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Leadership legend and bestselling author Ken Blanchard returns with trust expert and thought leader Randy Conley to present a structured playbook based on the bestselling Simple Truths of Leadership.

The companion playbook to Simple Truths of Leadership expands on the book's 52 essential principles of servant leadership and trust building. This structured playbook provides weekly prompts and exercises to help you track your progress toward your leadership goals. It focuses on one Simple Truth per week and includes:

• A summary of each Simple Truth
• A game plan for using each truth in your workplace, including thought-provoking questions and exercises to challenge your thinking and cause you to consider new ideas about leadership
• A Call to Action to “Try It This Week”

With so much of today's workforce feeling disengaged from the work they do, it's critical for leaders to move away from self-serving methods and embrace servant leadership to put their followers' needs before their own. And by journaling alongside servant leadership principles, you will be able to turn the common sense behind these simple truths into common practice for you and your organization.

Utilizing Dr. Martin Luther King's Beloved Community framework, activists will be empowered to create change and equity through fierce yet compassionate dialogue against racism and systematic white supremacy.

Can a person be both fierce and compassionate at once? Directly challenge racist speech or actions without seeking to humiliate the other person? Interrupt hateful or habitual forms of discrimination in new ways that foster deeper change? Dr. Roxy Manning believes it's possible-and you can learn how.

In this book, Dr. Manning provides a new way to conceive of antiracist conversations, along with the practical tools and frameworks that make them possible. Her work is grounded in the idea of Beloved Community, as articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a goal to aspire to and even experience now, in the present, when we refuse to give up on the possibility of human connection within ourselves, with potential allies, and with those whose words and actions create harm. This book fuels courage and provides tools to confront everyday forms of racism. It walks the reader through an effective, efficient model of dialogue that utilizes concepts of nonviolent communication and helps normalize talking about racism instead of treating it like a "third rail," strictly avoided or touched at one's peril.

Readers will
• Be empowered to identify what kind of antiracist conversation they want to have-for example, do they only want to be heard, or do they want to negotiate a change in policy?
• Learn how to engage in antiracist conversations whether they are the Actor (person who says or does something racist), the Receiver (the target of racism), or the Bystander.
• Learn how to notice the underlying needs and values that motivate all human actions and how those values can open up pathways to transformation.

Examples of antiracist conversations highlight different ways to initiate dialogue, raise awareness, speak one's truth, and make clear, doable requests or demands for change.

Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, a nonviolent communication practitioner, and an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Dr. Manning provides a model of antiracist dialogue with practical applications for individuals and organizations.

This powerful analysis explains how the bias toward wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet and explores what the foundations of a new economy could be.

This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy-the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:

• The Myth of Maximizing-No amount of wealth is ever enough.
• The Myth of Fiduciary Duty-Corporate managers' most sacred duty is to expand capital.
• The Myth of Corporate Governance-Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
• The Myth of the Income Statement-Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
• The Myth of Materiality-Profit-that is, material gain-alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
• The Myth of Takings-The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
• The Myth of the Free Market-There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital.

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

Drawing on the accumulated expertise of one of the world's top leadership development organizations, this is a comprehensive and accessible guide to effective leadership practice, written in fifty-two short, to-the-point chapters.

A disciplined leader is someone who identifies and focuses in on what author John Manning calls “the vital few”-that 20 percent of activities that will deliver 80 percent of the results. Manning should know. He is the President of Management Action Programs, Inc., a general management consulting firm that's helped tens of thousands of leaders accelerate their leadership and management performance. In this book he draws on MAP's fifty years of expertise to present a comprehensive guide to effective leadership practice in short, quick-read chapters-the format best suited to busy executives.

The Disciplined Leader offers fifty-two succinct lessons to help you hone in on your own vital few in three critical areas: mastering yourself, sharpening your leadership capabilities, and strengthening critical relationships with employees and customers. Each lesson comes with recommended tactics and practical “Now Get Going!” tips for implementing it, so there are literally hundreds of pieces of must-know, time-tested advice here. In each of the three critical areas, Manning emphasizes the vital role of professional and personal discipline, the essential ingredient in making each lesson work. This is a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts guide to leadership practice that's built to inspire action, drive change, and achieve results.

Discover a more agile, democratic, and effective model of leadership, from legendary business scholar Edgar Schein and Silicon Valley executive Peter Schein.

Legendary organizational scholar Edgar Schein and former Silicon Valley executive Peter Schein say leadership today requires that people transcend their hierarchical roles and relate to each other as human beings-what they call humble leadership. In such relationships new ideas can flow freely, mistakes can come to light immediately, and course corrections can be made in real time rather than “by committee” or by order of the lone heroic CEO.

This second edition includes three new chapters. Chapter 1 zeros-in on the Schein's actionable definition of leadership-relative to management and administration-focused on leading people toward “new and better.” Chapter 2 introduces the concept of “situational humility”-leaders now need to shift between several types of relationships to deal with the accelerating complexity of a supply-constrained, “quiet-quitting,” and “two-days-in-the-office” world. And Chapter 5 explains how to create a culture of humble leadership.

Illustrated with examples from healthcare, government, the military, tech, and more, this is a compact, accessible guide to a leadership paradigm far better suited to a world that demands fast, nimble response to change, and a workplace hungry for mutual respect and trust.

Find out how bold actions by visionary leaders can inspire powerful stories that drive culture change.

Data indicates that most strategic efforts to change a company's culture fail. So how do companies succeed in this endeavor?

A top strategy professor and two highly successful CEOs found that, in companies that had successfully changed their culture, leaders had taken dramatic actions that embodied the new cultural values. These actions inspired stories that became company legends, repeated in every department and handed on to new employees.

Through compiling and analyzing 150 stories from business leaders who have achieved change, they identified 6 attributes that every successful culture change story has in common:

1. The actions are authentic
2. They revolve around the CEO
3. They signal a clean break with the past, and a clear path to the future
4. They appeal to employee heads and hearts
5. They're often theatrical or dramatic
6. They're told, and re-told, throughout the organization

With extensive and inspiring examples of stories containing these attributes, the authors illustrate how readers can harness the power of stories within their company in order to change or create a winning culture to align with any strategy.

Avoid inadvertently offending or alienating anyone by following six straightforward communication guidelines developed by a no-nonsense linguistic anthropologist and business consultant.

In today's fast-moving and combative culture, language can feel like a minefield. Terms around gender, disability, race, sexuality and more are constantly evolving. Words that used to be acceptable can now get you “cancelled.” People are afraid of making embarrassing mistakes. Or sounding outdated or out of touch. Or not being as respectful as they intended.

But it's not as complicated as it might seem. Linguistic anthropologist Suzanne Wertheim offers six easy-to-understand principles to guide any communication-written or spoken-with anyone:

• Reflect reality
• Show respect
• Draw people in
• Incorporate other perspectives
• Prevent erasure
• Recognize pain points

This guide clarifies the challenges-and the solutions-to using "they/them," and demonstrates why "you guys" isn't as inclusive as many people think. If you follow the principles, you'll know not to ask a female coworker with a wedding ring about her husband-because she might be married to a woman. And you'll avoid writing things like "America was discovered in 1492," because that's just when Europeans found it.

Filled with real-world examples, high-impact word substitutions, and exercises that boost new skills, this book builds a foundational toolkit so people can evaluate what is and isn't inclusive language on their own.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann paves the way to saving our democracy.

In this powerful, sweeping history and analysis of American democracy, Thom Hartmann shows how democracy is the one form of governance most likely to produce peace and happiness among people.

With the violent exception of the Civil War, American democracy resisted the pressure to disintegrate into factionalism for nearly two centuries, and now our very system of democratic elections is at stake. So how do we save our democracy?

Hartmann's newest book in the celebrated Hidden History Series offers a clear call to action and a set of solutions with road maps for individuals and communities to follow to create a safer, more just society and a more equitable and prosperous economy.

Discover a powerful methodology for bringing communities together to uncover hidden assets and transform deep-rooted challenges.

Veteran community organizer Paul Born's work has contributed to lowering cancer rates in Maine, improving mental health for young people in Florida, and reducing poverty rates in Canada by 20 percent. In this much-needed new book, he shares stories of how he was able to catalyze local communities and guide them to make significant progress on seemingly intractable community problems.

Born has found that the secret to success is to organize and unite around a common agenda. This is not a list of topics, like a meeting agenda, nor a strategic plan. He offers a process for bringing leaders from businesses, human service organizations, and governments together with people who have a lived experience of a specific community problem. A common agenda is a statement of shared aspirations, a map of the assets in the community, and a road map for how to work together to make those aspirations a reality.

Part I of this book describes how to identify your community's readiness for change; form leadership, action, and strategy teams; create a common agenda; and establish plans for community engagement. Part II presents the approaches and skill sets needed to do the work described in part I.

Remarkably, enormous systemic problems such as climate change, poverty, disease, racism, housing, and many more issues can be best addressed at the local level. Communities can develop solutions tailored to their unique circumstances and can collaborate at a magnitude that can result in a truly transformative impact. This book shows how to make change happen.

Four innovation experts from the startup world, large enterprises, nonprofits, and academia come together to reveal the secret of uncovering authentic demand to build successful innovations.

Books on innovation mostly focus on how to nurture innovative cultures and brainstorm ideas. The Heart of Innovation is the first popular book to concretely delve into what innovations really are and how to create them. Many attempts at innovation fail because customers turn out to be indifferent. The key to success is to uncover unmet authentic demand; what customers cannot be indifferent to. Through fresh case studies, ranging from how SoulCycle revolutionized the fitness industry, to how IBM built an $8 billion business on the Web, to a single mother ending abuse in a slum in Africa, The Heart of Innovation explores how authentic demand is often hidden or taken for granted.

The first half of the book explores cases where people accidentally found their way to meeting an unmet authentic demand-or failed to. The second half of the book provides a field guide to methodically identifying and building products, services, and businesses around authentic demand.

At Georgia Tech, IBM, and elsewhere, the authors have worked with scores of startups and large companies, developing a unique methodology that unpacks the “black box” of authentic demand and shows innovators how to search for it, recognize it, and create situations for their customers that catalyze it. They explore the differences, and different challenges, to the three types of innovation-incremental improvement, company transformation, and radical “formative” innovation.

Authors Chanoff, Furst, Sabbah, and Wegman take innovators and people who work with them on a new journey through innovation. Their fresh case studies, from IBM's entry to the Web, to a single mother in a slum in Kenya, make The Heart of Innovation as obsessively readable as it is informative.

If customers are already pulling your innovation from your hands, you don't need this book. Otherwise, reach for The Heart of Innovation.

The iconic Henry Mintzberg provides a crystal-clear map to the forms and forces that shape all human organizations, synthesizing his fifty years of research.

We live in a world of organizations, from our birth in hospitals until our burial by funeral homes. In between, we are educated, employed, entertained, and exasperated by organizations. We had better understand how these strange beasts really work. But where can we go to find out?

Welcome to Understanding Organizations . . . Finally! For half a century, Mintzberg has been observing organizations, advising them, engaging them, and escaping them. Here he offers a masterful update and revision of his 1983 classic, Structure in Fives.

Believing there is one best way to structure organizations is the worst way to do so. A better place to start is by recognizing different species of organizations. Mintzberg identifies seven-personal enterprises, programmed machines, professional assemblies, project pioneers, and others. He explores these forms and the seven forces that drive them toward hybrids and across their life cycles.

You will find no better guide to the care and feeding of these extraordinarily varied and vital creatures than this book.

Creating justice-centered organizations is the next frontier in DEI. This book shows how to go beyond compliance to address harm, share power, and create equity.

Traditional DEI work has not succeeded at dismantling systems that perpetuate harm and exclude BIPOC groups. Proponents of DEI have put too much focus on HR solutions, such as increasing representation, and not enough emphasis on changing the deeper organizational systems that perpetuate inequities-in other words, on justice. DEIJ work diverges from traditional metrics-driven DEI work and requires a new approach to effectively dismantle power structures.

This thought-provoking, solutions-oriented book offers strategic advice on how to adopt a justice mindset, anticipate and address resistance, shift power dynamics, and create a psychologically safe organizational culture. Individual chapters provide pragmatic how-to guides to implementing justice-centered practices in recruitment and hiring, data collection and analysis, learning and development, marketing and advertising, procurement, philanthropy, and more.

DEIJ pioneer Mary-Frances Winters and her coauthors address some of the most significant aspects of adding a justice focus to diversity work, showing how to create a workplace culture where equity is not a checklist of performative actions but a lived reality.

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.

In developing the skills necessary to engage in Bold, Inclusive Conversations around polarizing topics, we can acknowledge that these subjects are complex, that there are no simple answers, and that it takes time and practice to learn how to do it well.

Politics, religion, race-we can't talk about topics like these at work, right? But in fact, these conversations are happening all the time, either in real life or virtually. And if they aren't handled effectively, they can become more polarizing and divisive, impacting productivity, engagement, retention, teamwork, and even employees' sense of safety in the workplace.

In this second edition of We Can't Talk about That at Work!, best-selling author Mary-Frances Winters and new coauthor Mareisha N. Reese of The Winters Group, Inc., provide fresh examples, updated research, and compelling insights. Featuring a new chapter on how two organizations have actualized the model for Bold, Inclusive Conversations as well as a discussion guide and updated glossary, this modern classic offers step-by-step guidance for conducting structured conversations around polarizing topics. Leaders and organizations can address sensitive subjects head on in a way that brings people together instead of driving them apart.

An expanded edition of the first practical, nonjudgmental handbook for dealing with microaggressions, featuring examples, sample scripts, action plans, a new discussion and activity guide, and up-to-date suggestions for creating a culture of belonging in the workplace.

Overt discrimination is relatively easy to spot. But the less obvious but more common actions that make people feel left out or stigmatized in our workplaces, commonly called microaggressions, can be hard to identify and even harder to deal with.

The author use a clearer, more accurate term: subtle acts of exclusion (SAE). After all, people generally aren't trying to be aggressive-usually they're trying to say something nice, learn more about a person, or be funny. Bring accused of aggression shuts the conversation down, when you want to open it up.

This book features examples, tools, sample scripts, and action plans to help readers prevent subtle acts of aggression from happening, or deal with them when they do. Updated throughout, this second edition features:

• A greatly expanded chapter on “intentional acts of inclusion”-actions for creating a sense of belonging.
• A discussion and activity guide ideal for book clubs and training sessions
• A new concluding chapter, Hope for Humanity

Whether in the form of stereotypes, assumptions, backhanded compliments, or objectification, SAEs are damaging to our coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. This book is your friendly, accessible, non-judgemental guide to creating a welcoming workplace.

The misuse of AI has led to wrongful arrests, denial of medical care, even genocide-this book offers 7 powerful principles that business can use now to end the harm.

AI holds incredible promise to improve virtually every aspect of our lives, but we can't ignore its risks, mishaps and misuses. Juliette Powell and Art Kleiner offer seven principles for ensuring that machine learning supports human flourishing. They draw on Powell's research at Columbia University and use a wealth of real-world examples.

Four principles relate to AI systems themselves. Human risk must be rigorously determined and consciously included in any design process. AI systems must be understandable and transparent to any observer, not just the engineers working on them. People must be allowed to protect and manage their personal data. The biases embedded in AI must be confronted and reduced.

The final three principles pertain to the organizations that create AI systems. There must be procedures in place to hold them accountable for negative consequences. Organizations need to be loosely structured so that problems in one area can be isolated and resolved before they spread and sabotage the whole system. Finally, there must be psychological safety and creative friction, so that anyone involved in software development can bring problems to light without fear of reprisal.

Powell and Kleiner explore how to implement each principle, citing current best practices, promising new developments, and sobering cautionary tales. Incorporating the perspectives of engineers, businesspeople, government officials, and social activists, this book will help us realize the unprecedented benefits and opportunities AI systems can provide.

How do we confront the ever-evolving economic hit man strategy—and China’s expanding global influence?

In this riveting third edition of the New York Times bestseller, former economic hit man (EHM) John Perkins exposes the next phase of a global power play that is reshaping nations and economies worldwide. With twelve explosive new chapters, Perkins reveals how China has adopted—and adapted—the EHM model, extending its reach across Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

Perkins delivers a rare insider account of a corrupt system that uses development loans and massive infrastructure deals to trap countries in crushing debt, extracting political leverage, strategic resources, and long-term control. Once associated primarily with US foreign policy, this strategy has entered a new era—one defined by intensifying global competition, staggering income inequality, and accelerating ecological destruction.

The result is what Perkins calls a “death economy”: a system that prioritizes short-term profits over people and planet.

But this book is not just an exposé—it’s a call to action. Perkins outlines a bold and practical path forward, urging a shift toward a “life economy” that values sustainability, shared prosperity, and genuine international cooperation. He challenges readers to recognize their own power in shaping a more just and regenerative global system.

The stakes have never been higher—and the opportunity for change has never been more urgent.

An Independent Press Awards Nonfiction Winner.

A compass for leaders lost in the paradoxical space between attention to people and attention to results-with Compassionate Accountability, you don't have to choose!

Sadly, compassion and accountability are too often in tension-leaders feel they have to pick one or the other. But solely prioritizing accountability can create toxic work environments that drive away good talent. On the other end of the spectrum, being too nice can compromise performance and productivity.

Finding harmony between compassion and accountability is the ultimate catalyst for improved results and a thriving workplace.

The solution is recognizing that compassion and accountability are not opposites. In fact, accountability is an element of compassion. Compassionate Accountability is the process of building connection while getting results. This book shows how this foundational mindset, philosophy, and way of living can lead to a thriving organizational culture. It covers such topics as these:

• Why you can't practice compassion without accountability
• How to turn on the three “switches” of the compassion mindset-and the predictable damaging consequences when they're turned off
• The key role Compassionate Accountability plays in a healthy leadership culture
• Six areas to focus on to start building your culture of Compassionate Accountability
• Five common barriers to compassion for leaders-and how to overcome them

Plus, readers will find real case examples of how organizations have adopted Compassionate Accountability, along with quizzes and self-assessments to help them learn and apply the concepts.

Leaders seeking a renewed sense of fulfillment in their roles and increased leadership impact will find inspiration, guidance, and a road map for cultural transformation.