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Making progress on complex, problematic situations requires a new approach to working together: transformative facilitation, a structured and creative process for removing the obstacles to fluid forward movement.
People today face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people across more divides. But the traditional ways of advancing-subsuming individual interests to the good of the whole, or providing total autonomy for all stakeholders to work out their own solution-aren't adequate to resolving these difficult situations.
Drawing on his experiences working with Black people and white people in post-apartheid in South Africa, First Nations people and the government in Canada, multiple stakeholders in war-torn Columbia, and many more, Kahane describes what he calls transformative facilitation. It combines the two approaches, cycling back and forth between them. The facilitator pays careful attention to what is going on in the group and decides which approach will work best at any given moment.
Adam Kahane describes precisely what the facilitator needs to watch for and how to manage the delicate balance between a focus on the collective and a focus on specific stakeholder needs. This book is for anyone who helps people collaborate in any setting. Not only does it offer a way to facilitate breakthroughs, it is a breakthrough in itself.
People today face increasing complexity and decreasing control. They need to work with more people across more divides. But the traditional ways of advancing-subsuming individual interests to the good of the whole, or providing total autonomy for all stakeholders to work out their own solution-aren't adequate to resolving these difficult situations.
Drawing on his experiences working with Black people and white people in post-apartheid in South Africa, First Nations people and the government in Canada, multiple stakeholders in war-torn Columbia, and many more, Kahane describes what he calls transformative facilitation. It combines the two approaches, cycling back and forth between them. The facilitator pays careful attention to what is going on in the group and decides which approach will work best at any given moment.
Adam Kahane describes precisely what the facilitator needs to watch for and how to manage the delicate balance between a focus on the collective and a focus on specific stakeholder needs. This book is for anyone who helps people collaborate in any setting. Not only does it offer a way to facilitate breakthroughs, it is a breakthrough in itself.
In FLIGHT PLAN, bestselling author Brian Tracy (author of Eat That Frog, over half a million copies sold) explains the real secret to success in business and personal life. Using the metaphor of an airplane trip from coast to coast, Tracy reveals the key ingredients that go into accomplishing any long-term, meaningful success.
How can people best develop their leadership skills to match their personality, to amplify their strengths, and to compensate for their weaknesses? This is the first book to answer this question with the latest version of the DiSC model of human behavior, which is one of the most widely used, most scientifically based, and most effective approaches to assessing and improving leadership styles and skills.
Is leadership a question of character or competence? Most leadership training separates these two factors, but Clark shows that anyone at any level can be a superior leader by balancing these dimensions.
Our leadership development programs teach necessary skills, yet we often train individuals who do not have the character to lead, which is a weakness because a leader with skills but no character can be dangerous. But a leader with character but no skills is useless. In this book, author, consultant, and entrepreneur Tim Clark shows how anyone can develop both character and competence.
Clark lays out his model of the “core” (character) and the “crust” (competence) to explain how we can rethink leadership. Most importantly, this model makes no allowance for job title, formal authority, or position. Almost anyone with the right character can learn competence, but Clark makes clear that the formula rarely works the other way around. For each aspect of leadership, he shares a series of mini lessons taken from his research and experience. Clark's book will be a key personal growth tool for anyone anywhere ready to step up, regardless of external labels or job description.
Our leadership development programs teach necessary skills, yet we often train individuals who do not have the character to lead, which is a weakness because a leader with skills but no character can be dangerous. But a leader with character but no skills is useless. In this book, author, consultant, and entrepreneur Tim Clark shows how anyone can develop both character and competence.
Clark lays out his model of the “core” (character) and the “crust” (competence) to explain how we can rethink leadership. Most importantly, this model makes no allowance for job title, formal authority, or position. Almost anyone with the right character can learn competence, but Clark makes clear that the formula rarely works the other way around. For each aspect of leadership, he shares a series of mini lessons taken from his research and experience. Clark's book will be a key personal growth tool for anyone anywhere ready to step up, regardless of external labels or job description.
In their much-anticipated sequel to the bestseller Ideas Are Free (over 50,000 copies sold), Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder explain that employee ideas are no longer a “nice-to-have” but rather the very lifeblood of competitiveness, culture, and strategy. Their new book shows how to align every part of the organization around generating and implementing ideas at the front line.
Change is difficult but essential-Esther Derby offers seven guidelines for change by attraction, an approach that draws people into the process so that instead of resisting change, they embrace it.
Organizational change efforts often fail because they focus on top-down methods that rely on coercion, rewards, or positional authority. Well-meaning leaders talk about driving change, as though employees are cattle or cars. At best, this results in compliance--not engagement or commitment. And at worst it simply doesn't work.
Drawing from her experience working with some of today's most successful companies, Esther Derby argues for what she calls change by attraction: giving space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to resist--there is only something they want to move toward. In this book Derby outlines her seven rules for change by attraction: Strive for Congruence; Honor the Past; Assess What Is; Pay Attention to Networks; Experiment; Guide, Don't Standardize; and Use Your Self.
Organizational change efforts often fail because they focus on top-down methods that rely on coercion, rewards, or positional authority. Well-meaning leaders talk about driving change, as though employees are cattle or cars. At best, this results in compliance--not engagement or commitment. And at worst it simply doesn't work.
Drawing from her experience working with some of today's most successful companies, Esther Derby argues for what she calls change by attraction: giving space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to resist--there is only something they want to move toward. In this book Derby outlines her seven rules for change by attraction: Strive for Congruence; Honor the Past; Assess What Is; Pay Attention to Networks; Experiment; Guide, Don't Standardize; and Use Your Self.
This book takes a systematic approach to learning that has been long revered in the education field (approximately 75,000 educators take the Kolb Learning Style Inventory each year) and makes it accessible to any reader who wants to be a lifelong learner.
Being a lifelong learner is one of the secrets to happiness, success, and personal fulfillment. This book awakens and enhances the power of learning that lies within us. David Kolb originated the concept of Experiential Learning-a systematic approach to understanding how we learn-and in this book he and Kay Peterson take what has up until now been a powerful professional development tool and make it accessible to a popular audience.
Peterson and Kolb offer deep, research-based insights into how we learn, what Kolb calls the Experiential Learning Cycle. Then they identify nine specific learning styles and guide you in identifying your dominant style. This will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, but they emphasize that flexibility is the key to lifelong learning. So they suggest ways you can expand your repertoire of learning styles. This book is an eye-opening read for anyone who wants to continue to grow and meet life challenges in a transformative way.
Being a lifelong learner is one of the secrets to happiness, success, and personal fulfillment. This book awakens and enhances the power of learning that lies within us. David Kolb originated the concept of Experiential Learning-a systematic approach to understanding how we learn-and in this book he and Kay Peterson take what has up until now been a powerful professional development tool and make it accessible to a popular audience.
Peterson and Kolb offer deep, research-based insights into how we learn, what Kolb calls the Experiential Learning Cycle. Then they identify nine specific learning styles and guide you in identifying your dominant style. This will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, but they emphasize that flexibility is the key to lifelong learning. So they suggest ways you can expand your repertoire of learning styles. This book is an eye-opening read for anyone who wants to continue to grow and meet life challenges in a transformative way.
Based on the bestselling A Complaint Is a Gift (over 275,000 copies sold), this accompanying workbook offers actionable tools that help individuals and organizations transform even the most extreme complaints into gifts that drive their business forward.
A Complaint Is a Gift introduced the revolutionary notion that customer complaints are not annoyances to be dodged, denied, or buried but are instead valuable pieces of feedback-not to mention your best bargain in market research. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints that are well received create customer loyalty.
Built to be interactive and immersive, the workbook teaches a set of practices, approaches, and tools that anyone can use to navigate fraught customer-facing interactions. It allows readers to practice Janelle Barlow's updated, more efficient three-step formula and enables employees to handle complaints with increased emotional resilience rather than taking them as personal attacks.
A Complaint Is a Gift Workbook is packed with the necessary tools to view and treat complaints as a source of innovative ideas that can transform your business.
A Complaint Is a Gift introduced the revolutionary notion that customer complaints are not annoyances to be dodged, denied, or buried but are instead valuable pieces of feedback-not to mention your best bargain in market research. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints that are well received create customer loyalty.
Built to be interactive and immersive, the workbook teaches a set of practices, approaches, and tools that anyone can use to navigate fraught customer-facing interactions. It allows readers to practice Janelle Barlow's updated, more efficient three-step formula and enables employees to handle complaints with increased emotional resilience rather than taking them as personal attacks.
A Complaint Is a Gift Workbook is packed with the necessary tools to view and treat complaints as a source of innovative ideas that can transform your business.
All team leaders worry and wonder about improving team performance. Using his experience leading the precision Thunderbirds aerobatic team, Venable shows that "closing the gaps" is the job of leaders and followers alike.
As a pilot, commander, and demonstration leader for the Thunderbirds, JV Venable gained key insights into team performance. Organizations need leaders who will minimize emotional friction and the gaps in alignment that slow teams down. But leaders can't do it all. To illustrate this, JV borrows a phenomenon common to racing and aerobatic teams alike: "drafting." When teams of bikes, cars, or jets are aligned and move in perfect formation, everyone shares the load of breaking resistance. But if the team is misaligned, or gaps between members grow by mere inches, the draft falters and the load falls back on the leader. Everybody loses.
JV's book gives teams and team leaders new tools for improving alignment and fostering closeness through commitment, loyalty, and trust. When trust is complete, team members move quickly to "close the gaps" and take on more of the load. This allows leaders to focus less on giving orders, and more on the road ahead.
Thunderbird pilots operate on a level of trust that allows them to sustain 18 inches between jets, which is all the more remarkable as the team experiences 50% turnover every year. JV's experience leading one of the most celebrated teams in the world makes for an unforgettable handbook. Can your team fly higher?
As a pilot, commander, and demonstration leader for the Thunderbirds, JV Venable gained key insights into team performance. Organizations need leaders who will minimize emotional friction and the gaps in alignment that slow teams down. But leaders can't do it all. To illustrate this, JV borrows a phenomenon common to racing and aerobatic teams alike: "drafting." When teams of bikes, cars, or jets are aligned and move in perfect formation, everyone shares the load of breaking resistance. But if the team is misaligned, or gaps between members grow by mere inches, the draft falters and the load falls back on the leader. Everybody loses.
JV's book gives teams and team leaders new tools for improving alignment and fostering closeness through commitment, loyalty, and trust. When trust is complete, team members move quickly to "close the gaps" and take on more of the load. This allows leaders to focus less on giving orders, and more on the road ahead.
Thunderbird pilots operate on a level of trust that allows them to sustain 18 inches between jets, which is all the more remarkable as the team experiences 50% turnover every year. JV's experience leading one of the most celebrated teams in the world makes for an unforgettable handbook. Can your team fly higher?
Why do teams settle for bad ideas or kill good ones? Popular consultant B. Kim Barnes's unique process of constructive debate shows how teams can create better ideas and outcomes by eliminating obstacles to honest discussion, creativity, and collaboration.
In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Honest opinions often show up in the “meeting after the meeting” because people fear conflict or repercussions. Bad ideas move forward and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results-financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes's process of Constructive Debate shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting heard. By using this tested model, any company or team can improve outcomes and bring out everyone's best ideas.
In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Honest opinions often show up in the “meeting after the meeting” because people fear conflict or repercussions. Bad ideas move forward and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results-financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes's process of Constructive Debate shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting heard. By using this tested model, any company or team can improve outcomes and bring out everyone's best ideas.
If you want to accomplish what's important to you, discipline and willpower won't get you where you need to go. In this iconoclastic new book, Susan Fowler reveals compelling insights and actions to help you master and maintain your motivation.
Susan Fowler makes the bold claim that not all motivation is created equal. Too often, workplaces, schools, and home environments set us up for suboptimal motivation-undermining our independence, relationships, and competence. In order to achieve optimal motivation, Fowler asks us to consider three simple scientific truths to help us achieve our goals and flourish:
1. Autonomy: we all need to perceive we have control over what happens in our lives
2. Relatedness: we all need to care about others and feel cared about without ulterior motives
3. Competence: we all need to feel we can meet everyday challenges and learn and grow each day
It's time we awakened to this truth: People don't want to be bored or disengaged. People appreciate meaningful challenges. People want to contribute, feel fulfilled, and grow and learn every day. No matter what our situation-or age-our basic nature is the desire to thrive. People long to experience the competence that comes from growing and learning every day. And now, thanks to the most groundbreaking research in the history of motivation, we know how to promote thriving.
Susan Fowler makes the bold claim that not all motivation is created equal. Too often, workplaces, schools, and home environments set us up for suboptimal motivation-undermining our independence, relationships, and competence. In order to achieve optimal motivation, Fowler asks us to consider three simple scientific truths to help us achieve our goals and flourish:
1. Autonomy: we all need to perceive we have control over what happens in our lives
2. Relatedness: we all need to care about others and feel cared about without ulterior motives
3. Competence: we all need to feel we can meet everyday challenges and learn and grow each day
It's time we awakened to this truth: People don't want to be bored or disengaged. People appreciate meaningful challenges. People want to contribute, feel fulfilled, and grow and learn every day. No matter what our situation-or age-our basic nature is the desire to thrive. People long to experience the competence that comes from growing and learning every day. And now, thanks to the most groundbreaking research in the history of motivation, we know how to promote thriving.
Employee engagement is shockingly low-but it's not an employee problem; it's a leadership problem. Bestselling author Mark Miller says it's up to leaders to create a workplace where their employees truly want to be-and he reveals four keys to doing it.
According to Gallup's 2017 report, only 33% of workers are engaged at work--and the numbers have been low for years. Leaders have tried and failed to address this critical problem. Based on Mark Miller's research, this book both simplifies and operationalizes the necessary behaviors to reverse this troubling trend. The missing link is realizing that the pandemic of low engagement is not a problem with the workers, it is a problem with the leaders.
In this charming fable, Blake, a young CEO, is convinced something is not quite right in his organization. Sales, profits, and customer satisfaction are barely improving, the competition is gaining on them and no one appears to care. And when he's honest with himself, he's lost his fire as well. He just can't put his finger on the problem. Blake seeks out his old friend and first mentor, Debbie Bruster. She sends Blake on a journey to discover the key to engaging leadership. By the end of his journey, Blake has discovered a powerful philosophy to guide his decisions in the future, and four drivers of engagement to implement today.
According to Gallup's 2017 report, only 33% of workers are engaged at work--and the numbers have been low for years. Leaders have tried and failed to address this critical problem. Based on Mark Miller's research, this book both simplifies and operationalizes the necessary behaviors to reverse this troubling trend. The missing link is realizing that the pandemic of low engagement is not a problem with the workers, it is a problem with the leaders.
In this charming fable, Blake, a young CEO, is convinced something is not quite right in his organization. Sales, profits, and customer satisfaction are barely improving, the competition is gaining on them and no one appears to care. And when he's honest with himself, he's lost his fire as well. He just can't put his finger on the problem. Blake seeks out his old friend and first mentor, Debbie Bruster. She sends Blake on a journey to discover the key to engaging leadership. By the end of his journey, Blake has discovered a powerful philosophy to guide his decisions in the future, and four drivers of engagement to implement today.
“A thoughtful, practical read about the future of the flexible office.”-Adam Grant
“Office shock” is an abrupt, unsettling change in where, when, how, and even why we work. In this visionary book, three prominent futurists argue that the office is both a place and a process-offices and officing-with a new range of choices, including what they call the emerging officeverse.
To see the possibilities with fresh eyes, we must use future-back thinking to ask, What is the purpose of your officing? What are the outcomes-especially regarding climate-you want to achieve? With whom do you want to office? How will you augment your intelligence? Where and when will you office? How will you create an agile office?
Traditional offices were often unfair, uncomfortable, uncreative, and unproductive. This book explores how to seize this great opportunity to transform office work.
“Office shock” is an abrupt, unsettling change in where, when, how, and even why we work. In this visionary book, three prominent futurists argue that the office is both a place and a process-offices and officing-with a new range of choices, including what they call the emerging officeverse.
To see the possibilities with fresh eyes, we must use future-back thinking to ask, What is the purpose of your officing? What are the outcomes-especially regarding climate-you want to achieve? With whom do you want to office? How will you augment your intelligence? Where and when will you office? How will you create an agile office?
Traditional offices were often unfair, uncomfortable, uncreative, and unproductive. This book explores how to seize this great opportunity to transform office work.
This new edition gives project managers practical methods and tools to make the right decisions while juggling multiple objectives, risks and uncertainties, and stakeholders.
This practical and pragmatic book will help you lead your company's IT professionals into alignment on supporting the real needs of your organization. Too often, IT projects are treated as entities isolated from larger corporate strategy-shiny new software replacing what is already there. In contrast, the goal of any technology project should be about changing the business to run differently and better. In this book, you will learn how to lead the culture change that can finally bring about a meaningful dialogue among business analysts and information technology professionals. Achieving this requires calling on seven critical disciplines: leadership, business design, technical architecture management, application development, organizational change management, implementation logistics, and project management.
Bob Lewis is an IT consultant and popular blogger, and Dave Kaiser brings years of experience as a chief information officer. Together they provide unique insight into the real-life challenges of IT functions and decision-making.
This practical and pragmatic book will help you lead your company's IT professionals into alignment on supporting the real needs of your organization. Too often, IT projects are treated as entities isolated from larger corporate strategy-shiny new software replacing what is already there. In contrast, the goal of any technology project should be about changing the business to run differently and better. In this book, you will learn how to lead the culture change that can finally bring about a meaningful dialogue among business analysts and information technology professionals. Achieving this requires calling on seven critical disciplines: leadership, business design, technical architecture management, application development, organizational change management, implementation logistics, and project management.
Bob Lewis is an IT consultant and popular blogger, and Dave Kaiser brings years of experience as a chief information officer. Together they provide unique insight into the real-life challenges of IT functions and decision-making.
