In this short, easy-to-read fable, bestselling author Mark Miller reveals five habits that underlie leadership character and that determine a leader's success - and he teaches leaders how to develop these habits.

Innovative, original ideas are a company's most powerful competitive advantage. Nathan Mhyrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft, has said that a great employee is worth 1,000 times more than an average one simply because of his or her ideas. In Ideaship, the sequel to his bestselling book, How to Get Ideas, Jack Foster shifts from how individuals spark their new ideas to how to unleash the creative genius of an entire organization.
To create an idea-prone workforce, Foster proposes a totally new concept of leadership: "ideaship." Leaders shouldn't be spending their time obsessing over profits or sales or quality or service. Instead, they should devote most of their energies to making the office a place where creative ideas flow, where the workforce truly believes in its ability to brilliantly solve any problem put before it. Above all, where it's fun to work.
With energy and humor, Foster draws on over thirty-five years as creative director of major advertising agencies-organizations whose only purpose is to constantly generate ideas-to offer dozens of fun, fast, often surprising nuggets of practical advice on how to create an environment where innovation and fresh thinking thrive. He reveals why you should only hire people you like, insist employees take vacations whether they want to or not, why efficiency is sometimes inefficient, and how sometimes you can accomplish more by playing the fool instead of the capital L "Leader."
Ideaship spells out proven ways to encourage creativity, simply and clearly and cogently, without a lot of charts and graphs and formulas and acronyms and statistics and fillers. It flips traditional leadership on its head and shows how simple acts of compassion, trust, and generosity of spirit, as well as some seemingly zany actions, can unleash unexpected, vital bursts of creativity.

The field of positive leadership continues to expand. Building on the practical tools and philosophy in Kim Cameron's books (including Positive Leadership, over 30,000 copies sold), this edited volume brings the best research from fourteen scholars and translates it into plain English for organizations.

Bestselling author, trainer, and prolific Blanchard keynote speaker Vicki Halsey offers readers a tried and tested model for designing teaching experiences that bring out learners' natural brilliance and make learning stick.

Master creative thinking in the AI age with practical tools that blend imagination and discipline for better innovation in this updated, award-winning business bestseller.

Now updated with 20 percent new content, this Porchlight Business Book of the Year returns with all-new case studies and a groundbreaking chapter on creative partnerships with AI and emerging technologies. Natalie Nixon demonstrates that humans are hardwired for creativity—a competency anyone can develop by balancing wonder (awe, audacity, and curiosity) with rigor (discipline, skill-building, and attention to detail).

Drawing on interviews with professionals across diverse industries—from farming to medicine to technology—Nixon reveals how inquiry, improvisation, and intuition enhance creative capacity in every kind of work. This second edition features fresh success stories from resourceful businesses that have mastered the delicate dance between human imagination and artificial intelligence in a rapidly changing world.

Combining practical creativity tools with illuminating stories of innovative people and organizations, this book serves as a provocation, an inspiration, and an invitation to unleash the innate creativity within each of us. Nixon offers a dynamic approach to adaptation and innovation that allows the freedom to access our full human potential—even as technology continues to reshape how we work. This essential guide helps anyone cultivate the creative thinking needed to thrive in today’s complex business landscape.

The most successful organizations add a healthy dose of play into their daily or weekly routines. In fact, research has shown that when people actually enjoy their jobs they're more creative, more productive, and more committed to doing their jobs well. Companies like the Colorado Health Sciences Center and Southwest Airlines attest to the positive effect of fun at work. Both trace increased job satisfaction and decreased employee downtime to concerted efforts to make fun a part of their corporate identity.
With 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work , Dave Hemsath and Leslie Yerkes offer a complete resource anyone can use to create a dynamic workplace that encourages and inspires fun-and-games camaraderie among employees. It combines thorough research with practical hands-on tools, and features hundreds of ideas real companies have used to lighten up the workplace.
The authors surveyed over 1,500 individuals from organizations around the world and received enthusiastic responses that yielded a broad range of ways to spice up the work day. The suggestions in 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work include humorous training films, dress-up and dress-down days, silly job titles, awards for people who go "above and beyond the call of duty" when a coworker is on vacation, "ritual dances" at the completion of a project, a fashion show when it's time to choose a new uniform-even foam dart fights after meetings.
Hemsath and Yerkes offer ideas for instilling an element of fun into various business functions-from office environment, to meetings, training, communication, hiring, recognition, team building, and "simple acts of fun." In addition to the fun ideas in these chapters, a series of side bars, called "fun facts," "fun quotes," and "fun resources" offer humorous and interesting facts and statements about the effects of fun on workplace performance and job satisfaction, and direct readers to useful sources for products and services to enhance workplace "funativity."
Hemsath and Yerkes show that creating a fun atmosphere in the workplace increases productivity and morale and has a positive effect on the bottom line. Most importantly, they give readers the tools to have more fun at work, no matter where they work, or what position they're in.

Female partnerships are deeply rewarding and a powerful way for women to advance in a world still suffering from gender bias. So why don't women work together more often? Polk and Chotas address the myths and fears that keep women from partnering and offer expert advice on how to make female partnerships thrive.

In this inspiring and practical guide for achieving better decision-making and management, Linda Tarr-Whelan shows how having women account for at least 30% of representation at decision-making tables marks the tipping point for positive organizational and societal change, and she offers readers concrete tools and resources for reaching that target.

Entrepreneur and executive development expert Mike Dulworth's THE CONNECT EFFECT provides readers with a simple framework and practical tools for developing that crucial competitive advantage: a high-quality personal, professional/organizational and virtual network.

Former Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese shares powerful lessons learned from negotiating and collaborating with others who disagreed and even despised him. Takeaway: you can accomplish wonders-like achieving marriage equality-if you can use your anger strategically and channel it in the direction of the greater good.


Under Joe Solmonese's leadership, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT rights organization, became the model other organizations look toward to create effective social and political change. Ranked among the National Journal's top five most effective groups, HRC was instrumental in passing landmark national legislation such as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the passage of marriage equality in eight states.

Beginning with a moving story of working with Matthew Sheppard's mother Virginia in passing the hate crimes bill that bears Matthew's name, Solmonese shows how he discovere that channeled anger can drive a commitment to change. Mrs. Sheppard taught him to keep his unquestionably justifiable anger from blinding him in the moment, and instead use it strategically, in the service of a larger purpose. In this book he uses the lessons he learned during tenure at HRC, as well as his previous position as the CEO of Emily's List, and his current work as a corporate consultant, to teach readers how they can affect real, lasting change in society and at work. His often-surprising lessons may not be entirely expected or celebrated by all groups, e.g., don't shame your enemies, find allies wherever you can, and ask for the doable, not the impossible. Most striking in this book are the stories of Joe's ability to draw some kind of win-however small-from seeming enemies. Many of these former enemies became stalwart allies over time. Joe's book is more concerned with the “long game” of changing culture and achieving long-term goals, not the “short game” of enforcing purity or litmus tests.

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 the seven 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
• Equip their people
• Leverage in-person experiences

Trust at a Distance addresses common remote-work challenges, such as unclear communication, lack of information, and weakened relationships. This guide is perfect for leaders navigating hybrid and remote teams. By the time readers are finished reading, they will be inspired and confident that trust really can be built at a distance!

Bestselling author and renowned futurist Bob Johansen combines with business innovation guru Karl Ronn to produce a visionary book on the biggest innovation opportunity in history: giving away what you have to learn how to make money in new ways. They call it the reciprocity advantage.

The bestselling coauthor of The Serving Leader (over 90,000 copies sold) provides a roadmap that all leaders can use to create and align entire organizations around an inspiring purpose that drives superior performance.

Bestselling author Beverly Kaye (Love 'Em or Lose 'Em-700,000 copies sold), joins coauthors Lynn Cowart and Lindy Williams to deliver a revolutionary and motivational guide to rethinking career mobility as a kaleidoscope, not a ladder.


Over and over, managers hear employees asking, “Do I have a future here?” Many managers and leaders struggle with the fact that they simply cannot deliver vertical moves or promotions for every employee who wants or even deserves that option.

Up Is Not the Only Way introduces the concept of flexibility and agility and the multiple ways employees can grow, learn, and build a career as the way to solve the problems of immobility and retention. Managers need the tools for building rich dialogue about career mobility and dynamic workplaces that demand resilient talent at all levels. The key is communicating effectively and comfortably around the topic of career options that span a spectrum of employee engagement. From those who are ready and want to move to those who are satisfied to stay right where they are, and even for those who have no idea what the next opportunity might be, this book provides a way through these tough conversations. Up Is Not the Only Way distills the solutions to complex issues involving engagement and retention in a simple and practical way.