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More than ever, data drives decisions in organizations—and we have more data, and more ways to analyze it, than ever. Yet strategic initiatives continue to fail as often as they did when computers ran on punch cards. Economist and research scientist Alec Levenson says we need a new approach.

The problem, Levenson says, is that the business people who devise the strategies and the human resources people who get employees to implement them use completely different analytics. Business analytics can determine if operational priorities aren't being achieved but can't explain why. HR analytics reveal potentially helpful policy and process improvements but can't identify which would have the greatest strategic impact.

This book shows how to use an integrated approach to bring these two pieces together. Levenson presents a thorough and realistic treatment of the reasons for and challenges of taking an integrated approach. He provides details on the different parts of both enterprise and human capital analytics that have to be conducted for integration to be successful and includes specific questions to ask, along with examples of applying integrated analytics to address particular organizational challenges.

Effective analytics is a team sport. Levenson's approach allows you to get the deepest insights by bringing people together from both the business and HR perspectives to assess what's going on and determine the right solution.

More than ever, data drives decisions in organizations—and we have more data, and more ways to analyze it, than ever. Yet strategic initiatives continue to fail as often as they did when computers ran on punch cards. Economist and research scientist Alec Levenson says we need a new approach.

The problem, Levenson says, is that the business people who devise the strategies and the human resources people who get employees to implement them use completely different analytics. Business analytics can determine if operational priorities aren't being achieved but can't explain why. HR analytics reveal potentially helpful policy and process improvements but can't identify which would have the greatest strategic impact.

This book shows how to use an integrated approach to bring these two pieces together. Levenson presents a thorough and realistic treatment of the reasons for and challenges of taking an integrated approach. He provides details on the different parts of both enterprise and human capital analytics that have to be conducted for integration to be successful and includes specific questions to ask, along with examples of applying integrated analytics to address particular organizational challenges.

Effective analytics is a team sport. Levenson's approach allows you to get the deepest insights by bringing people together from both the business and HR perspectives to assess what's going on and determine the right solution.

Taxpayers deserve the very best from public services, and first-rate public services can only be provided by outstanding government workers. Federal human resource managers face the challenge of attracting and retaining high-caliber individuals within the constraints of ever-tightening budgets and often-conflicting political directives. From a talent management perspective, Optimizing Talent in the Federal Workforce explores:
• Best practices for recruiting and selecting employees
• Proven methods for developing and training employees
• Optimal deployment and placement processes.
This text is a must-read for anyone in or working toward a government management position.

Taxpayers deserve the very best from public services, and first-rate public services can only be provided by outstanding government workers. Federal human resource managers face the challenge of attracting and retaining high-caliber individuals within the constraints of ever-tightening budgets and often-conflicting political directives. From a talent management perspective, Optimizing Talent in the Federal Workforce explores:
• Best practices for recruiting and selecting employees
• Proven methods for developing and training employees
• Optimal deployment and placement processes.
This text is a must-read for anyone in or working toward a government management position.

“Action inquiry” is a fresh approach to learning leadership in the midst of action. This highly accessible process takes each of us beyond muddling through daily dilemmas to exercising transforming power at key moments and more timely action in general. Bill Torbert and Associates lead you through more and more sophisticated “action-logics”—strategies for analyzing the world and reacting to it—until you are able to practice action inquiry continually. Speaking to everyone from new managers to CEOs to world leaders, real-life stories of leadership and organizational transformations show how action inquiry increases personal integrity, relational mutuality, company profitability, and long-term organizational and environmental sustainability.

Bill Torbert and associates illustrate how individuals and organizations can progress through more and more sophisticated "action-logics" -- strategies for analyzing the world and reacting to it -- until they will eventually be able to practice action inquiry continually. Offering action inquiry exercises at the end of the chapters, the book moves from junior managers beginning to practice action inquiry through CEO's transforming whole companies, to world leaders transforming whole countries, as exemplified by Czech president Vaclav Havel. Through short stories of leadership and organizational transformations, this groundbreaking book illustrates how action inquiry increases personal integrity, relational mutuality, company profitability, and long-term organizational and environmental sustainability.

Crossing Boundaries is a transformative travel book about how meaningful encounters across cultures can change the way we see the world—and one another.

Drawing from Aziz Abu Sarah’s journey from a former Palestinian radical in Jerusalem to a globally recognized peacebuilder and National Geographic explorer, this book shows how travel can become a practice of empathy, dialogue, and human connection. Its central idea is powerful and accessible: Transformative, responsible travel does not have to start overseas. It can begin in your own neighborhood, with the choice to step beyond familiarity and meet people different from yourself.

Blending memoir, cultural insight, conflict resolution, and practical travel strategy, Abu Sarah reframes travel as more than sightseeing. He invites readers to move beyond museums, monuments, and surface-level itineraries in order to experience communities through conversation, curiosity, and mutual respect. Through stories shaped by Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Vietnam, and other places marked by division, Crossing Boundaries explores how travel can challenge stereotypes, reduce prejudice, and create lasting relationships rooted in dignity and understanding.

At its heart, Crossing Boundaries offers a vision of travel as a tool for healing in a polarized world. Abu Sarah shows readers how to make travel more intentional, inclusive, and transformative by helping them

• meet people naturally and safely;
• design inclusive, community-centered itineraries;
• support local economies through conscious spending;
• navigate discomfort, misunderstanding, and setbacks with empathy;
• move beyond stereotypes and inherited assumptions;
• build authentic cross-cultural relationships;
• practice responsible, sustainable, values-driven travel; and
• discover shared humanity across political, religious, and social divides.

Perfect for readers interested in purposeful travel, cultural immersion, peacebuilding, ethical tourism, social impact, and personal growth, this book speaks to both first-time travelers and experienced explorers who want deeper, more human-centered journeys. It will especially resonate with readers looking for books about intercultural dialogue, sustainable travel, belonging, reconciliation, and shared humanity.

Crossing Boundaries is a transformative travel book about how meaningful encounters across cultures can change the way we see the world—and one another.

Drawing from Aziz Abu Sarah’s journey from a former Palestinian radical in Jerusalem to a globally recognized peacebuilder and National Geographic explorer, this book shows how travel can become a practice of empathy, dialogue, and human connection. Its central idea is powerful and accessible: Transformative, responsible travel does not have to start overseas. It can begin in your own neighborhood, with the choice to step beyond familiarity and meet people different from yourself.

Blending memoir, cultural insight, conflict resolution, and practical travel strategy, Abu Sarah reframes travel as more than sightseeing. He invites readers to move beyond museums, monuments, and surface-level itineraries in order to experience communities through conversation, curiosity, and mutual respect. Through stories shaped by Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Vietnam, and other places marked by division, Crossing Boundaries explores how travel can challenge stereotypes, reduce prejudice, and create lasting relationships rooted in dignity and understanding.

At its heart, Crossing Boundaries offers a vision of travel as a tool for healing in a polarized world. Abu Sarah shows readers how to make travel more intentional, inclusive, and transformative by helping them

• meet people naturally and safely;
• design inclusive, community-centered itineraries;
• support local economies through conscious spending;
• navigate discomfort, misunderstanding, and setbacks with empathy;
• move beyond stereotypes and inherited assumptions;
• build authentic cross-cultural relationships;
• practice responsible, sustainable, values-driven travel; and
• discover shared humanity across political, religious, and social divides.

Perfect for readers interested in purposeful travel, cultural immersion, peacebuilding, ethical tourism, social impact, and personal growth, this book speaks to both first-time travelers and experienced explorers who want deeper, more human-centered journeys. It will especially resonate with readers looking for books about intercultural dialogue, sustainable travel, belonging, reconciliation, and shared humanity.

If you are in middle management, to get anything done you must present your ideas to decision makers, and those presentations can be brutal. The stakes are high—one presentation can make or break a career—but the rules are utterly unclear. Tactics and techniques that work well with peers, subordinates, and immediate supervisors can actually work against you when presenting up the chain.

Speaking Up is an indispensable resource for anyone who needs to know how to present to those at the highest levels. Psychologist and coach Frederick Gilbert offers revelatory insights into the minds of the men and women at the top—information that is crucial to understanding what they're looking for from presenters. Based on ten years of research and hundreds of interviews, Speaking Up features extensive comments from executives explaining exactly what they want and don't want in a presentation and includes nine chapters containing QR codes for free videos on the chapter topics. This is a must-read book for surviving high-stakes meetings.

Learn the Rules of the Executive Suite! If you are in middle management, to get anything done you must present your ideas to decision makers, and those presentations can be brutal. The stakes are high—one presentation can make or break a career—but the rules are utterly unclear. Tactics and techniques that work well with peers, subordinates, and immediate supervisors can actually work against you when presenting up the chain. Speaking Up is an indispensable resource for anyone who needs to know how to present to those at the highest levels. Psychologist and coach Frederick Gilbert offers revelatory insights into the minds of the men and women at the top—information that is crucial to understanding what they’re looking for from presenters. Based on ten years of research and hundreds of interviews, Speaking Up features extensive comments from executives explaining exactly what they want and don’t want in a presentation and includes nine chapters containing QR codes for free videos on the chapter topics. This is a must-read book for surviving high-stakes meetings. “I wish I had access to these insights when I was on the other side of the table. Now I will recommend this book to my entire management team.” —John Kispert, CEO, Spansion “Speaking Up is to presentations what the Boy Scout motto is to life: be prepared.” —Todd Lutwak, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz, and former Vice President of Seller Experience, eBay “Impressive in its breadth and yet very much ‘on point.’” —Don Eilers, Managing Director, Vanguard Ventures “Speaking Up has outstanding insights for successful presentations not only in the boardrooms of corporate America but also in the briefing rooms within the Department of Defense.” —Winston Copeland, Jr., President, WWC Consulting, and Rear Admiral, US Navy (Retired)

OLD-SCHOOL top-down organizational behavior won't cut it anymore. Direct chain-of-command hierarchies are obsolete, fast giving way to networked, team-oriented organizations. To be successful, the ability to influence others-especially others over whom you have no direct control-is a must. You have to build alliances and persuade people, not boss them around.
The ability to influence people isn't something you're born with, it's a skill anyone can acquire. In his new book, The Influence Edge, experienced organizational consultant Alan Vengel teaches the influence skills needed to enlist the cooperation of others, inside and outside the organization, to achieve your professional goals.
Drawing on case studies and illustrative anecdotes from his consulting practice, Vengel introduces a powerful system of influence initiatives and strategic thinking that anyone can apply to almost any work situation. The Influence Edge details specific influence tactics that can lead to workplace success. It provides a nuts and bolts guide for planning for a real influence situation, and shows exactly how to map out a strategy. And The Influence Edge goes deeper into the influence realm to show how to build better long-term rapport, even with really difficult people.
An interactive self-study guide, The Influence Edge offers immediate hands-on applications. Its heavily tested, practical insights are embodied in a variety of exercises that help readers evaluate their progress, reflect deeply on what they've read, and build a personal strategy for increasing their influence edge.
Vengel equips readers to influence without authority, sell ideas, and build relationships. The Influence Edge is designed to be used again and again. It provides a complete toolkit for turning the often disorderly and seemingly impossible task of getting someone else to help you achieve your goal into an entirely viable process of analysis, preparation, and action.

American opportunity is not dead. Bestselling author and entrepreneur John Hope Bryant outlines the mindset and practices that will allow us to achieve the American Dream, no matter what our current circumstances are.

Americans have lost faith in their country. With job security disappearing and fewer glimpses of a better future, it can feel like we are barely surviving, much less thriving, in today's problematic economy. Americans want the "old" America back-- the America where opportunity comes knocking at the front door. But the real problem, John Hope Bryant says, is that we're forgetting that this is still the Land of Opportunity--a site of upward mobility, a place teeming with different ways to create and grow wealth. The opportunities of today are not only greater than the obstacles, but they are greater than they have ever been. What we need, he says, is a mindset shift--a way of recalibrating to recognize that there is still a bounty of resources for establishing entrepreneurship and success in this country. The first step for us, for America, is to remember our storyline--how, coming up from nothing, we established and harnessed the invincible American Dream.

American opportunity is not dead. Bestselling author and entrepreneur John Hope Bryant outlines the mindset and practices that will allow us to achieve the American Dream, no matter what our current circumstances are.

Americans have lost faith in their country. With job security disappearing and fewer glimpses of a better future, it can feel like we are barely surviving, much less thriving, in today's problematic economy. Americans want the "old" America back-- the America where opportunity comes knocking at the front door. But the real problem, John Hope Bryant says, is that we're forgetting that this is still the Land of Opportunity--a site of upward mobility, a place teeming with different ways to create and grow wealth. The opportunities of today are not only greater than the obstacles, but they are greater than they have ever been. What we need, he says, is a mindset shift--a way of recalibrating to recognize that there is still a bounty of resources for establishing entrepreneurship and success in this country. The first step for us, for America, is to remember our storyline--how, coming up from nothing, we established and harnessed the invincible American Dream.

This book is a comprehensive guide to an exciting new approach that managers at any level can use to transform their corners of government.

Whether people want more government or less, everyone wants an efficient government. Traditional thinking is that this requires a government to be run more like a business. But a government is not a business, and this approach merely replaces old problems with new ones.

In their six-year, five-country study of seventy-seven government organizations-ranging from small departments to entire states-Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder found that the predominant private-sector approaches to improvement don't work well in the public sector, while practices that are rare in the private sector prove highly effective. The highest performers they studied had attained levels of efficiency that rivaled the best private-sector companies.

Rather than management making the improvements, as is the norm in the private sector, these high-performers focused on front-line-driven improvement, where most of the change activity was led by supervisors and low-level managers who unleashed the creativity and ideas of their employees to improve their operations bit by bit every day.

You'll discover how Denver's Department of Excise and Licenses reduced wait times from an hour and forty minutes to just seven minutes; how the Washington State Patrol garage tripled its productivity and became a national benchmark; how a K8 school in New Brunswick, Canada, boosted the percentage of students reading at the appropriate age level from 22 percent to 78 percent; and much more.

All humans have bias, and as a result, so do the institutions we build. Internationally sought after diversity consultant Tiffany Jana offers concrete ways for anyone to work against institutional bias no matter what their position is in an organization.
   
Building upon the revelatory power of her book Overcoming Bias, which addressed managing individual and interpersonal bias, Erasing Institutional Bias scales up the framework to impact systemic change in organizations. Jana and coauthor Ashley Diaz Mejias bring together in-depth research on how biases become embedded into workplace cultures with practical and engaging tools that will mobilize readers toward action. They confront specific topics such as racism, sexism, hiring and advancement bias and retribution bias, meaning when organizations develop a culture of aggression, and offer solutions for identifying and controlling them.

This book urges readers to ask questions such as, “Are we attempting to create systems in which all people can thrive? What kind of world and what kind of workplaces are we cultivating?” These questions, the authors say, must first be answered by ourselves, recognizing our own role in perpetuating harmful biases that come to define institutions.

In a world divided, Erasing Institutional Bias is designed to raise awareness about imbalances and help us hold ourselves accountable for creating a world that works for everyone. Each of us can evaluate our own current role in perpetuating systemic bias and define our new role in breaking it down. Jana and Mejias inspire and equip us so that we can all affect organizational change, together.

All humans have bias, and as a result, so do the institutions we build. Internationally sought after diversity consultant Tiffany Jana offers concrete ways for anyone to work against institutional bias no matter what their position is in an organization.
   
Building upon the revelatory power of her book Overcoming Bias, which addressed managing individual and interpersonal bias, Erasing Institutional Bias scales up the framework to impact systemic change in organizations. Jana and coauthor Ashley Diaz Mejias bring together in-depth research on how biases become embedded into workplace cultures with practical and engaging tools that will mobilize readers toward action. They confront specific topics such as racism, sexism, hiring and advancement bias and retribution bias, meaning when organizations develop a culture of aggression, and offer solutions for identifying and controlling them.

This book urges readers to ask questions such as, “Are we attempting to create systems in which all people can thrive? What kind of world and what kind of workplaces are we cultivating?” These questions, the authors say, must first be answered by ourselves, recognizing our own role in perpetuating harmful biases that come to define institutions.

In a world divided, Erasing Institutional Bias is designed to raise awareness about imbalances and help us hold ourselves accountable for creating a world that works for everyone. Each of us can evaluate our own current role in perpetuating systemic bias and define our new role in breaking it down. Jana and Mejias inspire and equip us so that we can all affect organizational change, together.