You know them at first sight: teammates or colleagues, direct reports or bosses who radiate enthusiasm, positive energy, and inspiration. Even in difficult circumstances they glow with an attitude that inspires others, fosters a great working experience for everyone, and creates empowering relationships. And Lynda Gratton can make sure you're one of them. Drawing on years of original research, Gratton identifies three principles that people who glow live by, and three actions for putting each principle into practice. Lynda Gratton is one of the world's leading experts on how pockets of energy and innovation are created in organizations. Now she zeroes in on how you can become a source of energy and innovation yourself.

We live in a world that needs radical transformation if our children and grandchildren are to live healthy, peace-filled lives. But where to start? Activist Roberto Vargas says the answer lies surprisingly close: at home, with our family and friends. We can apply the practice of family activism to foster what he calls familia—warm, loving connections with our relatives and with those we choose to call family—and develop the skills and attitudes we need to tackle broader problems in our community, our nation, and the world. In Family Activism, Vargas draws from his own life to show how to apply tools such as copowering communication, family councils, and unity circles to create family and community cultures that empower all of us to become more committed and skillful agents of positive change.  

Online Learning Today is an incisive, no-nonsense guide on why, how, when, and where to use e-learning. Shea-Schultz and Fogarty show why an organization should (or should not) implement e-learning, what should and should not be taught online, how to design and deliver it, and where to incorporate it in the organizational structure.

Addressing professionals who want to maximize the effectiveness of online learning in their own organization, the authors teach seven key strategies to ensure success. They show how to tailor courses to the needs of the learner; ensure enterprise-wide buy-in; leverage time- and money-saving benefits; get a grip on technology; effectively design course materials so people can and will use them; connect with global participants; and successfully partner across and outside the organization. Online Learning Today offers a unique new perspective on how organizations can truly leverage learning on the Internet.

• The first book to offer practical, proven strategies for truly effective online course design and delivery
• Shows the precise steps necessary to implement an e-learning initiative from the ground up and extend it throughout the enterprise
• Filled with insightful case studies and examples
• Offers sage advice from established leaders in the industry

The first book focused on applying insights from quantum physics to organizational strategy, planning, and leadership practice.Planning today is plagued by a lack of imagination. It’s often difficult, when working with a business, organization, or any group of people, to upend traditional thinking and unlock new ideas and new possibilities. If you are a strategic planner, or anyone charged with managing growth or facilitating change, it is important to add to your arsenal tools that will allow you to break unhealthy groupthink, avoid old patterns, and escape narrow safe zones. In The Art of Quantum Planning Gerald Harris takes seven concepts from the scientific study of tiny particles and applies them in the larger world, showing how they can pry open minds, spur creativity, and make the planning process far more innovative and effective. The dual nature of light—it can be both a wave and a particle—serves as a jumping-off point for a discussion of how either-or thinking can limit our sense of what options are open to us. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which says we cannot know both the position and the speed of an electron, reminds us that it is impossible to be aware of every variable, and so planning must be a learning process that continually incorporates new information and makes adjustments. Harris explains quantum concepts in layman’s language and, using real-world examples, gives practical advice on applying the ideas in actual planning situations—including improving techniques for scenario analyses that help managers function in an uncertain business environment. This approach demands an open mind and a willingness to venture into unexplored territory—also keys for effective leadership. Using the lessons provided as triggers for thinking The Art of Quantum Planning will help readers to a more profound understanding of how to create successful strategies.

Getting people in organizations to collaborate effectively has a more fundamental, long-lasting and far-reaching positive impact than any "technique of the month" put forward by the management guru of the moment. But it is also one of the hardest things to accomplish. In Crisis at Santa's Workshop Richard Weaver and John Ferrell use a whimsical fable to describe the Facilitation Process, a proven, step-by-step approach for helping people in organizations systematically focus on the right things, and build the kinds of collaborative relationships that enable them to exceed expectations and achieve "impossible' goals.

We follow Rune, Santa's Production Director, as he learns the use the Facilitation Process to deal with the most serious situation the workshop has ever faced. Having to produce hundreds of millions of toys to a one-day deadline has always been tough, but this year, due to changing demands and a variety of unforeseen circumstances they're further behind than ever before. As he masters the different steps of the process, Rune has to deal with an ongoing conflict between Pekka, his Wooden Toys Manager and Helmi, his Electronic Games Manager, as well as confront his own preconceived notions about the roles of managers and employees.

For the past 15 years, Weaver and Farrell have been helping organizations south of the North Pole, such as AT&T, Chrysler, NCR and many others use facilitation to achieve outstanding results. Now, in this witty and entertaining tale, managers can discover a blueprint for change, and workers at all levels can get a glimpse of their own potential to make a difference.

• From the authors of Managers as Facilitators --- more than 25,000 copies sold
• Presents a simple 3-step process with the potential to totally transform organizations and organizational processes
• Uses a fun fable format to make a potentially difficult subject interesting, engaging, and accessible to a wide audience

In this alternately amusing and appalling exposé of the standardized test industry, fifteen-year veteran Todd Farley describes statisticians who make decisions about students without even looking at their test answers; state education officials willing to change the way tests are scored whenever they don't like the results; and massive, multi-national, for-profit testing companies who regularly opt for expediency and profit over the altruistic educational goals of teaching and learning. Although there are absurd moments--as when Farley and coworkers had to grade students based on how they described the taste of their favorite food-- the enormous importance of standardized tests in the post “No Child Left Behind” era make this no laughing matter.

“This book is dynamite! The nice personal voice makes it utterly accessible and enticing, wholly apart from the terribly important ammunition it provides to those of us in the `testing wars' at national and local levels.”—Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequities

In this alternately amusing and appalling expos of the standardized test industry, fifteen-year veteran Todd Farley describes statisticians who make decisions about students without even looking at their test answers; state education officials willing to change the way tests are scored whenever they dont like the results; and massive, multi-national, for-profit testing companies who regularly opt for expediency and profit over the altruistic educational goals of teaching and learning.  Although there are absurd moments--as when Farley and coworkers had to grade students based on how they described the taste of their favorite food-- the enormous importance of standardized tests in the post No Child Left Behind era make this no laughing matter.

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