Books published by Berrett-Koehler

Over the past several decades, there's been an explosion of investment strategies, products, services, and advisors. Yet, as longtime investment industry insiders show in this powerful exposé, almost all the popular investment strategies and products are based on confusion and deception and don't work, and almost all investment services and advisors cost far more than they are worth. The book first explains three simple rules of investing - and why Wall Street and most of the investment industry does not want you to know them. Then the authors examine each of the prevailing claims and recommendations espoused by investment industry professionals as well as journalists and explain, one by one, why each is wrong and not only costly to investors but also enormously enriching to investment firms and advisors. The result is the most powerful guide yet published for what investors should and should not do to protect and grow their investments.

Once you’ve discovered your strengths, you need to discover something else: your strengths can work against you. Many leaders know this on some intuitive level, and they see it in others. But they don’t see it as clearly in themselves. Mainly, they think of leadership development as working on their weaknesses. No wonder. The tools used to assess managers are not equipped to pick up on overplayed strengths—when more is not better. Nationally recognized leadership experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser have conducted thousands of assessments of senior executives designed to determine when their strengths serve them well—versus betray them. In this groundbreaking book, they draw on their data and practical experience to identify four fundamental leadership qualities, each positive in and of itself but each of which, if overemphasized, can seriously compromise your effectiveness. Most leaders, they’ve found, are “lopsided”—they favor certain qualities to the exclusion of others without realizing it. The trick is to keep all four in balance. Fear Your Strengths provides tools to help you become aware of your leadership leanings and excesses and provides insights for combatting the mindset that encourages them. It offers a practical psychology of leadership, a better way for leaders to calibrate their performance so that you can make sure your strengths don’t overpower you but rather move you—and your organization—forward.

As David Korten showed in the first edition of this hard-hitting book, the steps taken to address the financial meltdown - including pouring trillions of dollars into bailouts for the Wall Street institutions that created the mess - did nothing to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. Korten identified the deeper sources of the failure in Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating money out of nothing, without producing anything of real value in return. Its major players engaged in speculative trading, bought into asset bubbles, stripped corporate assets, created debt pyramids, and engaged in predatory lending in the mortgage and credit card markets. In this revised second edition, Korten evaluates how far we have come in the year since the first edition's release and traces both the progress made as well as the ongoing setbacks. Korten also explores the transition to Main street and the momentum towards real wealth and how such a movement is manifesting itself across the nation. In a new chapter, Korten examines how the Obama administration has yet to address the root causes of the system failures to avoid ongoing economic, social, and environmental crises.

From one of the founding executives of FedEx comes the first full inside story of how Fed Ex came to be one of the world's most successful, innovative, and admired companiesFrock reveals the details of how the company was conceived, launched, kept afloat despite incredible obstacles.The story contains examples likepilots using their personal credit cards to gas up the planesemployees deferring cashing their paychecksand Fred Smith gambling with FedEx last 40,000 Vegas to win a week's worth of operational expenses

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.

Reveals how to immediately improve profits with over 100 innovative profit building ideas We all want to be in control-of our jobs, our relationships, our lives. However, the autocratic behaviors stemming from our desire for control are proving less and less effective in today's more participative organizational cultures. In Memoirs of a Recovering Autocrat, Richard Hallstein speaks to all of us. Through revealing anecdotes and personal examples, he helps us see the many ways in which we manifest our constant struggle for control and thereby make our work and our lives more difficult for ourselves and those around us. And he offers practical help for learning more participative styles of managing and living a more joyous and satisfying life, both personal and professional. Written with an intimacy rare in business books, the twenty-one vignettes in this enlightening and entertaining confession evoke twinges of recognition in all of us. Through Richard Hallstein's experiences, we recognize our own autocratic behaviors-encouraging competition instead of collaboration; demanding perfection from ourselves and others; hanging on to power instead of sharing it; even surrounding ourselves with people just like ourselves in order to avoid conflict. His prescription for overcoming the autocrat within us not only creates new possibilities for getting a job done, but releases us from having to know everything, do everything, and control everything.

The most successful organizations of the future will be those that are capable of rapidly and effectively bringing about fundamental, lasting, system-wide changes. In response to this challenge, Real Time Strategic Change advocates a fundamental redesign of the way organizations change. The result is an approach that involves an entire organization in fast and far-reaching change. Interactive large group meetings form the foundation for this approach, enabling hundreds and even thousands of people to collaborate in crafting their collective future. Change happens faster because the total organization is the "in group" that decides which changes are needed; and the actions people throughout the organization take on a daily basis are aligned behind an overall strategic direction that they helped create. Complete with conceptual frameworks, tools and techniques, agendas, and roles key actors need to play, this is the first book published on this powerful approach to organizational change. The process Robert Jacobs details has proven effective in diverse settings, ranging from business and industry to health care, education, government, non-profit agencies, and communities. Real Time Strategic Change demonstrates the flexibility and power of this approach in stories from such diverse organizations as Marriott Hotels, Ford Motor Company, Kaiser Permanente, First Nationwide Bank, United Airlines, and a group of 18 school districts.

Recognizing that "managing" diversity has become a critical skill in organizations all over the world, Developing Competency to Manage Diversity shows how the dynamics of diversity affect people on all levels of society and in all kinds of organizations-from individual relationships to community interactions, from city and national governments to work teams and product markets. Defining diversity as "a mix of people in one social system who have distinctly different, socially relevant, group identities," this volume responds to the increasing need to function effectively in workplace contexts that are culturally, socially, economically, and racially diverse. To this end, it provides managers with tools they need to successfully manage a diverse workforce. Chapters provide specific tasks and activities to: o Increase awareness of coworkers' cultural backgrounds o Create a "pro-diversity" organizational climate o Develop an operational definition of diversity o Explore how group identity applies to each group member o Investigate differences of cognitive style o Customize team-building strategies for diverse groups Organized in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, a set of twenty-three readings, six case studies, and thirty-one activities takes readers through a three-stage learning process. The first stage creates awareness of a diversity-related issue, the second stage develops knowledge and understanding of effective ways to handle that issue, and the final stage outlines practical actions to respond to the issue. The high costs of failing to recognize and manage diversity-absenteeism, dissatisfaction, barriers to contribution, harassment, discrimination suits, reduced efficiency, and lack of communication-as well as the potential to leverage diversity as an organizational resource-should motivate organizations and groups to make full use of Developing Competency to Manage Diversity.

When women first moved into positions of authority in business, many found that they had to be "more male" than their male counterparts in order to succeed-but is that really success? This book tells how women can bring their whole selves, including their more feminine sides, to their careers and prosper in the business world. Women possess many of the qualities sought by today's business environment with its need for greater flexibility and connection; yet the same business community often makes it difficult for those who possess these skills to achieve success. Nancy Bancroft describes the clear differences most women perceive between themselves and their male colleagues and offers practical advice for moving toward greater self-alignment and authenticity-a strategy critical to both success and fulfillment. The Feminine Quest for Success provides a unique picture of five different Success Strategies women use to be successful in the business world. Bancroft gives numerous personal examples and shows how women have come to use these techniques on the road to personal fulfillment and professional success. Five Success Strategies o The Emulator assesses her business opportunities and concludes that modeling aggressive male behavior is the most likely route to success o The Trooper focuses on competency, works hard, and is always well-prepared oThe Balancer seeks a balance between work and home, and between feminine and masculine traits o The Seeker tries to find a way to be who she is naturally, often by backing off from the business world for a period of time o The Integrator has aligned herself with her true nature; she is clear and unapologetic about who she is The Feminine Quest for Success provides an uplifting and compelling vision of living in tune with yourself while enmeshed in the world of business. Nancy Bancroft's practical advice and numerous positive examples will teach readers how they can move toward self-alignment to achieve a powerful clarity and greater sense of fulfillment.

In our time of dramatic worldwide change, can business leaders meet the challenges of the marketplace and the needs of people, communities, and the planet? Merchants of Vision profiles 40 business leaders who are successfully working to do just that. James Liebig interviewed dozens of business women and men in 70 organizations from 14 countries. He found executives, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and consultants who recognize business's pervasive global influence and have found ways to use that influence to affect positive change in people's lives and meaningful growth in their businesses. In Merchants of Vision they share their beliefs, experiences, and creative actions. Visionary yet down-to-earth, these real-life portraits provide viable business strategies for: o enhancing social equity, o protecting the natural environment, o fostering human creativity, o serving higher purposes, including spiritual, service, and community values, o behaving ethically, o providing transformational leadership. Representing a variety of business enterprises in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, innovators profiled include, for example: o Elliot Hoffman, president of Just Desserts in San Francisco; o Jacqueline Cambata, president of Phoenix Chemical in Virginia; o Mara Adela Palcos, director of Rio Abierto Institute in Buenos Aires; o Marjorie Kelly, editor and publisher of Business Ethics magazine; o Eckart J. Wintzen, president of BSO/ORIGIN, computer custom software services in The Netherlands; o Joe Jaworski, head, Business Environment Section, Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd., in London, England; o Jagdish Parikh, managing director, Lemuir Group of Companies in Bombay, India; o Carol Frenier, president, The Advantage Group, Inc., specialty advertising in Vermont; o Meryem Le Saget, directeur, Institut de L'Expansion, Group Expansion, business seminars and conferences in Paris, France; o Heini Lippuner, chairman, executive committee, Ciba-Geigy Limited, chemical manufacturing in Basel, Switzerland; o Robert V. Adams, president of Xerox Technology Ventures in California. These are people of action and integrity who sustain themselves with the creative friction between their idealism and their knowledge of the real world. Their experiences-addressing issues of personal responsibility and product quality, expanding markets and shrinking natural resources, technological advancement and cultural preservation-reveal ways businesses must adapt to survive, thrive, innovate, and lead.

Business people need help reducing the impact of their companies on the environment. This book will help them identify what can be done, systematically set priorities, and create an action plan for implementing improvements. It will also help them sell an impact reduction program to their top management. In contrast to the current practice of "compliance auditing," a process focused on meeting governmental regulations, this Elmwood Institute guide shows how to conduct an "eco-audit" - a complete examination of an organization in relation to its long-term ecological sustainability. Such an audit scrutinizes every aspect of the organization and its operations, including product design and manufacture, management techniques, corporate culture, and goals. This book provides a comprehensive framework for companies that need to design their own audits. In addition, a set of thirteen checklists guide managers through the audit process, covering such topics as energy, materials, wastes, finance, marketing, transportation, and international business relations.

No More Hate! All Are Welcome! “Stigma” is a simple two-syllable word, yet it carries the weight of negative and often unfair beliefs that we hold about those who are different from us. Stigmas lock people into stereotyped boxes and deny us all the right to be our authentic and whole selves. Dr. Pernessa Seele, a longtime public health activist who started one of the first AIDS education programs in the 1980s, has crafted a proven method to address stigma. This powerful book confronts stereotype development, shows how to undo the processes and effects of stigma, and explains how we can radically change cultural thinking on the individual, interpersonal, and societal levels to put an end to stigmatization once and for all.

From Chip R. Bell, the bestselling author of Customers as Partners , Managers as Mentors , and Managing Knock You rSocks Off Service , partnering with Heather Shea, the former president of The Tom Peters Group's training and consulting company Provides invaluable insights into the changing world of powerful partnering Offers tools, details techniques, and provides activities and resources to help you develop successful partnerships in every enterprise Partnerships are fast becoming the primary structure of contemporary business, as organizations partner with vendors, unions, customers, and even competitors to take advantage of short-term market opportunities, leverage intellectual capital, and create more flexible and innovative enterprises. In this important guide, authors Chip Bell and Heather Shea offer an in-depth look at how we can successfully manage partnerships and build them with substance-passion, quality, heart, and soul. While many other books have examined the rational, logical, analytical sides of partnership, none has fully explored the irrational, illogical, emotional sides, which are most often what cause partnerships to falter or fail. Dance Lessons is a comprehensive guide to the interpersonal side of partnerships, revealing exactly how the champions choreograph their partnership dances for show-stopping performances. It features: new perspectives to help you decide if partnership is right for you exciting tools for selecting the right form of partnership important techniques to help you get emotionally prepared to partner smart ways to accurately pick good partners engaging activities to help you practice your partnership skills effective methods for dealing with difficult partners and partnerships vital cues that let you know when the partnership is ready to end, and helpful tips on how to end it insights on how to manage external factors that effect partnership success practical resources to help you continue to learn about effective partnering Dance Lessons shows how to develop meaningful, ethical, and soulful partnerships in every interaction throughout your work and your life.

Celebrations infuse life with passion and purpose. They summon the human spirit, reattach us to our roots, and help us soar toward new visions. Celebrations touch our hearts and fire our imaginations, bonding people together and connecting us to shared myths and values. Corporate Celebration shows how the ceremony and ritual of celebration can be brought to the workplace to restore company spirit, reinvigorate employee morale, build commitment and loyalty, improve quality and financial performance, and instill work with meaning and joy. This practical guide provides advice on the what, why, and how of corporate celebration. The authors first distill what we know about the role that ritual and ceremony play in human organizations, then offer examples from multiple sectors and companies. They show how ceremonies can be used to build relationships, relieve tension, level the hierarchy, create excitement, transform losses into gains, and provide access to life's deeper lessons. In the second part, they examine a wide variety of situations where ritual and ceremony play a vital role-including recognition, triumphs, tragedies, transitions, product launches, and community outreach efforts. They detail the psychological benefits of seven types of celebrations: cyclical celebrations, recognition ceremonies, celebrations of triumph, rituals of comfort and letting go, succession rites, altruistic celebration, and play. In the third part, they observe the makings, motions, and roles of key players, drawing practical wisdom from executives, managers, and employees who have participated in successful corporate rituals and celebrations. Acknowledging the potential downside of contrived or meaningless symbolic activity, they show how intended perks can become actual perils. Finally, they provide clear guidelines for the design of meaningful, top-flight celebrations, which arise from shared vision and values, recognize individuals as heroes and heroines, and authentically reflect the corporate spirit. In a time when many organizations are suffering from eroded cultural values due to restructuring, reengineering, and downsizing, Corporate Celebration offers a refreshing approach to creating community in the workplace and revitalizing business

Though Gandhi is one of the most written-about figures of the twentieth century, this is the first book to apply lessons from his life to the practical tasks faced by contemporary leaders-from corporate managers and executives to government administrators, nonprofit professionals, educators, and others. In times shaped by colonialism, dictatorships, and two World Wars, Gandhi demonstrated that an idealist could also be a practical and effective leader. In our times of increasing cynicism about the quality of leadership we can expect and aspire to, Keshavan Nair reminds us that, "We are all engaged in leadership, in practicing it and selecting those who will lead." In A Higher Standard of Leadership, he offers a pragmatic guide based on the concepts Gandhi exemplified: o leadership is service, not a path to power and privilege; o effective goals, decisions, and strategies can be guided by moral principles; o a single standard of conduct, based on absolute values, should be maintained in both public and private life. A lifelong student of Gandhi's teachings and a businessman with more than 25 years of experience in corporate and governmental leadership development, Nair is uniquely positioned to bridge the two worlds. Using illustrative examples from Gandhi's life and writings, he identifies commitments-to conscience, openness, service, values, and reduced attachments-and describes the courage and determination necessary to work and lead by them. In simple and direct language, he explores the process of making decisions, setting goals, and implementing actions guided by the spirit of service and commitment to values that is essential to the realization of a higher standard of leadership in our workplaces and communities.

Just as canaries once warned miners of unhealthy conditions underground, women in today's corporate marketplace are sounding a caution that our business survival depends on making far-reaching changes in the business environment. This collection of provocative, timely, and encouraging essays proposes ways to transform the traditional workplace into a more wholesome and balanced environment that honors masculine and feminine traits as equally vital. The fifteen women-entrepreneurs, consultants, and corporate executives-who offer these provocative and practical essays serve as harbingers of essential business transformation. As varied as their backgrounds and perspectives may be, these women see a common need and share a common goal-to create more humane and nurturing workplaces. Truth and a willingness to risk are benchmarks of the fifteen insightful essays, as is the search for personal and spiritual freedom. The authors speak of individual responsibility and a balance among all the areas of one's life. Work becomes an arena for self-discovery. The controlling "power over" becomes life-nurturing "power to," and steps for creating a full and productive partnership between men and women are defined. In proposing new and more effective ways to succeed in business, When the Canary Stops Singing explodes the myth that feminine and masculine perspectives can't interact in harmony.

Mixing warm humor, shrewd irony, and penetrating insight, commentator David Graulich gently twits the pretensions of American business and exposes the humorous truth behind the serious facade of the workplace. Politely pointing out contradictions, unmasking absurdities, and providing badly needed perspective on the awkward situations that abound in business life, the forty-one commentaries in this book offer a humorous view of office etiquette, corporate mores, and more. Treasured as classics by Marketplace listeners, Dial 9 to Get Out! includes Graulich's pointed observations on the secrets of corporate apologies, those odd little friendships formed in the office elevator, the absurd ritual of the CEO visit, easy steps to becoming a respected guru, the universal nature of the employee lunchroom, and many more. Graulich's sharp eye for the humor in everyday interactions will appeal to anyone who has ever held a job.

"Economic insanity" describes what is happening in America and the wider world beyond its borders. The economy is out of control-out of our control-to the point that it is in control. The economy has divorced itself from the political and social ideals that define the American Dream, which has been transformed from an all-inclusive social ideal to an economic fantasy. In Economic Insanity, Roger Terry explains how and why economics has come to dominate all aspects of our lives. Basic political, social, and moral values used to hold us together as a nation. Today, it seems, the economy is all that holds us together. The most drastic effects of the rise of Economic America are the impoverishing of democracy, the loss of liberty, and the abandonment of equality. Terry shows how our present system is failing at its most fundamental task-to provide for the physical needs and wants of human beings-and concludes that the system does not need fixing, it needs to be replaced. This provocative proposal exposes the misconceptions that drive our economic system and offers systemic and revolutionary solutions. With passion and persuasiveness, Terry asserts that in order to recapture the American Dream, we must begin to subject the economy to the ideals of democracy, liberty, equality, and unity. Terry questions, and suggests we abandon, four fundamental pillars of capitalism: endless economic growth, ever-increasing productivity, accelerating technological advances, and self-interest. He shows how these basic assumptions that drive our version of the free-market system are causing a host of interrelated and deeply entrenched problems. He explores critical social dilemmas that result from our current economic assumptions, including the loss of personal freedom and democracy, the perpetual and unavoidable increase in inequality, and the disuniting of America. If we are to turn our nation from this path of folly, Terry argues, we must first abandon the faulty assumptions that drive our thinking. Terry proposes a solution that redefines the notion of capital ownership, creating a system of limited, widespread ownership in which individuals own only as much capital as they can make personal productive use of. Under this system, employees become owner/partners, power is returned to people, self-interest is defused, technology is harnessed, and meaningful equality is encouraged. Incorporating ideas from Adam Smith and Thomas Paine to Paul Johnson and Herman Daly, Economic Insanity challenges readers to stop looking for answers within the system and look instead to changing the system.

Written for those who provide care for others, this text shows how to get help, offering effective, practical ways to exchange help and share support with friends, neighbours and co-workers. It includes 200 stories from caregivers.

This is the first book to squarely face the tough emotional and relationship issues in the workplace-anger, fear, distrust, conflict, resentment-and to provide practical and proven methods for creating more productive work environments. Based on fifteen years' experience using these methods inside workplaces, Bill and Kathy Lundin show how to: o Replace anger and suspicion at work with caring, trust, and cooperation; o Unlock the goodwill, learning, and creativity of everyone in an enterprise; o Empower all employees to facilitate productive relationships at work. The "Healing Manager" that the Lundins describe is any employee-whether CEO, first-line supervisor, or hourly worker-who helps others grow emotionally and intellectually, and who cultivates caring relationships on the job. The Lundins show that such well-being is the real secret to productivity, quality, and service. The Lundins draw on counseling techniques, improvisational theater, and common wisdom to offer practical tools to help all managers and employees change their workplace behaviors, attitudes, and relationships.

While most of the business world worships size and constant growth, Big Vision, Small Business celebrates the art—and power—of small. Based on interviews with more than seventy small-business owners and on her own experiences as a successful small-business entrepreneur, Jamie Walters shows how a business can stay small and remain vital, healthy, and rewarding. If you long to run a successful, socially conscious enterprise as one element of a fulfilling personal life, Big Vision, Small Business shows you how. Covering growth options and small-enterprise advantages, inspired visioning, communication, and right-relationship, mindset issues and expectation management, and wisdom and mastery practices, Big Vision, Small Business is a must-read for every entrepreneur and futurist.

What would happen if you could achieve business success without owning any assets, but could simply enjoy the benefits of them? What if companies were able to react instantly to changing circumstances by operating in negative time? What if you didn't need management to run your business? Zero Space defines a business model in which an organization achieves success without owning assets or needing management. In a zero space organization, knowledge is the only true currency and people are the business's assets and its investors in future success. Through eight new organizational principles the authors illustrate how "zero-mindedness" is essential for the new economy. Just as organizations will have to exist in less tangible, less prescribed forms, so will thinking have to become less departmentalized, less closely guarded. This new open-mindedness or "zero mind-set" targets knowledge so that an organization applies it when and where it is really needed. The authors-two top executives at one of the "big five" accounting and consulting firms-show how to create a zero-space organization: a value-adding, quick-reacting, non-centralized, non-standardized, innovation-generating workplace for dedicated talent.

Authentic power-the power to consistently obtain what we truly desire-comes from within. Such power, the power to determine your own destiny, isn't achieved by imposing your will on others. In fact, Ross Lawford explains, power based on authority, control, strength, and status is not only ineffective, it is usually short-lived or more illusion than reality. Drawing on psychology, theology, and business, Lawford outlines a new view of power based on authenticity and provides practical pointers for achieving your deepest desires without manipulation, coercion, or intimidation. He provides strategies for applying this new view of power in every aspect of your life-including your work, your family, and personal relationships.

We are entering the 21st century in a period of great uncertainty and change. People are wary of government and have lost confidence in social institutions-from social welfare and schools to healthcare programs. That loss of confidence has undermined the community and family life that is the very foundation of our society. Self-Governance in Communities and Families shows how individuals can reconnect to and revitalize their social institutions so that they are effective in serving the needs of all. Gary Nelson identifies the existing social models we are moving away from and explores the new, emerging pattern of relationships we are shifting to in our social institutions. He reveals why open dialogue and partnerships between people and their social institutions are essential to the well-being of families and thriving communities. He describes why social regeneration is best pursued through these partnerships, with people and stakeholders within communities taking positive action to develop and protect the well-being of their families and the health of their communities. Applying both business and social science concepts to the day-to-day management of social institutions, Nelson offers a proven, practical method-community self-governance dialogues-for engaging people in the redesign and revitalization of social institutions. The author shows how-by creating opportunities for individuals and families to proactively participate in developing a strategic plan for how their institutions are managed, run, and evaluated-this dialogue method ultimately empowers people to take control of their own lives. He also reveals how active participation in these open dialogues ignites creative ideas and new energy for the redirection and reshaping of those institutions. With numerous examples and anecdotes, Nelson illustrates the values, beliefs, and principles that underlie how we learn and make decisions in a self-governing democratic culture. He provides tips for shared learning and accountability, ownership and governance, and the creation of a culture of self-governance. And he offers advice on how to maintain an ongoing engagement and partnership between the public and its social institutions. Communities and families can be strengthened when each of us takes responsibility for ourselves and works in partnership with others to restore our social institutions. Self-Governance in Communities and Families sets forth clear, doable strategies for fostering both responsibility and ownership through dialogue and collaboration between public and private sectors.

Corporate structures, products, and processes permeate our society -but what do they really mean to us in our daily lives? The bottom-line mentality that drives corporate America, say Ellen Augustine (formerly Schwartz) and Suzanne Stoddard, is creating a world unresponsive to human needs, corrosive to the democratic process, and destructive to the planet itself. Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance shows the links between our mundane everyday struggles and the global corporate economy, image-driven media, and the relentless pace which consumes us all. And it tells us how we can change things by transforming both our work and leisure. The authors use hard-hitting examples and illuminating personal vignettes about confronting fear, anger, death, family problems, and the stultifying effects of staying in the "comfort zone." They detail over 75 steps for personal and societal actions-some quick and immediate, others in-depth and long term-for retaking control of our lives. The authors include provocative questions for reflection that shock, prod, and jump-start the reader into thinking about what matters most to them. Deeply moving, outrageous, encouraging, compelling, and inspiring, Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance blends unrelenting candor with the comfort of real-life stories of hope-and ultimately shows us that choice is the most important tool we have for reviving our lives and our world.