Workplace Culture

Ethical scandals are more and more in the public spotlight, and now millions of leaders and employees are required by law to undergo ethics training. In this book, the leading authority in the country on this topic provides practical tools to help readers sharpen their ethical sense, respond more intelligently to ethical issues, avoid ethical quagmires, and make better leadership and management decisions.

We are plagued today by a decline in ethical behavior. Scandals come so thick and fast that any attempt to list them is out of date in weeks if not days. But ethics isn't just a matter of headlines; it's a part of everyone's life. We're called on to make ethical decisions, large and small, all the time. This can be particularly tricky in the workplace, where our decisions can affect not just ourselves but coworkers, clients, customers, and even the entire company.

Existing ethics books are of limited use. They generally feature one author's opinions on very specific situations, which may well have nothing to do with the problems we're facing. And anyway, we don't need expert advice. Mark Pastin insists every one of us is qualified to resolve even the thorniest dilemmas ourselves, and in this profoundly practical book he gives us the tools to do just that.

Pastin argues that we all have an innate ethical--he calls it “the ethics eye.” The problem is, we're not aware we have it or how to develop it. Here he provides practical tools we can use to open up our ethics eye so that we can consistently see what is right and do it.

Make an Ethical Difference shows how to apply these tools using actual ethical dilemmas drawn from Pastin's decades of experience as an advisor to governments, corporations, and NGOs. The point is not to try to wedge your situation into one of the examples-it's to show how a tool that can be applied to any situation is used in one particular instance. And once you've reached a decision, Pastin offers strategies for building consensus with those who might disagree with you.

People often feel hopeless and skeptical that there is anything they as individuals can do to raise society's ethical level or resolve long-standing impasses. By using the unique tools in this book, we will gain confidence in our innate ethical sense and take actions that will elevate the ethical level of the groups and organizations we belong to and society as a whole.

The business world is desperate for leaders. Books and courses on leadership flood the market as companies search in vain for that one person who can make sense of their rapidly changing environment through assertiveness, charisma, and control. According to noted consultant Harrison Owen, our inability to locate such a person isn't the fault of our leaders, it's the fault of our expectations.
In today's world where chaos is "normal" and paradoxes can't be resolved, such old-style leaders no longer offer the solution. Today's world requires inspired leadership from all levels of the organization. "Inspired leadership" literally means in-spirited leadership, and this book explores the intimate connection between spirit and leadership it implies. It presents the radical notion that spirit is the most important ingredient of any organization and that leadership means opening space for that spirit to show up in powerful and productive ways.
The Spirit of Leadership lays out the New Rules of Leadership, rules which surprisingly turnOl organizations have always played by. For the keys to these new rules, the book turns to those who have always successfully operated apart from the levers of formal power and authority-women. Offering lessons from effective female strategies, it reveals the true functions of leadership: to evoke, grow, sustain, comfort, and raise the spirit.
Not to be confused with morale building, motivational techniques, or even the current fad of spirituality in business, The Spirit of Leadership digs deeper to show that, at its essence, leadership is our link to deep inner forces. It provides practical steps readers can use to uncover their own capacity for leadership in whatever position they find themselves, and to exercise that capacity both to enhance the performance of their organizations and to find their own fulfillment as complete human beings.

In this book, Lisa Haneberg presents in her trademark breezy style the fundamentals of coaching across generational differences. As multiple generations now work in close quarters to one another, a guide that highlights the skills and techniques needed to coach across generational differences is an invaluable resource.

Innovation within an organization is no longer sufficient; in a growing number of businesses, collaboration between companies and even industries is critical to success. A respected Harvard professor and a journalist team up to show how one creative startup exemplifies this new, intensely interactive form of leadership.


Niccolò Machiavelli famously wrote: “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

Constructing a new order of things, which Edmondson and Reynolds call “building the future,” is the focus of this book. It explores how to bring complex new systems into being, particularly systems that transform human experience and make the world more livable and sustainable. Intense collaboration across professions and industries is vital to come up with new ideas and innovative solutions. This requires practicing new forms of leadership that enable complex, team-based, whole-system innovation.

To reveal how pioneers build the future, Edmondson and Reynolds study a startup's long and innovative journey in the smart-city industry, which uses digital, information and communication technologies to enhance the quality and performance of urban services, They follow the leaders in this company, Living PlanIT, through cycles of hope, exhaustion, disillusionment, pragmatism, and renewal in creating the city of the future.

Are you asking for what you want or just taking what you are given? Chances are, it's the latter. Linda Swindling will teach you how to ask outrageously-and get the results you want.


Not getting what you want or living with what someone decides you deserve is exhausting and dispiriting. Linda Swindling provides principles, tactics, and strategies to help you show up powerfully to negotiate for the best deals at work and in life with confidence and integrity.

Asking outrageously does not mean being obnoxious or taking advantage of others. It means making a big ask-if you're going to ask anyway, why not be bold? In her former life as an attorney, Swindling found she was doing this all the time for her clients but was puzzled to realize she rarely did it for herself. She describes a straightforward, three-step process: (1) determine what you want, (2) approach those who have the authority to grant your wish, and (3) feel the fear and ask anyway. With a wealth of practical tools-checklists, suggested questions, case studies, and an online assessment so you can evaluate how well you ask now-this book helps you overcome blockages and inhibitions to reach breakthrough results and ask for more than you believe is possible.

Looking back to the ancient knowledge of the Indian scripture the Upanishads, Ram Nidumolu finds the core philosophy of sustainable leadership that's needed today. In this remarkable book, he uses a powerful parable from these scriptures to create a business vision that our world desperately needs.

Based on the bestseller Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, this workbook is a practical guide that helps readers ask the right questions for successful change.

In the bestselling classic Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, Marilee Adams introduces the Question Thinking method, which uses questions to help people make wiser choices, find solutions, and transform their lives. This standalone workbook puts the ideas of the original book into action and makes them easy to implement.

Along with summarizing the concepts in Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, the workbook includes plenty of tools, warm-up exercises, and learning scenarios that help readers apply Question Thinking in their personal and professional lives. Readers will learn how to use the Choice Map, identify and switch from a Judger to Learner mindset, and facilitate effective meetings and conversations. Thoroughly engaging, the book has a strong narrative voice that makes the reader feel a deep connection to the author and is designed to deliver tangible benefits.

Deliver razor-sharp points in all of your work communications! This updated classic enables you to captivate any audience, create meaningful impact, and make your words matter.

Every time you communicate, you're trying to move someone to feel, think, and act. You're trying to make a point. But very few communicators-regardless of their purpose or position-know their points, have true points, or even understand what a point is, rendering themselves pointless.

In this expanded second edition of the bestselling Get to the Point!, Joel Schwartzberg draws on his decades of experience as a strategic communications executive and public speaking coach to deliver a masterclass in high-impact communications for the digital age.

The new edition features a substantial amount of new content, including surprising research, real-world insight, and actionable tips that meet the modern needs of professionals up and down the organizational chart.

Using his trademark encouraging and often humorous voice, Schwartzberg helps you:

•Understand the Power of Points: Learn how points outperform topics, themes, and observations.
•Identify and Elevate Your Key Points: Create impactful speeches and slide presentations, emails and work chats, and Zoom and in-person meeting communications
•Distill Complex Ideas: Transform complicated concepts into crystal-clear messages.
•Boost Leadership Perceptions: Enhance impressions of competence and confidnce.
•Hook Audiences: Start and finish with compelling openings and closings.
•Tell Impactful Stories: Use stories, examples, and data in a way that highlights your points, not distract from them.
•Conquer Public Speaking Jitters: Use proven techniques to stay calm and in control
•Leverage AI Tools: Use artificial intelligence to support-not replace-effective communication
•Avoid Common Pitfalls: Sidestep the landmines that derail most communicators.

Whether you're a C-suite executive, salesperson, scientist, or student, Get to the Point! is a blueprint for evolving your written and spoken communications from informing to inspiring and pointless to powerful.

Don't just share ideas and make an impression. Champion your points and make a difference!

Most companies put values statements on their websites and in their annual reports, but as recent scandals and financial crises have shown, the practice of values is dying in organizations. Edward Freeman and Ellen Auster argue that the problem is values are imposed from the top down and offer a process for involving employees in values creation through ruthlessly honest organization-wide conversations.

Studies have consistently shown that employees are deeply cynical about corporate values statements. (Enron had a great one.) The reason, argue top scholars and consultants Edward Freeman and Ellen Auster, is that most companies' values are handed down from on high with no employee input. This practically invites disconnects between intention and reality-and the results are disengagement, lower productivity, less innovation, and even outright corruption.

Freeman and Auster here offer a process, Values through Conversation, that makes values living, dynamic, and evolving, not just static words nobody really believes in. Based on scrupulous research and experience, VTC gives employees a safe space to speak honestly and freely about what's happening in the organization, what is important to them, and what values would have real meaning and impact. The book focuses on four core values areas: introspective (who we are), historical (what we've stood for), connectedness (how we lead and work together), and aspirational (why we do what we do), offering questions, exercises, and examples for developing values in each area. VTC allows companies to explore and create values authentically, not impose them from without.

Picking up where he left off in his bestselling book Synchronicity (over 150,000 copies sold), Joseph Jaworski tells the story his and his colleagues' discovery of the ultimate Source of visionary leadership, transformation, and breakthrough innovation.

Offers a fundamentally new conceptual model for the human resource function to meet the challenges of the knowledge economy
Provides concrete suggestions for implementing this model, including numerous examples of effective practices from leading-edge firms
Synthesizes current thinking on knowledge management and intellectual capital and identifies how human resource management can make a value-added contribution
As more organizations recognize the importance of intellectual capital and knowledge management to competitive success, you would expect human resources (HR) to move to the forefront of organizational leadership. Yet, to the contrary, HR continues to be criticized for its operational and bureaucratic focus and its inability to keep up with changes in the environment.
Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy examines how human resource management must change if it is to remain a vital part of the organization. The Lengnick-Halls show how HR departments can move beyond a simple operational focus on attracting, selecting, developing, retaining, and using employees to a more strategic focus on managing human capital and managing knowledge.
The book identifies the most important features of the knowledge economy and details four new roles HR must adopt in order to help organizations succeed in this new environment: human capital steward, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid deployment specialist. Each of these roles is defined and described in detail using examples from leading-edge businesses. Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy describes how human resource management has evolved and continues to evolve to meet the increasing demands of organizations for sources of competitive advantage.

Current books on influence usually show how to get what YOU want-that's actually manipulation, according to Rob Jolles. Jolles paints the dividing line between influencing for good and manipulating for selfish reasons and shares the questions and trust exercises that make influence the key to creating positive change.

A much-needed revised edition of the only book that presents a multicultural leadership model integrating eight practices from African-American, American Indian, and Latino communities-an alternative to the heavily or exclusively Anglo-American based concepts of leadership presented by most leadership books. The first edition has sold 20,000 copies, was the winner of the International Latino Book Award, Best Business Book, and was on the Rocky Mountain News Bestseller list.

This career development tool kit is for people who want to take charge of their own professional futures.


This book is for employees who want to take charge of their own professional development. Many organizations have eliminated employee career development programs in favor of DIY efforts-and, even if this is not the case, there is more to be gained than lost in taking responsibility for your own career.

Elaine Biech offers practical guidelines for keeping your career on track and mapping it beyond your current job; overcoming personal roadblocks and finding your passion at work; and initiating talent conversations with your manager. Over 100 skills are outlined, including networking, handling pressure, prioritizing, showing political savvy, being a team player,, and selling your ideas. For each skill, Biech offers actions you can take immediately, ongoing practices, and long-term strategies.
Full of tools, tips, and resources, this book is written for the development of all employees. In addition, a short chapter offers advice to managers who want to bring out the best in their people.

The corporation has become the core institution of the modern world. Designed to seek profit and power, it has pursued both with endless tenacity, steadily bending the framework of law and even challenging the sovereign status of the state. Where did the corporation come from? How did it get so much power? What is its ultimate trajectory?
After he sold his successful computer book publishing business to a large corporation, Ted Nace felt increasingly driven to find answers to these questions. In Gangs of America he details the rise of corporate power in America through a series of fascinating stories, each organized around a different facet of the central question: "How did corporations get more rights than people?" Beginning with the origin of the corporation in medieval Great Britain, Nace traces both the events that shaped the evolution of corporate power and the colorful personalities who played major roles. Gangs of America is a uniquely accessible synthesis of the latest scholarly research, a compelling historical narrative, and a distinctive personal voice.