Social Change

Having served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, former business school dean and university president White has a surprising message-many directors don't understand their roles as stewards. Rather than seeing boards as mere vehicles for oversight and basic monitoring, he shows, in detail and with hundreds of real-world anecdotes, how boards can do better.

Drawing on Linda Stout's thirty years of experience training organizers, advocates, activists, and coalition groups, "Collective Visioning” provides a revolutionary guide to collaboration within and across diverse organizations.

The final guide in the acclaimed Five Inclusive Disciplines trilogy introduces an actionable 5-step framework for building truly equitable, high-performing teams and unlocking their collective power to deliver groundbreaking results.

In today's fast-paced, interconnected world, breakthroughs don't come from individuals-they come from teams. And not just any teams, but diverse and inclusive ones. With decades of experience and cutting-edge research, Andrés Tapia and Michel Buffet provide a revolutionary model that empowers teams to harness the full potential of diverse perspectives.

At the heart of the book are The 5 Disciplines, which guide teams to tap into their collective power:
• Connecting – to build affiliation
• Caring – to nurture psychological safety
• Synchronizing – to harness collective intelligence
• Cultural Dexterity – to integrate diverse perspectives
• Powersharing – to ensure equitable contributions

The result? Unparalleled creativity, engagement, and performance. Through insightful guidance, practical tools, and a proven framework, The 5 Disciplines of Inclusive Teams shows how teams can unlock their collective power to achieve breakthrough results, transforming not only their organizations but also the future.

Most individual shareholders do not realize that if they own as little as $2,000 worth of stock in a corporation they can challenge its destructive practices just like big institutional investors do. Andy Behar provides an accessible handbook that shows exactly how it's done.


Corporations are the most powerful entities on the planet. Unfortunately, many have had a long record of unprecedented and unbridled environmental degradation, social transgressions, and governance secrecy. Since by law they are beholden to their shareholders, some philanthropic trusts, pension funds, and other institutional investors have used shareholder advocacy to press for changes in corporate policy. But individual investors have largely been silent, thinking themselves powerless. They're not!

The Shareholder Action Guide is designed to inform, inspire, and instruct investors in how to exercise their power to effect meaningful change on critical issues including climate change, food toxicity, executive compensation, worker's rights, sustainability, and much more. Owners of as little as $2,000 worth of stock in a publicly traded corporation have the power to be heard. This book is a call to action designed to build a movement of active investors. Behar shows investors exactly how to stop abdicating their power and “own what they own.”

This powerful guide draws on strategies from Black resistance movements and merges historical wisdom with modern technology to combat the DEI backlash and build sustainable workplace equity in today’s hostile climate.

As the unprecedented backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion intensifies—with corporations dismantling initiatives, lawmakers passing anti-DEI legislation, and post–George Floyd promises abandoned—this tactical handbook arms advocates with revolutionary resistance strategies drawn from Black historical movements.

Dr. Janice Gassam Asare transforms centuries of Black resistance wisdom—from Underground Railroad networks to civil rights organizing tactics—into modern resistance plans, wielding ethical AI as a force multiplier to create sustainable change that outlasts corporate whims and political cycles.

Each chapter grounds modern workplace tactics in revolutionary approaches of more than twenty prominent Black historical figures, including the following:

• Ida B. Wells—Documentation techniques for workplace injustice inspired by her work
• Ella Baker and Fred Hampton—Coalition-building methods from the American civil rights movement
• Toni Morrison and Angela Davis—Narrative control strategies drawn from their celebrated writing

Whether you’re a DEI practitioner navigating corporate pushback, an employee experiencing equity rollbacks, or a leader committed to sustainable inclusion, this handbook provides battle-tested strategies for preserving workplace equity—even in hostile environments.

This isn’t just about surviving the backlash. It’s about reimagining workplaces where everyone thrives.

A timely sequel with breakthrough strategies from Jane Hyun, the author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, to help Asian Americans build their leadership and influence skills by embracing their cultural strengths and mapping an achievable career path.

How can Asian Americans lead and influence in a way that feels culturally authentic?

19 years after her groundbreaking book, global leadership strategist Jane Hyun unveils Leadership Toolkit for Asians – a guide for Asian Americans to build their capacity to lead and influence with a blueprint that is achievable and culturally relevant.

Asian Americans are the least likely demographic to be promoted or to have a mentor or sponsor– they make up 13% of the professional workforce, but less than 3% of executive positions. This dynamic hurts everyone, and the solution calls us to embrace our unique perspectives while organizations create a more fertile environment for growing Asian talent.

This toolkit-based on Hyun's work with thousands of leaders-is filled with self-assessments, checklists, quizzes, and stories of Asian American leaders to help you put ideas into action. It will show you how to leverage your life experiences to craft a bespoke leadership journey.

• Assess: Identify your goals, cultural values and assets
• Equip: Navigate effectively with people who are different from you, push back against stereotypes, strengthen your networks, apply a developmental model to help you get there
• Transform: Create your own model and engage advocates as you put it into practice

Take ownership of your work and unleash the power of agency in your organization!

To help give employees the power, influence, and voice necessary to truly excel in their workplace, organizational development experts Miller and Katz reveal the importance of agency and offer practical advice on how to achieve it.

With more knowledge workers entering the workplace, many are being stifled by traditional employee-manager relationships that hamper their ability to fully contribute and feel engaged at work. And in a constantly changing and competitive world of work, organizations must evolve to keep up with worker satisfaction or else face a decrease in performance and loss in talent.

The solution? Enabling your employees to exercise their individual agency in the workplace. Through an actionable roadmap that highlights common pitfalls and practical steps necessary for establishing a culture of greater agency, this book will provide individuals, teams, managers, and leaders with concrete ways to clarify their current level of agency and identifies specific actions they can take to exercise greater agency.

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.

The comprehensive and foundational text for critically analyzing and applying actionable DEI techniques and strategies, written by one of LinkedIn's most popular experts on DEI.

The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace cannot be understated. But when half-baked and under-developed strategies are implemented, they often do more harm than good, leading the very constituents they aim to support to dismiss DEI entirely.

DEI Deconstructed analyzes how current methods and “best practices” leave marginalized people feeling frustrated and unconvinced of their leaders' sincerity, and offers a roadmap that bridges the neatness of theory with the messiness of practice. Through embracing a pragmatic DEI approach drawing from cutting-edge research on organizational change, evidence-based practices, and incisive insights from a DEI strategist with experience working from the top-down and bottom-up alike, stakeholders at every level of an organization can become effective DEI changemakers. Nothing less than this is required to scale DEI from interpersonal teeth-pulling to true systemic change.

By utilizing an outcome-oriented understanding of DEI, along with a comprehensive foundation of actionable techniques, this no-nonsense guide will lay out the path for anyone with any background to becoming a more effective DEI practitioner, ally, and leader.

Burnout rising. Systems cracking. Talent leaving.

The solution: design for human dignity and full-person diversity—with this award-winning guide.

The Canary Code reorganizes work for thriving—starting with those first impacted by faulty systems, like canaries first sensing toxic air in coal mines. Neurodivergent talent (members of ADHD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, and learning-differences communities, and others who think and experience life differently) offer unique skills and exceptional work ethics, yet face employment barriers. Their unique abilities and perspectives are excluded, and their canary warnings about bullying, broken workflows, or ethical drift are ignored.

This practical guide helps CEOs, managers, HR leaders, and changemakers improve work for all. Drawing on science and lived experience, 2025 Thinkers50 Talent Award winner and internationally renowned management expert Ludmila Praslova shows how embracing neurodiversity creates healthier, more innovative systems. A neurodivergent organizational psychologist with over twenty-five years of global practice and research on inclusive organizations, she offers the following:

• A holistic framework of human differences (social, cognitive, emotional, physical)
• An intersectional, whole-person approach to neuroinclusion
• Dignity-based talent practices, from hiring to leadership development
• Global perspectives celebrating diverse neurodivergent voices
• Actionable strategies for change at any organizational level

Blending lived experience, academic rigor, and accessible writing, this groundbreaking work exemplifies neuroinclusion. It clearly indicates academic, applied, and personal content, supporting an individualized reader experience.

The comprehensive and foundational text for critically analyzing and applying actionable DEI techniques and strategies, written by one of LinkedIn's most popular experts on DEI.

The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace cannot be understated. But when half-baked and under-developed strategies are implemented, they often do more harm than good, leading the very constituents they aim to support to dismiss DEI entirely.

DEI Deconstructed analyzes how current methods and “best practices” leave marginalized people feeling frustrated and unconvinced of their leaders' sincerity, and offers a roadmap that bridges the neatness of theory with the messiness of practice. Through embracing a pragmatic DEI approach drawing from cutting-edge research on organizational change, evidence-based practices, and incisive insights from a DEI strategist with experience working from the top-down and bottom-up alike, stakeholders at every level of an organization can become effective DEI changemakers. Nothing less than this is required to scale DEI from interpersonal teeth-pulling to true systemic change.

By utilizing an outcome-oriented understanding of DEI, along with a comprehensive foundation of actionable techniques, this no-nonsense guide will lay out the path for anyone with any background to becoming a more effective DEI practitioner, ally, and leader.

Ranked #7 on Forbes.com's Top 10 Customer Experience Books of 2024

True inclusion happens when leaders stop relying on HR practitioners to own full responsibility for DEI initiatives. The small, intentional daily leadership practices in this book are the key to creating truly inclusive organizations.

Diversity and inclusion training and books have flooded the market, but the gap between what is promised and what is delivered is beginning to undermine the progress that has been made.

There are millions of people who strive to make a difference in workplace diversity and inclusion. And with this practical, leader-friendly framework, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders will equip readers with the actionable tools they've been searching for.

Leaders will learn:
● Why they are the key to inclusion
● Insights for the lifelong journey
● Successful practices they can start today
● And more

With the era of big DEI coming to an end, leaders will make big strides through small daily changes in their processes that lead to creating an inclusive workplace culture. With this toolkit of actions, activities, and tactics leaders will become the foundation of diversity and inclusion in their organization.

For too long, women have been told to confine themselves-physically, socially, and emotionally. Eliza VanCort says now is the time for women to stand tall, raise their voices, and claim their space.

Women fight the pressure to make themselves small in private, professional, and public spaces. VanCort, a teacher, consultant, and speaker, provides the necessary tools for women to rewrite the rules and create the stories of their choosing safely and without apology.

VanCort identifies the five key behaviors of all “Space-Claiming Queens”: use your voice and posture to project confidence and power, end self-sabotage, forge connections, neutralize unsafe spaces, and unite across differences. Through personal narrative, research, and actionable strategies, VanCort provides how-tos on combating challenges, such as antimentors and microaggressions, and gives advice for building up your “old girls” club, asking for what you're worth, and owning your space without apology.

Bold, fun, and enlightening, this book is birthed from VanCort's incredible story. Having a mother with schizophrenia forced VanCort to learn to be small and invisible at an early age, and suffering a traumatic brain injury as an adult required her to rethink communication from the ground up. Drawing on these experiences, and those of real women everywhere, VanCort empowers women to claim space for themselves and for their sisters with courage, empathy, and conviction because “when we rise together, we rise so much higher.”

This radical and rigorous rethinking of the traditional MBA program combines solid business principles with a commitment to environmental and social justice.

Many current and aspiring entrepreneurs are looking for a solid business education that also deeply aligns with their progressive values. Based on a course field-tested with over 500 students, this book fills that gap. It covers traditional topics such as business strategy and structure, finance, marketing, recruiting, and branding from a socially just and environmentally regenerative perspective. And it also touches on topics such as strategies to reverse climate change, nonviolent communication, self-managing organizations, locally self-reliant economies, racial justice, and more.

Traditional MBA programs are based on outdated principles that were developed during the Industrial Revolution-and they can be hugely expensive. Sustainable MBA programs, while laudable, are too incremental to make a sufficient impact. The Next Economy MBA is for entrepreneurs seeking to make business an active force for good. It draws on the authors' experience of working with over 300 social enterprises, from small organizations like Winona's Hemp and Heritage Farm to household names like Ben & Jerry's and Patagonia.

Our current economy, what the authors call the “Business as Usual Economy,” has created a massive wealth gap, a climate crisis, racial division, and needless housing, food, and healthcare shortages. This book shows how businesses can pave the way to a Next Economy that meets the basic needs of all people and restores and protects the planetary ecosystem.

Author of the bestselling DEI Deconstructed returns with a companion workbook filled with practical and actionable techniques for changemakers at all stages of their DEI journey.

The next step in your DEI journey starts here. Building on the knowledge base of DEI Deconstructed, Lily Zheng offers a workbook with 40 original exercises, worksheets, and other tools to help guide you and your organization toward more substantive and lasting DEI outcomes. Whether you're a new or veteran DEI practitioner looking to improve your practice, a leader looking to grow your leadership skills, or an advocate looking to play more powerful roles in movements, this book will give you the practical tools to do just that.

From self-work to organizational change, this workbook will upskill you with the core competencies required for impactful DEI work, such as – diagnosing inequity, working with constituents, building movements, creating psychological safety, stewarding inclusive cultures, resolving conflict and harm, and achieving systems change. Most importantly, it will give you valuable experience putting these skills into action. Each activity can stand on its own and is designed to stimulate valuable reflection and practice. Included are recommendations for targeted exercise roadmaps to supplement your learning journey. Taken all together, these exercises are a complete masterclass in any practitioner's DEI education.

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.

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.

A comprehensive new model for creating inclusive organizations, illuminating the vital role that inclusion plays in developing solutions to the critical social, environmental, and leadership challenges we face.

Most organizational DE&I efforts are focused on changing individual behaviors. But unless you change the organizational structures-the practices, processes, and systems that surround and support individual behaviors-your change efforts will not take root. Structural inclusion makes behavioral inclusion stick.

Andrés Tapia and Fayruz Kirtzman have found that five disciplines encompass the structures, mindsets, behaviors, and accountabilities required for creating inclusive organizations that will have transformational impact not only on their culture and people but also on society and the planet:

1: Manage the Risk: know how to deal with the legal, reputational, and cultural risks of either doing the wrong thing, or not doing the right thing.
2: Explode the Awareness: make sure leaders and employees are deeply informed about, and publicly committed to, the value of DE&I.
3: Maximize the Talent Systems: ensure that leaders and managers display inclusive behaviors when they manage and optimize talent.
4: Master the Logistics: integrate DE&I into operations in ways that lead to improved efficiencies.
5: See the Marketplace: expand to new consumer market segments, enhance cross culturally competent customer service, and form effective partnerships with overlooked communities.

The authors provide assessment tools and case studies of organizations that have implemented each discipline, highlighting what worked and what tripped them up. And they take a wider view, showing how inclusive organizations practicing the five disciplines can address what they call society's four vital tasks: diversify leadership, eradicate polarization, achieve justice, and save the planet. This is a complete guide to how to make your organization a systematic, process-oriented engineer of change for the full range of your stakeholders.