Zenobia is a former industry giant bedeviled by paralyzing hierarchies, grossly inadequate communications, and distrust. It is a broken place, a fortress doomed to collapse upon itself. Enter Moira, a young woman responding to a cryptic help wanted ad that asks her to report to room 133A – but there are no directions, no sign of the room, and nobody seems inclined to help her find it. As she moves through the Zenobian maze, Moira makes some surprising discoveries about the power of teamwork and the qualities that define true leaders. Her story is interwoven with that of a long-time Zenobia employee named Gallagher, who watches and comments as Moira tries to find the ever-elusive room 133A. Zenobia reminds us that imagination is one of the most powerful, and most overlooked, elements of business success. Like Moira, those who succeed see what is not yet there, keep faith in their vision, take risks to achieve it, and inspire others to join them. This unusual book will move readers to take a fresh and fearless look at their own organizations and to remember that leadership is not determined by title or position. Rather, as the want ad Moira answers puts it, “Creative persistence a prerequisite. A desire for the extraordinary an absolute must.”

Unlikely as it may seem, sprinters who relax run faster. In fact, simultaneously feeling both aggressive and relaxed is essential to their peak performance. Similar, seemingly contradictory patterns abound: Bill Gates's success is built on both his vision and his practicality; former New York governor Mario Cuomo is both passionate and intellectual, action-oriented and reflective.

After more than fifteen years of studying thousands of detailed examples of people performing at their best, Fletcher and Olwyler have found that individuals are always paradoxical when performing optimally and that each person has a particular combination of contradictory and paradoxical qualities that work together to produce that person's best work.

In Paradoxical Thinking they provide a 5-step process to help you identify your own core personal contradictions, and harness them to achieve outstanding results at work and in your personal life.

You can probably recall a difficult situation in which you performed surprisingly well-and being mystified after the fact as to exactly how you achieved such a high level of performance. Paradoxical Thinking takes the mystery and unpredictability out of performing at your peak by providing an easy-to-learn method of understanding and maximizing your personal success.

Based on years of real-world road testing with individuals and corporate leaders, the authors' five-step "Paradoxical Thinking" method helps you consciously bring together the paradoxical sides of yourself to achieve outstanding results individually, on teams, and in organizations. Using an important problem or goal you are currently facing, Paradoxical Thinking will help you:

o Identify your own core personal paradox
o Redefine your problem or goal so that it can be approached paradoxically
o Monitor how well you are utilizing your personal paradox
o Take positive action steps to overcome roadblocks and banish cycles of ineffectiveness of your paradoxical qualities and tools for using-instead of fighting-them, you can realize your potential, maximize your inherent strengths, and consistently achieve the results you seek in every aspect of your personal and professional life.

• Presents a powerful five-step process for reconciling contradictory personal ideas and capabilities to achieve peak performance on the job and in everyday life
• Provides numerous real-life examples of how the Paradoxical Thinking process helps individuals bring together the paradoxical sides of themselves to achieve outstanding results individually, on teams, and in organizations
• From the author of Patterns of High Performance

Facing, as we do today, chaotic, organic, continuous, and inevetiable change-both in our organizations and in our communities-the challenge facing leaders, consultants, and other change agents is to discover new ways to focus our creativity, ingenuity, and energy to proactively create the future we want.

Grounded in sound change theory and a thirty-year history of successful practice, Preferred Futuring details a change model that is radically different from the "medical model" of old (diagnose what's wrong and try to fix it). In contrast, this proven process mobilizes a whole human system to envision the future they want, then develop strategies to get there. Preferred Futuring provides the practical tools needed to develop clear action plans that link vision to action and spirit, with bottom-line results.

A lifetime of deeply rooted connections in the field of organization development makes Larry Lippitt eminently qualified to bring together this never-before-told story of Preferred Futuring-the powerful tool for bringing deeper meaning and spirit into the workplace and creating the future we desire. For the first time, Lippitt fully explores the underlying research, theory, and philosophy of this futuring model , and details the tools to make it work for you.

Numerous real-life examples illustrate the practical applications of the process and how it can be used successfully as a leadership tool, a management and supervisory tool, a process improvement tool, an organization alignment tool, or a tool for restructuring. In large and small organizations-from Fortune 500 companies and health care organizations to school systems and city governments-Preferred Futuring involves everyone directly in whole system, rapid, strategic change, process improvement, and even personal planning.

For organization redesign and transformation, and as a necessary foundation for strategic planning and action, Lippitt details the three critical phases of this whole system change process:
o define your now state, including how you got where you are, your accomplishments and disappointments, your core beliefs, and the trends you see over the horizon
o define your Preferred Future state that capitalizes on your strengths and details the kind of organization or community that excites everyone involved
o engage in a logical and predictable action planning process with specific steps that connect the planning to the doing

Lippitt offers sage wisdom for those new to the process as well as those with some experience on traps to avoid, how to deal successfully with resistance, and, most importantly, steps in the process that are the most critical to success.

• A powerful, proven process that links the act of managing change to the "spirit" in today's workplace
• The never-before-told story of Preferred Futuring and the field-tested tools to put it in practice today
• Applies the New Science mental model from Modern Physics to a three-phase process for whole system change

How do you build the kind of company you've always wanted to work in--one that serves people and the planet while being financially successful, too? What do you do when you believe that business should serve the common good, but everyday business pressures--meeting payroll, battling competition, keeping customers and investors happy--are at a fever pitch? Leading a small business when you measure success more broadly than with a single financial bottom line is no easy task. True to Yourself is a practical guide to doing just that. It provides tools you can use to combine profit with purpose, margin with mission, value with values.

• By the author of the New York Times bestseller Making a Life, Making a Living
• The second volume in the Social Venture Network Series for small businesses
• Draws on the author's experience and interviews with 75 innovative small business leaders to offer a practical guide to leadership practices needed to build a business that reflects your values
• Find out more

What is the source of creativity, serenity, and deep knowing?As he did in his classic Synchronicity, Joseph Jaworski once again takes us on a mind-expanding journey, this time to the very heart of creativity and deep knowing. Institutions of all sorts are facing profound change today, with complexity increasing at a speed and intensity we’ve never experienced before. Jaworski came to realize that traditional analytical leadership approaches are inadequate for dealing creatively with this complexity. To effectively face these challenges, leaders need to access the Source from which truly profound innovation flows. Many people, including Jaworski himself, have experienced a connection with this Source, often when called upon to respond in times of crisis—moments of extreme spontaneity and intuitive insight. Actions simply flow through them, seemingly without any sort of conscious intervention. But these experiences are chance occurrences—ordinarily, we don’t know how to access the Source, and we even have a blind spot as to its very existence. In an extraordinarily wide-ranging intellectual odyssey, Jaworski relates his fascinating experiences with quantum physicists, cognitive scientists, indigenous leaders, and spiritual thinkers, all focused on getting to the heart of the Source. Ultimately, he develops four guiding principles that encompass the nature of the Source and what we need to do to stay in dynamic dialogue with it. Using the combination of narrative and reflection that made Synchronicity so compelling, Jaworski has written a book that illuminates the essential nature not only of visionary leadership but also of relationships, consciousness, and ultimately reality itself. 

Drive through just about any low-income neighborhood and you're sure to see streets lined with pawnshops, check cashers, rent-to-own stores, payday and tax refund lenders, auto title pawns, and buy-here-pay-here used car lots. We're awash in "alternative financial services" directed at the poor and those with credit problems. Howard Karger describes this world as an economic Wild West, where just about any financial scheme that's not patently illegal is tolerated. Taking a hard look at this fringe economy, Karger shows that what seem to be small, independent storefront operations are actually part of a fully-formed parallel economy dominated by a handful of well-financed corporations, subject to little or no oversight, with increasingly strong ties to mainstream financial institutions. "It is a hidden world," Karger writes, "where a customer's economic fate is sealed with a handshake, a smile, and a stack of fine print documents that would befuddle many attorneys." Filled with heartbreaking stories of real people trapped in perpetual debt, Shortchanged exposes the deceptive practices that allow these businesses to prey on people when they are most vulnerable. Karger reveals the many ways this industry has run amok, ruining countless people's lives, and shows that it's not just the poor but, more and more, maxed-out middle class consumers who fall prey to these devious schemes. Balancing compassion with a realistic awareness of the risks any business faces in working with an economically distressed clientele, Karger details hard headed, practical recommendations for reforming this predatory industry.Drive through just about any low-income neighborhood and you're sure to see streets lined with pawnshops, check cashers, rent-to-own stores, payday and tax refund lenders, auto title pawns, and buy-here-pay-here used car lots. We're awash in "alternative financial services" directed at the poor and those with credit problems. Howard Karger describes this world as an economic Wild West, where just about any financial scheme that's not patently illegal is tolerated. Taking a hard look at this fringe economy, Karger shows that what seem to be small, independent storefront operations are actually part of a fully-formed parallel economy dominated by a handful of well-financed corporations, subject to little or no oversight, with increasingly strong ties to mainstream financial institutions. "It is a hidden world," Karger writes, "where a customer's economic fate is sealed with a handshake, a smile, and a stack of fine print documents that would befuddle many attorneys." Filled with heartbreaking stories of real people trapped in perpetual debt, Shortchanged exposes the deceptive practices that allow these businesses to prey on people when they are most vulnerable. Karger reveals the many ways this industry has run amok, ruining countless people's lives, and shows that it's not just the poor but, more and more, maxed-out middle class consumers who fall prey to these devious schemes. Balancing compassion with a realistic awareness of the risks any business faces in working with an economically distressed clientele, Karger details hard headed, practical recommendations for reforming this predatory industry.

• Chronicles how fringe economy businesses ruthlessly and systematically exploit the poor and the middle classes

• Feature dozens of personal stories from individuals whose lives have been ruined by participating in this fringe economy

• Includes hard-headed, practical recommendations for reforming fringe economy business practices