Books published by Berrett-Koehler

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 Scandals come so thick and fast that any attempt to list them is out of date in weeks if not days.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.

Theory matters in applied disciplines—fields that apply scholarly research to professional practice, such as management, social work, health care, human resource development, education, and many others. Because these disciplines deal with human beings in the real world, a flawed theory can result in actual harm to people and institutions. When faced with a professional problem, practitioners resort to the latest fad or simply throw everything and anything at it because of the lack of sound theory. Scholars deal with problems by slicing them into small segments to study them but fail to address the practical implications. What’s needed is a way to unite research and practice to create robust theory. This is exactly what Richard Swanson and Thomas Chermack offer here: a complete, five-step method for developing sound, field-tested theory in applied disciplines. Unlike many existing methods, which cover only the initial conceptualization of a theory, the authors offer a complete approach, from conceptualizing a theory to creating relevant assessment criteria, establishing a research agenda to test the theory’s validity, applying the theoretical concepts in the real world, and using that experience to further refine and improve the theory. The method is not restricted to any single discipline, nor is it beholden to any research ideology. Swanson and Chermack provide a set of tools for each phase of the process, making this book accessible and applicable to a wide audience. And in addition to examples in each chapter, they offer two extended case examples of complete theory building. With flawed theories impeding the development of many applied disciplines, this book is desperately needed.

The health of business is inextricably linked with the health of humanity and nature. But our current approaches to leadership treat business as entirely separate—and the result has been recurring economic, environmental, and human crises. In this extraordinary book, Ram Nidumolu uses evocative parables and stories from the ancient Indian wisdom texts, the Upanishads, to introduce Being-centered leadership. This new kind of leadership is anchored in the concept of Being, the fundamental reality that underlies all phenomena. Being-centered leaders are guided by an innate sense of interconnection—the good of the whole becomes an integral part of their decisions and actions. Using the experiences of over twenty trailblazing CEOs, as well as those from his own life, Nidumolu describes a four-stage road map every aspiring leader can use to reconnect business to the wider world—to the benefit of all.

Right now the number of people living on $2 a day or less is more than the entire population of the world in 1950. These 2.7 billion people are not just the world’s greatest challenge—they represent an extraordinary market opportunity. By learning how to serve them ethically and effectively, businesses can earn handsome profits while helping to solve one of the world’s most intractable problems. The key is what Paul Polak and Mal Warwick call Zero-Based Design: starting from scratch to create innovative products and services tailored for the very poor, armed with a thorough understanding of what they really want and need and driven by what they call “the ruthless pursuit of affordability.”Polak has been doing this work for years, and Warwick has extensive experience in both business and philanthropy. Together, they show how their design principles and vision can enable unapologetic capitalists to supply the very poor with clean drinking water, electricity, irrigation, housing, education, healthcare, and other necessities at a fraction of the usual cost and at profit margins attractive to investors. Promising governmental and philanthropic efforts to end poverty have not reached scale because they lack the incentives of the market to attract massive resources. This book opens an extraordinary opportunity for nimble entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate executives that will result not only in vibrant, growing businesses but also a better life for the world’s poorest people.

EMPLOYEES TODAY are actively searching for more meaning in the workplace, for work that resonates with their being. How does one dare yearn for something more, when so many workplaces seem aligned solely with financial survival and profit making? How do we get work done amidst the demands and tugs on our soul? Bringing Your Soul to Work addresses these troubling questions in a way that provides a pathway for readers who want to bridge the gap between their spiritual and work lives. It honors readers' unique experiences and challenges them to think differently, aligning their actions with their hearts. Engaging, inspiring, and poetic, yet grounded in real life, this book is written by consultants who see the contradictions of the workplace firsthand. Using case examples, personal stories, inspirational quotes, visual images, reflective questions, and specific applications, it shows readers how to use their own experience to grapple with the gritty realities of the workplace. Throughout the book, readers are invited to consider the book's concepts in relation to their own unique situations and, in the case of the applications, to record their responses in writing. They then learn to construct meaning from their own experience, drawing on imagination and practice, as well as the specific circumstances of their work lives. Addressing what many feel but cannot say out loud, Bringing Your Soul to Work links ideas about soul to the realities of work in a unique way. For all those looking to increase their effectiveness at work and bring more feeling, imagination, and heart into their efforts with others, it will serve as a guide for creating something new and lasting.

This booklet gives an overview of the Search Conference, a change strategy which uses open systems principles in strategic planning, thereby creating a well-articulated, achievable future with identifiable goals, a timetable, and action plans for realizing that future. Here, in their own inspiring words, over 100 CEOs, board chairs, and company presidents share their insights in one-page letters focusing on the qualities necessary for effective leadership and career success. The men and women featured in Pathways to Success come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Their companies range from small entrepreneurial firms to large corporations. Organized by topic, these letters provide practical and encouraging insights on: o Hard work o Imagination o Tolerance o Honesty o Self-knowledge o Team-building, and more Each letter is self-contained and to-the-point, capturing the personal experience and positive convictions of these distinguished business leaders. A biographical sketch accompanies each letter, describing the career path of the contributor as well as the major challenges and obstacles that person has overcome to achieve success. The book also contains thought-provoking exercises for individual use or group discussion. Written for young people who aspire to successful business careers and leadership roles, this book will also be valuable for executives and managers, entrepreneurs, academics, consultants, and those who work with young people-counselors, teachers, mentors, and parents.

You already know why your company should go green. This comprehensive guide tells you how to do it profitably. It details every step of the process—from getting employee buy-in and conducting a current sustainability audit to developing a plan of action and measuring progress. Nuts-and-bolts guidance helps you make continuous, cost-effective improvements and shift the prevailing business culture by infusing green practices into your organization’s very DNA. Through illustrative examples from a wide variety of industries, this book shows how to • Design sustainable products • Green your facilities • Find green vendors • Use renewable energy • Reduce harmful emissions • Recycle waste products, and more The emphasis is on practicality—stand-alone chapters you can read when you need them and tools you can use to implement change in any area of your organization.

We all have a natural tendency to focus on what we don't want to happen, rather than on what we do want to happen., All this time and energy spent on worrying about avoiding pain and loss dominates far too many organizations, suppressing employee engagement and crippling growth. To escape this workplace culture-killer companies need their employees to look forward and focus intentionally on what they do want to happen. In Seeing Red Cars, expert trainer and speaker Laura Goodrich draws an enduring metaphor to show managers and their employees how to make the shift. It's a well-known truism that if you buy a red car, you suddenly start noticing red cars everywhere. By extension, if we make a conscious decision to focus on positive desired outcomes at work (and commit to a plan of conscious practice), we experience dramatically positive effects. The transition to affirmative thinking begins one person at a time and then grows, spreading virally through local teams and eventually the entire organization. Once a critical mass of employees has made this change, the Seeing Red Cars mentality becomes a part of the organization's core engine, driving growth, innovation, and bottom-line results.Seeing Red Cars provides a process that helps readers craft affirming "I Want" statements and a plan for taking monthly, weekly, and daily steps in the desired direction. Animated throughout by the popular "red cars" metaphor, the book's three-stage methodology raise awareness, turn insight into action, turn action into outcomes enables readers to both shake destructive habits and achieve personal and organizational goals. Throughout, Goodrich draws on well-documented research on the brain and human behavior and provides entertaining and enlightening stories culled from her 15 years of coaching and advising hundreds of leaders and organizations through change and transition.

In this inspiring and beautifully illustrated book, bestselling author Margaret Wheatley offers guidance to people everywhere for how to persevere through challenges in their personal lives, with their families, at their workplaces, in their communities and in their struggles to make a better world. She provides hope, wisdom and perspective for learning the discipline of perseverance.Wheatley does not offer the usual feel-good, rah-rah messages. Instead, she focuses on the situations, feelings and challenges that can, over time, cause us to lose heart or lose our way. Perseverance is a day-by-day decision not to give up. We have to notice the moments when we feel lost or overwhelmed or betrayed or exhausted and note how we respond to them. And we have to notice the rewarding times, when we experience the joy of working together on something hard but worthwhile, when we realize we've made a small difference. In a series of concise and compassionate essays Wheately names a behavior or dynamic - such as fearlessness, guilt, joy, jealousy - that supports or impedes our efforts to persevere. She puts each in a broader human or timeless perspective, offering ways to either live by or transcend each one. These essays are self-contained - you can thumb through the book and find what attracts you in the moment. Perseverance helps you to see yourself and your situation clearly and assume responsibility for changing a situation or our reaction to it if it's one that troubles us. There deliberately are no examples of other people or their experiences. You are the example - your personal experiences are the basis for change.In addition to Wheatley's graceful essays there are poems and quotations drawn from traditions and cultures around the world and throughout history. The book is deeply grounded spiritually, accessing human experience and wisdom from many sources. This grounding and inclusiveness support the essential message - human being throughout time have persevered. We're just the most recent ones to face these challenges and we can meet them as those who came before us did. As Wheatley quotes the elders of the Hopi Nation: "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

This work supports a process called Predictive Evaluation (PE) which enables practitioners to provide executives with compelling training data around the success of training in the three areas of Intention, Adoption, and Impact. PE also works to determine whether success has been achieved, and provides lead indicators of future adoption (transfer of learning) along with recommendations for continuous improvement. The way to think about this model is that predicting is before-the-fact to decide if to train; evaluating is after-the-fact measurement against the predictions. There are four ways that the PE approach differs from other models in the field:Whereas traditional approaches focus on costs and numbers, not on forecasting financial return, PE focuses on the predicted impact and its value-add to the organizationWhereas traditional approaches view evaluation as after-the-fact with no measures of success, PE employs repeated measures that mirror employees' path to improved performance with predicted 'success gates'Whereas ROI and/or Cost-Benefit evaluations traditionally rely on subjective estimates, PE provides concrete, business-focused and evidence-based data on return on investment and does not use statistical averages based on subjective estimates of improved performance or productivityWhereas existing approaches work on an after-the-fact basis with one-off programs, PE offers a determined prediction of the extent of transfer and impact and works well with programs that have repeated deliveries over a period of timeWhen decision makers decide to spend large sums of money on training, they seek to evaluate their options as they evaluate other large investments - that is so on the basis on financial returns to the company. This work shows those decision makers how to accurately determine the potential ROI on such training programs before committing to them.

This bestselling work describes how the art and science of brand building is typically identified with businesses, products, and services, but that personal and professional relationships can also be seen and managed in this very practical and effective light. The authors present "personal brand management" as a real-life professional development tool that creates and reinforces strong, enduring relationships fueled by each individual's core values and beliefs. McNally and Speak show how to conceive, convey, and manage a distinctive, relevant, and consistent personal brand-an accurate reflection of who you really are.This revised edition leverages its past success (brand equity) to take advantage of the increased acceptance of personal brand as a personal and career development framework and for creating a competitive edge. Drawing on eight additional years of research and experience, the authors offer new information emphasizing the importance of relationship alignment; differentiating between a brand and a strong brand, and showing how social networks have impacted the branding process and how to use social networking to build a strong brand.

Many subject matter experts are just that, subject matter experts not experts in the art of teaching, facilitating, or designing. Thousands of authors, trainers, and speakers have great content, but they lack the skills required to convey their content in a way that inspires learners to unleash their brilliance and move the learning to practice.. They often spend 70% of their time on WHAT they are going to teach, and 30% of their time on HOW, when they should be spending 30% on WHAT, and 70% on HOW. Their instructional techniques often are at odds with their message of inclusivity, eagerness for people to learn, and hopes that their content will change lives and organizations. Brilliance by Design outlines how to design learning interactions (such as meetings and workshops) that enable people to do their best thinking. Using the tested, signature ENGAGE model, it helps anyone who brings people together for the purpose of learning, problem-solving, or innovating to develop a clear, high-impact training design that unleashes brilliance. It presents a model that enables teachers to analyze learner and teacher needs, create objectives that meet those needs, and incorporate interactive tools that "fire 'em up," ensuring all key outcomes are met. To help readers unleash the brilliance in others, this book provides the structure, tools, language, and models needed to create optimal learning experiences from their ideas, practices, models and books. In learning these techniques, readers will achieve powerful outcomes, building communities of learners who share best practices and communicate at a deep and profound level while doing real work.

For several years after graduating from college at USC, Daniel Seddiqui failed to find clarity about what he wanted to do with his life. To make matters worse, he couldn't seem to land a job - and failing to receive an offer after over 40 interviews, Daniel decided to try a new strategy. Following his dream to explore the diverse cultures and industries offered in America, he embarked on a seemingly impossible quest: to work at 50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks.This book tells how Daniel fulfilled this incredible dream. Working as a baseball scout in Massachusetts, a coal miner in West Virginia, a meteorologist in Ohio, and so on over the course of his life changing journey, he explains how he learned to adapt to each state's unique circumstances and challenges. With vivid stories of his experience across fifty jobs (and the long drives in between), Daniel shares the lessons he learned about perseverance, risk taking, adaptability, networking, and endurance. From tales of the extraordinary kindness of strangers to the uncomfortable reality of having to sleep in his car, Daniel's experience is an inspiration to anyone looking to break into the job market or to even just to follow their dream.

Despite considerable investment in resources and tools, many companies struggle to meet the demand for the talent they require. Make Talent Your Business" gets to the heart of the matter: Managers themselves are in the best position to help people learn from experience (the uncontested major source of development) and shows managers how to do it by using the five practices that work for managers who are exceptional at building talent.This set of practices goes well beyond the usual managerial coaching and performance management. It moves the focus from performance today to development of skills that truly "raise the game" of employees skills such as in-the-moment judgment, customer relationship building and collaborative decision-making. Managers who grow talent enhance their own reputations and get better results, retain people, attract talent and make their organizations more agile and capable to deal with future challenges.

In far too many organizational meetings, equal speaking opportunity seldom results in equal say. Factors such as race, class, and personal history too often inhibit open dialogue within and among groups, which can lead to a sense of disenfranchisement within the organization, and subsequently, disillusionment with the movement.Collective Visioning is the first visioning method to address these hurdles in the organizing process and to fully enable members to share their opinions without hesitation. Linda Stout uses her background and her own personal experience of marginalization within the organizing community to show how trainers can be more mindful of the diversity of their members as they strive toward a common goal. The book features a clear, actionable, step-by-step process to set up and create a welcoming space for activist leaders to collaborate for positive change. Stout details ways in which trainers should reach out to different groups, listen to and understand needs and concerns of the group, create a welcoming space for all voices, foster agreements, ensure the visibility of all members.

The development of the social web - the set of digital tools that allow people to connect with one another and share their stories - offers extraordinary potential to change what voices get heard in the global conversation. This is unlike anything the world has seen in a thousand years. Change agents working to make the world a better place need not just to be on board with social media but also need to drive and shape the conversation.Share This! explains the importance of social media as a part of an overall ecosystem of tools for change and examines how broader participation by marginalized voices can foster opportunity on both the individual and collective levels. Tech savant Zandt devotes special attention to the challenges that women face, including concerns about privacy, security and reputation and includes interviews with Shireen Mitchell, Danah Boyd, Cheryl Contee, Beka Economopoulos and other social media experts who work within specific communities addressing race, class and gender disparities. In a voice both authoritative and irreverent Zandt provides an accessible guide to what the social networking tools are, how woman and minorities can use them strategically, where on the web readers can directly experience their power and why these technologies are so critical to transforming our daily lives.

Joan Hangarter bought a disability policy in 1990 to protect her should she ever become seriously ill. She dutifully paid her annual premiums for nearly a decade. But when she became disabled, she and her children found themselves homeless and bankrupt when her insurer—UnumProvident—stopped paying her benefits. With the help of attorneys Ray Bourhis and Alice Wolfson, Hangarter won a landmark $7.7 million jury verdict against Unum. Hangarter’s dramatic story illustrates in shocking detail how insurance companies put profit above the promises they make to policyholders. Exposing the intricate systems insurance companies use to target and terminate expensive claims without just cause, Bourhis reveals the back-room mind-set that drives these illegal practices. He shows how low-level employees are duped into unethical conduct, how insurers manipulate data and witnesses in the few cases that do go to trial, and exactly what ordinary people are up against when forced to take on these behemoths. Bourhis paints a frightening picture of how key decisions by Congress and the US Supreme Court have enabled these schemes to continue unchecked—and he provides a sorely needed roadmap to reform.

IMPROVING PROFIT is the number one objective of business leaders, yet most do not truly understand how to move beyond the basics when it comes to cost reduction for profit improvement. Typically, a company's response to reducing cost is to reduce the workforce. People are laid off in large numbers and dollars are saved-or so it seems. This is a mistake, a short-term solution. Profit Building provides a better approach, one that focuses on profit improvement as a stand-alone process, demonstrating how an organization can achieve its goals to improve profitability and reduce cost through a proven method based on team innovation management. Perry J. Ludy offers a hands-on guide that shows managers how to move profit-and-loss financial reviews beyond the basics to creative solutions and genuine action plans. Using the author's four-step Profit Building Process (PBP), Profit Building shows how to organize teams with the specific purpose of improving profit-while providing an opportunity for employees to participate in developing cost reduction strategies so that profit improvement is perpetual. A system of step-by-step activities designed to produce immediate and continuous results, the PBP shows managers how to apply concepts from prior learning-such as teams, innovation management, and performance improvement planning-to create tailor-made strategies for any organization. And it introduces "Questions Brainstorming," a new twist to traditional brainstorming that fosters avid group participation resulting in better solutions. In order to achieve success beyond today, business leaders must leverage all resources available within the organization to improve profit, reduce cost, and create a better place to work. Profit Building is an executive handbook and a quick desk reference for managers that shows how to do just that.

Most business books on social media have focused exclusively on using it as a marketing tool. Many employers see it as simply a workplace distraction. But social media has the potential to revolutionize workplace learning. People have always learned best from one another social media enables this to happen unrestricted by physical location and in all kinds of extraordinarily creative ways. The New Social Learning is the most authoritative guide available to leveraging these powerful new technologies.Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner explain why social media is the ideal solution to some of the most pressing educational challenges organizations face today, such as a widely dispersed workforce and striking differences in learning styles, particularly across generations. They definitively answer common objections to using social media as a training tool and show how to win over even the most resistant employees. Then, using examples from a wide range of organizations Bingham and Conner help readers sort through the dizzying array of technological options available and decide when and how to use each one to achieve key strategic goals.

Negotiation impacts every aspect of our lives, from our relationships with family members and neighbors, to the transactions we make as customers, to the deals we strike on the job. Yet it's a skill too often ignored. For many, the prospect of negotiating makes them uncomfortable, nervous, even frightened. This plague of "negotiaphobia" is what The One Minute Negotiator will remedy.Don Hutson and George Lucas use an engaging business parable to tell the story of a high-level sales professional who learns to master a simple yet profound approach to negotiations, one that can be applied to any situation: getting the best loaner car while your car is in the shop, seeking a fair solution after a hotel messes up your reservation, closing a deal to get your product in a big-box retail store, settling on the price for your new home in short, any transaction. The key is flexibility. Most books on negotiation preach one of two gospels: thou shalt collaborate or thou shalt compete. Either everybody works together toward a common goal, or the process is basically adversarial. The problem is no two negotiations are alike-one strategy cannot fit all. The One Minute Negotiator teaches you four potential strategies and shows how to choose the one best suited to the situation, your own inclinations, and the strategy being used by the other side. Besides the obvious benefits, conquering negotiaphobia will reduce your stress level. You'll never walk away thinking about what you should have asked for or might have gotten. Instead, with the tools Hutson and Lucas provide you can confidently and consistently guide any negotiation to the best possible conclusion.

The leading author and senior statesman in the field of diversity management identifies the most effective diversity management philosophies, strategies and practices from around the world.Today's competitive economic environment makes it necessary to access the most effective managerial philosophies possible - this is as true for diversity management as it is for management in general. It extends to both corporations with operations in multiple countries and those indirectly experiencing the impact of globalization. Even organizations that conduct business in only one country are finding that global interconnectedness, created through communications and technology, makes it difficult to avoid the influence of world dynamics in their industry and related sectors. It has become urgently important to possess awareness of "best in the world" philosophies.However, the field of diversity has not yet progressed towards a standard. We have neither established what "world class" is, nor specified how it might be achieved. Until now World Class Diversity fosters ease of comparison, discussion and analysis across the globe and offers a process for addressing any diversity issue. Given the multiplicity of approaches to diversity around the globe, "world class" status requires a process that can be adapted to any approach and used with any mixture. This book provides the blueprint to create an effective new approach, describing a common language for dialogue across countries. By creating a unified terminology and framework for implementation, World Class Diversity Management aims to become the standard and foundational text for diversity managers across the globe.