Leaders as Teachers chronicles Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) 8-year journey to create and deploy a leadership development program that relies on all top leaders (even its CEO) to train other leaders. The initiative produced dramatic results including; measurable business results; a stronger, more supportive learning environment; improved communications and strengthened organizational culture; a more adaptive, change receptive leadership team; and direct cost saving. The book includes complete implementation guidance including detailed plans, worksheets, exercises, complete sample training outlines, and other useful tools.

“Shows how humans have brought us to the brink and how humanity can find solutions. I urge people to read with humility and the daring to act.”
-Harpal Singh, former Chair, Save the Children, India, and former Vice Chair, Save the Children International


In conversations with people all over the world, from government officials and business leaders to taxi drivers and schoolteachers, Blair Sheppard, global leader for strategy and leadership at PwC, discovered they all had surprisingly similar concerns. In this prescient and pragmatic book, he and his team sum up these concerns in what they call the ADAPT framework: Asymmetry of wealth; Disruption wrought by the unexpected and often problematic consequences of technology; Age disparities--stresses caused by very young or very old populations in developed and emerging countries; Polarization as a symptom of the breakdown in global and national consensus; and loss of Trust in the institutions that underpin and stabilize society. These concerns are in turn precipitating four crises: a crisis of prosperity, a crisis of technology, a crisis of institutional legitimacy, and a crisis of leadership.

Sheppard and his team analyze the complex roots of these crises--but they also offer solutions, albeit often seemingly counterintuitive ones. For example, in an era of globalization, we need to place a much greater emphasis on developing self-sustaining local economies. And as technology permeates our lives, we need computer scientists and engineers conversant with sociology and psychology and poets who can code. The authors argue persuasively that we have only a decade to make headway on these problems. But if we tackle them now, thoughtfully, imaginatively, creatively, and energetically, in ten years we could be looking at a dawn instead of darkness.

Without a deep understanding of your company's culture, any change effort you undertake will fail. Bestselling author Jon Katzenbach and his coauthors identify the four most critical cultural elements leaders need to focus on.

Every organization has a unique culture, but they all have one thing in common. Whenever they have a big change to make, powerful emotional forces in their culture appear, at first, to resist it. But there are other culture forces under the surface that can be potential sources of catalytic strength. The best leaders succeed by tapping those “critical few” sources. Using an unusual, dialogue-based approach, Jon Katzenbach, author of the seminal The Wisdom of Teams (over 400,000 sold) shows how a sharp focus on just these elements reduces complexity and enables leaders to create profound cultural transformation and positive, lasting impact on performance.

The critical few elements are:

The critical few traits: the shared characteristics that are at the heart of people's emotional connection to what they do.
The critical few behaviors: people's actions that would lead a company to succeed if they were replicated at greater scale.
The critical few informal leaders: individuals whose emotional intuition and institutional trust make them valued guides for transformation, wherever they are on the org chart.

Corporate culture is critical to any organizational change effort. This book offers a proven model for identifying and leveraging the essential elements of any culture.


If you're going to make any significant change in an organization, you have to deal with the organizational culture. Because as Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” But there can be a big difference between the official culture as described in the company handbook and how work really gets done. This book, written by a unique team of two culture-change experts and a business anthropologist, is about solving this “culture puzzle.” The authors describe the four forces that shape every organization's-or, as they put it, every tribe's-culture from hunter-gatherers in the Amazon to corporate executives at Amazon. Interest: what the organization does to fulfill members' needs and earn their loyalty. Habit: which behaviors and ideas constitute “the way we do things around here.” Vision: where the organization came from and where it's going; and Innovation: how the organization adapts and changes. The authors provide detailed advice and analytic tools for understanding and strengthening these four forces in your organization, and for using that understanding to more your organization forward.