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Our current economic system—which assumes endless growth and limitless potential wealth—flies in the face of the fact that the earth’s resources are finite. The result is increasing destruction of the natural world and growing, sometimes lethal, tension between rich and poor, global north and south. Trying to fix problems piecemeal is not the solution. We need a comprehensive new vision of an economy that can serve people and all of life’s commonwealth. Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver use the core Quaker principle of “right relationship”—interacting in a way that is respectful to all and that aids the common good—as the foundation for a new economic model. Right Relationship poses five basic questions: What is an economy for? How does it work? How big is too big? What’s fair? And how can it best be governed? Brown and Garver expose the antiquated, shortsighted, and downright dangerous assumptions that underlie our current answers to these questions, as well as the shortcomings of many current reform efforts. They propose new answers that combine an acute awareness of ecological limits with a fundamental focus on fairness and a concern with the spiritual, as well as material, well-being of the human race. Brown and Garver describe new forms of global governance that will be needed to get and keep the economy in right relationship. Individual citizens can and must play a part in bringing this relationship with life and the world into being. Ultimately the economy, as indeed life itself, is a series of interconnected relationships. An economy based on the idea of “right relationship” offers not only the promise of a bountiful future but also an opportunity to touch the fullness of human meaning and, some would say, the presence of the Divine.

This second edition expands the provocative analysis of the racist colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance into other sectors and offers practical advice on how anyone can be a healer.

The world is out of balance. With increasing frequency, we are presented with the inescapable truth that systemic racism and colonial structures are foundational principles to our economies. The $1 trillion philanthropic industry is one example of a system that mirrors oppressive colonial behavior. It's an industry whose name means “the love for humankind,” yet it does more harm than good.

In Decolonizing Wealth, Edgar Villanueva looks past philanthropy's glamorous, altruistic façade and into its shadows: white supremacy, savior complexes, and internalized oppression. Across history and to the present day, the accumulation of wealth is steeped in trauma. How can we shift philanthropy toward social reconciliation and healing if the cornerstones are exploitation, extraction, and control? 

Drawing from Native traditions, Villanueva empowers individuals and institutions to begin to repair the damage through his Seven Steps to Healing. In this second edition, Villanueva adds inspiring examples of people using their resources to decolonize entertainment, museums, libraries, land ownership, and much more.

Everyone can be a healer and a leader in restoring balance—and we need everyone to do their part. As Villanueva writes, “All our suffering is mutual. All our healing is mutual. All our thriving is mutual.” Are you ready?

Modern culture’s worship of “how-to” pragmatism has turned us into instruments of efficiency and commerce—but we’re doing more and more about things that mean less and less. We constantly ask “how? and still struggle to find purpose and act on what matters. Instead of acting on what we know to be of importance, we wait for bosses to change, we seek the latest fad, we invest in one more degree. Asking how keeps us safe—instead of being led by our hearts into uncharted territory, we keep our heads down and stick to the rules. But we are gaining the world and losing our souls. Peter Block puts the “how-to” craze in perspective and presents a guide to the difficult and life-granting journey of bringing what we know is of personal value into an indifferent or even hostile corporate and cultural landscape. He raises our awareness of the trade-offs we’ve made in the name of practicality and expediency, and offers hope for a way of life in which we’re motivated not by what “works,” but by the things that truly matter in life—idealism, intimacy, depth and engagement.

What Would It Be Like to Restore Sanity? What would it be like to work together again in creative and generous ways? What would it be like to be curious about who you're with rather than judging or fearing them? What would it be like to engage together in exploring possibilities rather than withdrawing in conflict or disagreement? What would it be like to be working well together?

From 50 years working with leaders globally, I state with full confidence that leadership has never been more difficult. And it's not our fault. We've been good and caring leaders, we've led people in empowering, engaging ways to create meaningful, productive work. But now we face external conditions far beyond our control to change, dynamics intensifying at shocking speed.

The perfect storm is here, created by the coalescence of climate and human-created catastrophes. As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do? I state my answer to this also with full confidence:

We need to restore sanity by awakening the human spirit. We can achieve this only if we undertake the most challenging and meaningful work of our leader lives: Creating Islands of Sanity.

An Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by people's commitment to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires sane leaders with unshakable faith in people's innate generosity, creativity, and kindness. It sets itself apart as an island to protect itself from the life-destroying dynamics, policies, and behaviors that oppress and deny the human spirit. No matter what is happening around us, we can discover practices that enliven our human spirits and produce meaningful contributions for this time.

In a world of chaos, how can generative AI help leaders lead?

Over the next decade, all leaders will be augmented with some form of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI. For the best leaders, this will mean dramatic improvement. For mediocre leaders, this will mean persistent confusion, distraction, and pretense. With futureback thinking—looking ten years ahead, then planning backward from future to next to now—this third edition of Leaders Make the Future shows how people can improve their leadership skills while expanding their human perspective.

Now 75 percent revised and expanded with resources from the Institute for the Future, this new edition is organized around ten future leadership skills:
Augmented futureback curiosity
Augmented clarity
Augmented dilemma flipping
Augmented bio-engaging
Augmented immersive learning
Augmented depolarizing
Augmented commons creating
Augmented smart mob swarming
Augmented strength with humility
Human calming

AI-augmented leadership will be key for any organization to tackle the uncertainty of the future. And by incorporating practical methodologies, ethical guidelines, and innovative leadership practices, this book will help leaders develop their clarity and moderate their certainty.

Over the past decade Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has rapidly emerged as one of the most significant advances in the field of organization development and change. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive practitioner's guide to the AI Summit-the preferred method when applying whole-scale change to large groups. The authors-four of the leading experts on Appreciative Inquiry-explore the theories of organization change and large-group process on which the AI Summit is based; walk the reader step-by-step through the process of planning, conducting, and following up on an AI Summit; provide a series of case studies of the AI Summit in action; and share essential success factors-what they have learned in their work with AI and large-group processes that contributes to success in large-scale efforts. This book is an essential resource for anyone who works with Appreciative Inquiry, large group interventions, or whole-system change processes.

David Korten’s classic bestseller When Corporations Rule the World was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. In The Great Turning he argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely one manifestation of what he calls “Empire”: the organization of society through hierarchy and violence that has largely held sway for the past 5,000 years. The Great Turning traces the evolution of Empire from ancient times to the present day but also tells the parallel story of the attempt to develop a democratic alternative to Empire, beginning in Athens and continuing with the founding of the United States of America—although elitists with an imperial agenda have consistently sought to undermine the bold and inspiring “American experiment.” Finally, Korten draws on evidence from sources as varied as evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, and religious teachings to make the case that “Earth Community”—a life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable alternative to Empire based on democratic principles of partnership—is indeed possible. And he outlines a grassroots strategy for beginning the momentous turning toward a future of as-yet-unrealized human potential.

A proven 7-principle framework for building communities where people genuinely belong, used by leaders at Google, Airbnb, the US Army, and beyond.

Now in a fully updated second edition with 25 percent new content, this Nautilus Award–winning guide gives leaders a practical and historically grounded system for creating communities that last, whether they're in person, virtual, or somewhere in between.

Drawing on three thousand years of human tradition and the author's own work across tech, nonprofit, government, and religious organizations, The Art of Community maps the 7 structural principles every thriving community shares:

• Boundary — who belongs and what that means
• Initiation — how new members are welcomed and integrated
• Rituals — the repeated practices that build shared meaning
• Temple — physical or virtual spaces that anchor community identity
• Stories — how shared narratives reinforce values
• Symbols — the objects and images that signal belonging
• Inner Rings — how members grow and deepen their participation over time

This edition includes a brand-new chapter on virtual community building, making it as relevant for remote teams and online groups as for in-person organizations.

Ideal for managers, community builders, HR leaders, pastors, and nonprofit directors who want to move beyond surface-level engagement and create a culture where people genuinely support one another.

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.

Entire service businesses have been built around the ideas of Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger, pioneers in the world of service. Now they test their ideas against the actual experiences of successful and unsuccessful practitioners, as well as against demands of the future, in a book service leaders around the world will use as a guide for years to come.

The authors cover every aspect of optimal service leadership: the best hiring, training, and workplace organization practices; the creation of operating strategies around areas such as facility design, capacity planning, queue management, and more; the use—and misuse—of technology in delivering top-level service; and practices that can transform loyal customers into “owners.”

Looking ahead, the authors describe the world of great service leaders in which “both/and” thinking replaces trade-offs. It's a world in which new ideas will be tested against the sine qua non of the “service trifecta”—wins for employees, customers, and investors. And it's a world in which the best leaders admit that they don't have the answers and create organizations that learn, innovate, “sense and respond,” operate with fluid boundaries, and seek and achieve repeated strategic success.

Using examples of dozens of companies in a wide variety of industries, such as Apollo Hospitals, Châteauform, Starbucks, Amazon, Disney, Progressive Insurance, the Dallas Mavericks, Whole Foods, IKEA, and many others, the authors present a narrative of remarkable successes, unnecessary failures, and future promise.

Two distinguished scholars offer eight steps to help organizations discover and embrace an authentic higher purpose—something that will dramatically improve every aspect of any enterprise, including the bottom line.

What does a lofty notion like purpose have to do with business basics like the bottom line? Robert E. Quinn and Anjan J. Thakor say pretty much everything. Leaders and managers are taught that employees are self-interested and work resistant, so they create systems of control to combat these expectations. Workers resent these systems, and performance suffers. To address the performance issues, managers double down on the coercion, creating a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But there is a better way. Quinn and Thakor show that when an authentic higher purpose permeates business strategy and decision-making, the cycle is broken. Employers and employees see themselves as working together toward an inspiring goal, not just trying to hit quarterly targets. They fully engage, become proactive contributors, and, ironically, easily exceed those quarterly targets.

Based on their widely acclaimed Harvard Business Review article, Quinn and Thakor offer eight sometimes surprising steps for shifting from a transaction-oriented mind-set focused on constraints to a purpose-oriented mind-set focused on possibility. This iconoclastic book will help any organization discover its authentic purpose and weave it into the fabric of everything it does, leading to unprecedented levels of personal satisfaction, service and product innovation, and economic growth.

Most conflict advice focuses on tactics. The Anatomy of Peace goes deeper—revealing why people in conflict unknowingly work against their own goals, and how to change that from the inside out.

Told through a compelling story set at Camp Moriah, this perennial bestseller follows an Arab man and a Jewish man—each having lost his father to the other's people—as they help parents, leaders, and colleagues discover the hidden root cause behind every conflict.

What you'll gain from this book:

• A framework for understanding why conflicts persist even when everyone wants resolution
• Practical tools for healing fractured relationships at home, at work, and in communities
• A proven methodology used by law enforcement, corporations, and nonprofits worldwide
• A self-study and group discussion guide (new to the fifth edition) for teams and book clubs

Who it's for: Leaders navigating workplace friction, parents struggling with family conflict, mediators, educators, and anyone who wants lasting peace—not just temporary ceasefires.

Translated into over thirty languages and a top-selling conflict-resolution book for nearly two decades, this revised fifth edition is the definitive guide to resolving conflict at its source.

Succeed in Any Culture, in Every Situation

In today's global economy, the ability to interact effectively across cultures is a fundamental job requirement for just about everyone. But it's impossible to learn the customs and traits of every single culture. David Thomas and Kerr Inkson present a universal set of techniques and people skills that will allow you to adapt quickly to, and thrive in, any cultural environment. You'll learn to discard your own culturally based assumptions and pay careful attention, in a mindful and creative way, to cues in cross-cultural situations. The authors show how to apply cultural intelligence in a series of specific situations: making decisions; communicating, negotiating, and resolving conflicts; leading and motivating others; and designing, managing, and contributing to multicultural groups and teams.

This extensively revised third edition has been updated with new stories showing cultural intelligence in action. Thomas and Inkson have broadened the focus beyond business to include organizations of all kinds—nonprofits, governments, educational institutions, and more. And they include a reliable and valid measure of cultural intelligence based on a decade of research by an international team of scholars.

Many significant failures—from FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina to the recent economic collapse—could have been prevented or mitigated if those lower in the hierarchy were successful at communicating to leaders the risks they saw in the system. Ira Chaleff's Courageous Follower model has facilitated healthy upward information flow in organizations for over 15 years. The Harvard Business Review called Chaleff a pioneer in the emerging field of followership—this new edition shares his latest thinking on an increasingly vital topic.
The updated third edition includes a new chapter, “The Courage to Speak to the Hierarchy.” Much of Chaleff's model is based on followers having access to the leader. But today, followers can be handed questionable policies and orders that come from many levels above them—even from the other side of the world. Chaleff explores how they can respond effectively, particularly using the power now available through advances in communications technology.
Everyone is a follower at least some of the time. Chaleff strips away the passive connotations of that role and provides tools to help followers effectively partner with leaders. He provides rich guidance to leaders and boards on fostering a climate that encourages courageous followership. The results include increased support for leaders, reduced cynicism and organizations saved from serious missteps.

"We want life to be less arduous and more delightful. We want to be able to think differently about how to organize human activities." So begins A Simpler Way, an exploration of a radically different world view that will reshape how we think about organizing all human endeavor.

Margaret J. Wheatley and coauthor Myron Kellner-Rogers explore the question: "How could we organize human endeavor if we developed different understandings of how life organizes itself?" They draw on the work of scientists, philosophers, poets, novelists, spiritual teachers, colleagues, audiences, and their own experience in search of new ways of understanding life and how organizing activities occur. A Simpler Way presents a profoundly different world view that can change how we live our lives and how we can create organizations that thrive.

A Simpler Way explores fundamental new beliefs about organizations and life. Like Leadership and the New Science, this new book is rooted in science but breaks new ground by developing insights from literature, spiritual teachings, and direct experience. The authors challenge many assumptions about life, organizations, and change, while providing inspiration and guidance for readers on their own journey to a simpler way to organize their endeavors.

The authors describe a new paradigm of life as self-organizing and coevolving, drawing on sources that support modern science but predate its findings by thousands of years. They examine five major themes-play, organization, self, emergence, and coherence-each grounded in both the science and philosophy of a world that knows how to organize itself. Each theme is explored in depth, and then applied to how we think about human organizations.

The book begins and ends with photo essays, providing visual imagery that recalls readers to their own experience with a world that is creative, playful, and self-organizing. Written in a relaxed, poetic, and inviting style, the book welcomes the reader into this exploration of a new way of being in the world, one which can give us increased organizing capacity and effectiveness with less of the stress that plagues us now.

In this engaging parable, author Noah Blumenthal shows that we are all master storytellers. Our stories are vivid, detailed, and convincing. These aren't the stories we tell around the watercooler or the campfire. They are the stories we tell ourselves—the ones that rattle around in our heads and move us to emotions and actions.

If we don't pay attention, these stories can take us down the victim path—blaming, frustrated, helpless, and hopeless. But at any moment, we have the power to identify and change these stories. We can choose the right stories—the ones that enable us to become “Everyday Heroes.”

Be the Hero brings to life the entertaining tale of a struggling young professional who moves from victim to hero by learning to become aware of and change the stories that are holding him back. Battling negativity, inertia, and anger, he learns to see life through a new lens, to create new hero stories that develop his capacity to chart his own course.

The powerful resources at the end of the book, including a hero tip of the week, smart cards, manager tip sheets, and more, will help you make your hero stories stick.

This simple parable will change your life forever.

This guide shows readers how to transform a traditional organization into an evolutionary one with a framework and mindset that offer a new way of leading and approaching change.

Now more than ever, society is demanding change, and organizations are being asked to shift into more conscious and agile business practices. Yet, most of what people believe about leadership, effective workplaces, and how to create lasting change is either incomplete or outright incorrect. And even if the desire to change is there, understanding of how to achieve it is elusive.

This book holds the key. It introduces the Shift Evolutionary Leadership Framework (SELF), which helps leaders create the understanding and application needed to evolve high performance. At the core of the book are dozens of business patterns that cut across seven dimensions of organizational functioning. The traps of traditional organizations are contrasted with the high-performance practices of evolutionary organizations. Authors Michael Sahota and Audree Tata Sahota explain the steps of leading beyond change—evolving beyond servant leadership to make the inner shift needed to unlock the practical skills and techniques.

Whether readers call this shift business agility, Teal Agility, evolutionary, or the future of work, it is possible to create high-performing organizations filled with energized people who are able to surf the waves of change.

In today’s organizations, engagement is vital—more is being required of workers than ever. In this new edition of his classic book, Kenneth Thomas draws on the latest research findings to identify the key to employee engagement: intrinsic motivation.

Only intrinsic rewards—rewards that come directly from the work itself—encourage the profound commitment and sense of ownership needed for a truly engaged and innovative workforce.

Thomas identifies four intrinsic rewards, explains exactly how and why they build engagement, and provides a diagnostic framework to evaluate which need boosting and how to boost them.

The second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with an expanded section on how leaders can identify their own intrinsic rewards and new tools, tips, and practices for encouraging intrinsic motivation in others.