, locally self-reliant economies, racial justice, and more.
Traditional MBA programs are based on outdated principles that were developed during the Industrial Revolution-and they can be hugely expensive. Sustainable MBA programs, while laudable, are too incremental to make a sufficient impact. The Next Economy MBA is for entrepreneurs seeking to make business an active force for good. It draws on the authors' experience of working with over 300 social enterprises, from small organizations like Winona's Hemp and Heritage Farm to household names like Ben & Jerry's and Patagonia.
Our current economy, what the authors call the Business as Usual Economy, has created a massive wealth gap, a climate crisis, racial division, and needless housing, food, and healthcare shortages. This book shows how businesses can pave the way to a Next Economy that meets the basic needs of all people and restores and protects the planetary ecosystem.
Build real trust in the remote workplace by mastering proven strategies for leading employees who work from home, the corner coffee shop, or the downtown office.
The shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how we build and maintain trust in organizations. Drawing on extensive research and experience, trusted leadership expert David Horsager and communication scholar Dr. Peggy Kendall present essential strategies that create strong virtual and hybrid workplace relationships.
Readers will learn to do the following:
The shift to remote work has fundamentally changed how we build and maintain trust in organizations. Drawing on extensive research and experience, trusted leadership expert David Horsager and communication scholar Dr. Peggy Kendall present essential strategies that create strong virtual and hybrid workplace relationships.
Readers will learn to do the following:
- Amplify communication
- Clarify direction
- Build predictability
- Redefine accountability
- Create connections
- Leverage in-person experiences
Almost 3 million copies sold. The classic that changed how we think about leadership—now fully updated.
What if the problem isn't your team, your boss, or your organization?
What if it's you—and you can't see it?
Leadership and Self-Deception reveals an uncomfortable truth: We systematically blind ourselves to our real motivations, then wonder why our relationships and results suffer. We tell ourselves stories that cast us as the hero and others as the obstacle. And those stories keep us stuck.
Through a compelling narrative, this book exposes the hidden patterns of self-deception that sabotage even our best intentions—in the workplace, at home, and in every relationship that matters. More importantly, it shows you how to break free.
For over two decades, this book has transformed how leaders, teams, and organizations work together.
The fourth edition is completely rewritten with
The problem you can't see is the one you can't solve. This book will change what you see—and everything that follows.
What if the problem isn't your team, your boss, or your organization?
What if it's you—and you can't see it?
Leadership and Self-Deception reveals an uncomfortable truth: We systematically blind ourselves to our real motivations, then wonder why our relationships and results suffer. We tell ourselves stories that cast us as the hero and others as the obstacle. And those stories keep us stuck.
Through a compelling narrative, this book exposes the hidden patterns of self-deception that sabotage even our best intentions—in the workplace, at home, and in every relationship that matters. More importantly, it shows you how to break free.
For over two decades, this book has transformed how leaders, teams, and organizations work together.
The fourth edition is completely rewritten with
- fresh stories and a broader, more diverse cast of characters;
- new individual study and group discussion guides; and
- practical tools for applying these insights at the personal, team, and organization-wide level.
The problem you can't see is the one you can't solve. This book will change what you see—and everything that follows.
These leadership lessons work for leaders at every level when everything goes wrong, from the doctor who saved lives after the 9/11 attacks, in war-torn Ukraine, and on the NFL sidelines.
Dr. Thom Mayer doesn’t just talk about leadership: he lives it in the world’s most high-stakes situations. From commanding the 9/11 Pentagon rescue operation to rushing onto NFL fields during medical emergencies to training doctors in war-torn Ukraine, Mayer has learned that leadership isn’t about titles or positions. It’s about action.
In this practical guide, Mayer reveals eleven provocative principles that flip conventional leadership wisdom: “Leadership is worthless . . . but leading is priceless.” “Power is worthless . . . but influence is priceless.” “Success is worthless . . . but failure is priceless.” Through gripping stories from the Pentagon’s smoking corridors, NFL sidelines, and Ukrainian hospitals, he shows how real leaders emerge not from corner offices but from moments of crisis when someone must step up and act.
Whether readers are managing a team, raising a family, or facing a crossroads, Mayer’s hard-won insights will transform how readers think about influence, teamwork, and making decisions under pressure. This isn’t theoretical leadership. Mayer offers battle-tested wisdom from someone who has led when lives hung in the balance.
Dr. Thom Mayer doesn’t just talk about leadership: he lives it in the world’s most high-stakes situations. From commanding the 9/11 Pentagon rescue operation to rushing onto NFL fields during medical emergencies to training doctors in war-torn Ukraine, Mayer has learned that leadership isn’t about titles or positions. It’s about action.
In this practical guide, Mayer reveals eleven provocative principles that flip conventional leadership wisdom: “Leadership is worthless . . . but leading is priceless.” “Power is worthless . . . but influence is priceless.” “Success is worthless . . . but failure is priceless.” Through gripping stories from the Pentagon’s smoking corridors, NFL sidelines, and Ukrainian hospitals, he shows how real leaders emerge not from corner offices but from moments of crisis when someone must step up and act.
Whether readers are managing a team, raising a family, or facing a crossroads, Mayer’s hard-won insights will transform how readers think about influence, teamwork, and making decisions under pressure. This isn’t theoretical leadership. Mayer offers battle-tested wisdom from someone who has led when lives hung in the balance.
NEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATED
Beyond Success
Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what Kim Cameron calls “positively deviant performance”—performance far above the norm. Citing a wide range of research in organizational behavior, medical science, and psychology as well as real-world examples, Cameron shows that to achieve exceptional success, leaders must emphasize strengths rather than simply focus on weaknesses; foster virtuous actions such as compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness; encourage contribution goals in addition to achievement goals; and enable meaningfulness in work. In this concise, inspiring, and practical guide, Cameron describes four positive leadership strategies, lays out a proven process for implementing them, and includes a self-assessment instrument. This second edition has been updated throughout with new research findings and new ideas for implementing positive leadership.
Beyond Success
Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what Kim Cameron calls “positively deviant performance”—performance far above the norm. Citing a wide range of research in organizational behavior, medical science, and psychology as well as real-world examples, Cameron shows that to achieve exceptional success, leaders must emphasize strengths rather than simply focus on weaknesses; foster virtuous actions such as compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness; encourage contribution goals in addition to achievement goals; and enable meaningfulness in work. In this concise, inspiring, and practical guide, Cameron describes four positive leadership strategies, lays out a proven process for implementing them, and includes a self-assessment instrument. This second edition has been updated throughout with new research findings and new ideas for implementing positive leadership.
Most leaders assume they're good communicators. What they're actually doing—most of the time—is telling. And telling, even when well-intentioned, is a subtle power move that shuts people down, withholds critical information, and quietly erodes trust.
Humble Inquiry makes the case for a different approach: asking questions you genuinely don't know the answers to, from a posture of curiosity rather than authority.
What you'll find inside this fully updated third edition:
Best for: managers, leaders, coaches, healthcare professionals, and anyone navigating complex, interdependent teams. This is a mindset shift, not a script.
Foreword by Michael Bungay Stanier. Based on Edgar H. Schein's fifty years of research at MIT. Over 300,000 copies sold.
Humble Inquiry makes the case for a different approach: asking questions you genuinely don't know the answers to, from a posture of curiosity rather than authority.
What you'll find inside this fully updated third edition:
- The ORJI cycle—why conversations go wrong in a split second, and how to interrupt the pattern
- A levels-of-relationship model to diagnose where your team is—and how to move toward real openness and trust
- Why hierarchy and “tell” culture actively undermine psychological safety—and what to do about it
- A new chapter on humble inquiry in remote and hybrid work (spoiler: it works—and may work better)
- Reader exercises, twelve mini case studies, and a discussion guide for teams
Best for: managers, leaders, coaches, healthcare professionals, and anyone navigating complex, interdependent teams. This is a mindset shift, not a script.
Foreword by Michael Bungay Stanier. Based on Edgar H. Schein's fifty years of research at MIT. Over 300,000 copies sold.
Beholden to accepted assumptions about people and organizations, too many enterprises waste human potential. Robert Quinn shows how to defy convention and create organizations where people feel fully engaged and continually rewarded, where both individually and collectively they flourish and exceed expectations.
The problem is that leaders are following a negative and constraining “mental map” that insists organizations must be rigid, top-down hierarchies and that the people in them are driven mainly by self-interest and fear. But leaders can adopt a different mental map, one where organizations are networks of fluid, evolving relationships and where people are motivated by a desire to grow, learn, and serve a larger goal. Using dozens of memorable stories, Quinn describes specific actions leaders can take to facilitate the emergence of this organizational culture—helping people gain a sense of purpose, engage in authentic conversations, see new possibilities, and sacrifice for the common good.
The book includes the Positive Organization Generator, a tool that provides 100 real-life practices from positive organizations and helps you reinvent them to fit your specific needs. With the POG you can identify and implement the practices that will have the greatest impact on your organization.
At its heart, the book helps leaders to see new possibilities that lie within the acknowledged realities of organizational life. It provides five keys for learning to be "bilingual"--speaking the conventional language of business as well as the language of the positive organization. When leaders can do this, they are able to make real and lasting change.
The problem is that leaders are following a negative and constraining “mental map” that insists organizations must be rigid, top-down hierarchies and that the people in them are driven mainly by self-interest and fear. But leaders can adopt a different mental map, one where organizations are networks of fluid, evolving relationships and where people are motivated by a desire to grow, learn, and serve a larger goal. Using dozens of memorable stories, Quinn describes specific actions leaders can take to facilitate the emergence of this organizational culture—helping people gain a sense of purpose, engage in authentic conversations, see new possibilities, and sacrifice for the common good.
The book includes the Positive Organization Generator, a tool that provides 100 real-life practices from positive organizations and helps you reinvent them to fit your specific needs. With the POG you can identify and implement the practices that will have the greatest impact on your organization.
At its heart, the book helps leaders to see new possibilities that lie within the acknowledged realities of organizational life. It provides five keys for learning to be "bilingual"--speaking the conventional language of business as well as the language of the positive organization. When leaders can do this, they are able to make real and lasting change.