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Since the 1980s, Appreciative Inquiry has proven to be one of the most powerful and effective methods for organizational change. Now two top consultants show how leaders can adapt its principles to become more personally and professionally resilient.
Appreciative Inquiry is a venerable and widely used organizational change method that emphasizes identifying what's working and building on those strengths. It is the focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future that makes it so powerful. In answer to numerous requests from their clients, consultants and scholars McArthur-Blair and Cockell show how to apply the lessons of AI to build resilience in leaders. Every leader has moments of despair, that "dark night of the soul" where there seems to be no clear path forward. The authors' ALIVE process (Appreciate, Love and Inquire in order to Venture and Evolve) helps leaders forgive themselves for their own failures and those of others, focus on their strengths in times of despair, and amplify and grow those strengths so that they are better able to build hope in themselves and throughout their organizations. In times of rapid change like ours, building resilience is a vital leadership skill.
Appreciative Inquiry is a venerable and widely used organizational change method that emphasizes identifying what's working and building on those strengths. It is the focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future that makes it so powerful. In answer to numerous requests from their clients, consultants and scholars McArthur-Blair and Cockell show how to apply the lessons of AI to build resilience in leaders. Every leader has moments of despair, that "dark night of the soul" where there seems to be no clear path forward. The authors' ALIVE process (Appreciate, Love and Inquire in order to Venture and Evolve) helps leaders forgive themselves for their own failures and those of others, focus on their strengths in times of despair, and amplify and grow those strengths so that they are better able to build hope in themselves and throughout their organizations. In times of rapid change like ours, building resilience is a vital leadership skill.
For newcomers and upper management alike, leadership can be overwhelming and overcomplicated. By building core tenets of leadership around two key words for each chapter, Bill Treasurer simplifies the equation.
Congratulations, new leader! You've joined the ranks during an exceptionally complicated time.
Our current workplace climate is fraught with political divisions, economic disparities, and ever-shifting social dynamics. Leaders are managing remote teams across larger geographic distances and facing new roadblocks to onboarding, giving performance feedback, and nurturing healthy relationships.
Leadership Two Words at a Time speaks directly to the plight of the new leader and is divided into three parts: Leading Yourself, Leading People, and Leading Work. Rather than overintellectualize the practice, Bill Treasurer breaks up the concept into essential and understandable learning nuggets-summed up by two-word headers-that provide the practical guidance and support that leaders often don't get. The result is time-tested wisdom that new leaders can grasp immediately and implement easily-and, with a little practice, master completely. Consider it a personal leadership playbook.
This book gives you the basic building blocks to gain both competence and confidence, take on greater responsibility, and learn what it takes to be and stay a leader.
Congratulations, new leader! You've joined the ranks during an exceptionally complicated time.
Our current workplace climate is fraught with political divisions, economic disparities, and ever-shifting social dynamics. Leaders are managing remote teams across larger geographic distances and facing new roadblocks to onboarding, giving performance feedback, and nurturing healthy relationships.
Leadership Two Words at a Time speaks directly to the plight of the new leader and is divided into three parts: Leading Yourself, Leading People, and Leading Work. Rather than overintellectualize the practice, Bill Treasurer breaks up the concept into essential and understandable learning nuggets-summed up by two-word headers-that provide the practical guidance and support that leaders often don't get. The result is time-tested wisdom that new leaders can grasp immediately and implement easily-and, with a little practice, master completely. Consider it a personal leadership playbook.
This book gives you the basic building blocks to gain both competence and confidence, take on greater responsibility, and learn what it takes to be and stay a leader.
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.
To help large and small businesses repair our broken talent pipeline, Ed Gordon offers counter-intuitive, bottom-up solutions through which corporations partner with NGOs, educational groups, local chambers of commerce and other stakeholders to rebuild the wellspring.
Knowledge Café is a process for creating, exchanging, and optimizing knowledge, whether in-person or virtual. This popular and practical knowledge management tool supports a culture where projects and innovation thrive.
So many project workers are overloaded with useless information and starving for the information they really need. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important and underrated ingredient in successful project management. The Knowledge Café makes KM best practices accessible to project managers everywhere.
Human knowledge is the intellectual capital of organizations, and the consequences for losing it are dire. Knowledge Café is a current, cross-generational, systematic concept designed to retain and manage relevant knowledge--stopping the unchecked "brain drain" that can occur when knowledge is hoarded. This method is as simple to use as a corner café and works in both virtual and real-life settings.
Knowledge Café will help you combine your institutional knowledge from your experienced workers with the fresh ideas bubbling up from the front lines. If our projects (and organizations) are to succeed, we absolutely must make the shift from knowledge hoarding to knowledge sharing. You can't afford to lose the vital institutional wisdom you've built up every time there is turnover in your workforce. Knowledge Café is the solution.
So many project workers are overloaded with useless information and starving for the information they really need. Knowledge Management (KM) is an important and underrated ingredient in successful project management. The Knowledge Café makes KM best practices accessible to project managers everywhere.
Human knowledge is the intellectual capital of organizations, and the consequences for losing it are dire. Knowledge Café is a current, cross-generational, systematic concept designed to retain and manage relevant knowledge--stopping the unchecked "brain drain" that can occur when knowledge is hoarded. This method is as simple to use as a corner café and works in both virtual and real-life settings.
Knowledge Café will help you combine your institutional knowledge from your experienced workers with the fresh ideas bubbling up from the front lines. If our projects (and organizations) are to succeed, we absolutely must make the shift from knowledge hoarding to knowledge sharing. You can't afford to lose the vital institutional wisdom you've built up every time there is turnover in your workforce. Knowledge Café is the solution.
Build organizations where employees feel truly safe to learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo.
The proven practical guide to psychological safety is now expanded with updated research and powerful new frameworks and tools.
Psychological safety—the belief that you can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation—is crucial for high-performing teams and innovative organizations. This revised and expanded edition of Timothy Clark's groundbreaking framework provides leaders with a research-backed roadmap through four distinct stages that enable individuals to feel safe, valued, and empowered.
The four stages build progressively:
Leaders will learn to banish fear, create performance-based accountability, and build environments where people thrive beyond expectations.
The proven practical guide to psychological safety is now expanded with updated research and powerful new frameworks and tools.
Psychological safety—the belief that you can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation—is crucial for high-performing teams and innovative organizations. This revised and expanded edition of Timothy Clark's groundbreaking framework provides leaders with a research-backed roadmap through four distinct stages that enable individuals to feel safe, valued, and empowered.
The four stages build progressively:
- Inclusion Safety (feeling included and accepted),
- Learner Safety (feeling safe to learn and ask questions),
- Contributor Safety (feeling safe to contribute and participate), and
- Challenger Safety (feeling safe to challenge the status quo and speak truth to power).
Leaders will learn to banish fear, create performance-based accountability, and build environments where people thrive beyond expectations.
Stop running toward someone else’s definition of success, and start intentionally shaping your own. This prequel to Aesop’s famous tortoise and hare fable shows exhausted professionals how to shift from chasing external validation to creating internal meaning and alignment.
Stop chasing visibility. Start creating meaning.
In today’s high-pressure workplace, professionals are depleted from constantly proving themselves to others—yet struggling to find genuine satisfaction in their work. What if the breakthrough isn’t working harder within the system but instead reimagining what success means to you?
Stop Chasing, Start Creating reveals the untold story of Tano the tortoise before his famous race with the hare. In this prequel to the beloved Aesop’s fable, we discover that Tano wasn’t always the steady, purposeful creature we know. He once chased visibility, approval, and validation just like the rest of us—until a moment of awakening changed everything.
Through Tano’s journey from external pressure to internal clarity, readers discover the crucial difference between chasing meaning and creating it. Grounded in motivation science, this framework shifts professionals from extrinsic motivation (external rewards, recognition, and belonging) to intrinsic motivation (purpose, contribution, and alignment).
Perfect for burned-out professionals in healthcare, education, nonprofit management, and other purpose-driven fields, this story-first approach offers the metaphor-rich reflection modern workers crave without feeling like another productivity manual.
Stop chasing visibility. Start creating meaning.
In today’s high-pressure workplace, professionals are depleted from constantly proving themselves to others—yet struggling to find genuine satisfaction in their work. What if the breakthrough isn’t working harder within the system but instead reimagining what success means to you?
Stop Chasing, Start Creating reveals the untold story of Tano the tortoise before his famous race with the hare. In this prequel to the beloved Aesop’s fable, we discover that Tano wasn’t always the steady, purposeful creature we know. He once chased visibility, approval, and validation just like the rest of us—until a moment of awakening changed everything.
Through Tano’s journey from external pressure to internal clarity, readers discover the crucial difference between chasing meaning and creating it. Grounded in motivation science, this framework shifts professionals from extrinsic motivation (external rewards, recognition, and belonging) to intrinsic motivation (purpose, contribution, and alignment).
Perfect for burned-out professionals in healthcare, education, nonprofit management, and other purpose-driven fields, this story-first approach offers the metaphor-rich reflection modern workers crave without feeling like another productivity manual.
This book-the first to treat workplace culture like a garden instead of a construction project-offers the proven framework that transforms toxic environments into thriving ecosystems where all talent flourishes.
Organizations fail when they treat culture like a construction project. But they thrive when they treat it like a garden, cultivating conditions for growth rather than engineering behavior through rigid blueprints.
Award-winning consultant Abi Adamson introduces the SERN framework-Soil, Exposure, Roots, Nourishment-to guide leaders toward sustainable cultural transformation. Through compelling stories from her work redesigning cultures at Spotify, Sony Music, and the Gates Foundation, Adamson shows how to make the following positive changes:
• Detoxify organizational foundations
• Ensure that diverse perspectives get real influence
• Create authentic belonging
• Distribute resources equitably
Organizations using this approach report dramatic improvements in psychological safety, authentic engagement, and the ability to retain diverse talent pools. Unlike traditional culture initiatives focused on compliance and conformity, this framework helps leaders identify toxic environmental conditions, move beyond demographic headcounts to actual inclusion, enable people to contribute authentically, and recognize that equal treatment in unequal systems produces unequal outcomes.
Set during a pivotal moment when workplace culture programs are being dismantled or reimagined, this practical guide offers leaders a sustainable alternative-treating culture as a living ecosystem that requires ongoing cultivation rather than a one-time structural fix.
Organizations fail when they treat culture like a construction project. But they thrive when they treat it like a garden, cultivating conditions for growth rather than engineering behavior through rigid blueprints.
Award-winning consultant Abi Adamson introduces the SERN framework-Soil, Exposure, Roots, Nourishment-to guide leaders toward sustainable cultural transformation. Through compelling stories from her work redesigning cultures at Spotify, Sony Music, and the Gates Foundation, Adamson shows how to make the following positive changes:
• Detoxify organizational foundations
• Ensure that diverse perspectives get real influence
• Create authentic belonging
• Distribute resources equitably
Organizations using this approach report dramatic improvements in psychological safety, authentic engagement, and the ability to retain diverse talent pools. Unlike traditional culture initiatives focused on compliance and conformity, this framework helps leaders identify toxic environmental conditions, move beyond demographic headcounts to actual inclusion, enable people to contribute authentically, and recognize that equal treatment in unequal systems produces unequal outcomes.
Set during a pivotal moment when workplace culture programs are being dismantled or reimagined, this practical guide offers leaders a sustainable alternative-treating culture as a living ecosystem that requires ongoing cultivation rather than a one-time structural fix.
This manager's guide shows how to recognize and eliminate the leadership behaviors that kill morale, crush productivity, and drive top talent away.
The workplace is broken—and managers are the problem. Through coaching hundreds of frustrated employees, Tanya Uyigue has identified the toxic management patterns driving people to quit. Employees are exhausted by leaders who micromanage their every move, disappear for months without check-ins, or create environments where speaking up feels dangerous.
The truth is, your team isn't telling you what's actually wrong because they're afraid of being retaliated against, dismissed, or labeled as “difficult.” But their silence is costing you talent, productivity, and profitability.
What Your Team Won't Tell You exposes the seven destructive manager archetypes that poison workplace culture, and each chapter provides specific, actionable strategies to transform these toxic patterns into leadership strengths. When you create an environment where employees feel heard, valued, and empowered, retention soars, productivity increases, and engagement becomes authentic-not forced.
The workplace is broken—and managers are the problem. Through coaching hundreds of frustrated employees, Tanya Uyigue has identified the toxic management patterns driving people to quit. Employees are exhausted by leaders who micromanage their every move, disappear for months without check-ins, or create environments where speaking up feels dangerous.
The truth is, your team isn't telling you what's actually wrong because they're afraid of being retaliated against, dismissed, or labeled as “difficult.” But their silence is costing you talent, productivity, and profitability.
What Your Team Won't Tell You exposes the seven destructive manager archetypes that poison workplace culture, and each chapter provides specific, actionable strategies to transform these toxic patterns into leadership strengths. When you create an environment where employees feel heard, valued, and empowered, retention soars, productivity increases, and engagement becomes authentic-not forced.