Bøger udgivet af Berrett-Koehler

We need more women at the highest levels in business, government, and nonprofits - and there is no time to waste. The problem, says Helene Lerner, isn't so much that women lack confidence but that they misunderstand what confidence really is.True confidence isn't fearlessness; it's having the courage to move forward while your knees are shaking. Any woman waiting until she has enough confidence with a capital C to act never will. Lerner lays out practical strategies for beating this confidence myth, drawing on her own and other female leaders' experiences and on her survey of over 500 working women. You'll learn how to present your best self no matter how you feel inside, welcome even brutal feedback as a tool to hone your skills, avoid spreading yourself too thin by saying "no" strategically, and much more. The book features dozens of Confidence Sparks, simple but powerful exercises and techniques to catapult your career to the next level. The playing field is not level and gender inequities persist, but the women interviewed in this book have found ways to navigate through it, and you can, too. The key to success is seizing the opportunity and acting now. Helene Lerner is here to act as your personal coach as you silence the "mad mind chatter" and take risks, speak out, and step up.

In the United States today, our Bill of Rights has been rendered pointless by heavy surveillance of average citizens, political persecution of dissenters, and the threat of indefinite detention now codified into law. Corporations reap handsome profits collecting information for various agencies - 70 percent of the US intelligence budget is paid to private contractors. As a result, we now live in a Corporate Security State where the government is more interested in safeguarding the health of the companies who serve it than the citizens who support it.The Rise of the American Corporate Security State details the massive amount of information the government is collecting and exposes how far it's willing to go to conceal its activities and punish anyone who dares expose it. Further, the blurring of the boundaries between business and government is enabling corporations to spy on employees and citizens in the name of "cybersecurity" and has hobbled attempts to punish the corporate institutions responsible for the financial collapse of 2008. But Edwards offers a plan for fighting back - steps we can demand to restore transparency to government, keep private information private, and make democracy a reality once again.

Most companies, if they solicit employee ideas at all, essentially just set up a suggestion box, which employees know from experience is where ideas go to die. So nothing happens. But innovation is not an option - it's the key to survival. And innovation needs new ideas. So where are those ideas going to come from? Using numerous examples, Robinson and Schroeder argue that the employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services are in the best position to see where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact. Robinson and Schroeder explain how leaders can build the kind of idea-driven company capable of implementing fifty to a hundred or more ideas per employee per year. Drawing on their work with companies worldwide, they show what's needed to put together a management team open to grassroots innovation and describe the strategies, policies, and practices that encourage - and those that discourage - employee ideas. They detail exactly how high-performing idea processes work and how to design one customized for your organization - including advice for teaching people how to come up with new ideas. The best ideas may come from the bottom, but they have to be systematically solicited from the top.

Every group that executive coach Steve Arneson speaks to have the same question: what does my boss want? Even a good boss can be hard to read, but many people have difficult bosses. Many bosses aren't clear about their expectations, act in seemingly inexplicable ways, and suggest motives that appear to have nothing to do with helping you achieve your career goals. Arneson says the hard truth is that any efforts to improve, fix, or convert your boss won't work. The secret is to figure out what makes her tick and change your own approach to working with her. The book is divided into three sections and built around fifteen questions - ten to ask about your boss and five to ask about yourself. It begins by showing you how you can study your boss to gain an understanding of what drives his behavior - work style, leadership brand, and motives. Once you understand this, you can consider how your boss sees you. Studying your boss is important, but you also have to look at yourself from her perspective. Finally, you need to take responsibility for the relationship. In this section, you'll find practical suggestions for using what you've learned to change your interactions with your boss and tips for getting the relationship back on track. Arneson includes vivid real-world examples to show how he and his clients have put his advice into practice to gain more meaningful, productive, and enjoyable work lives.

One reason public speaking is such a nightmare for so many people is that they think they have to be "perfect." They drive themselves crazy trying to conform to all sorts of handed-down rules that tie them up in knots and put their audiences to sleep. Karen Hough says you can throw out those rules, relax, be yourself, make "mistakes," and connect with your audience much more effectively than the guy with the impeccable PowerPoint slides. Hough has used her unique presentation approach to take the anxiety out of one of the greatest fears in business. Her book debunks over a dozen myths about presentations to make them more fun and natural for everybody. Its authenticity and passion that win people over not polish. But you can't be authentic if you're following someone else's rules. Hough shows how you can embrace your own style and communicate your message without worrying constantly about antiquated dos and don'ts. Follow Karen's "bad advice" and you'll be surprised to learn you're actually a naturally skilled presenter.

This is a book about how to lead people and organizations in ways that unlock their greatness. It offers a potent assembly of ideas about how small actions leaders take can make a difference in changing the trajectory of individuals and organizations, moving them more rapidly and effectively toward being their best. The book is built on a foundation of cutting-edge research and transformational insights from the field of positive organizational scholarship. How to Be a Positive Leader captures and clusters these transformational insights into four leadership action domains - tapping into the good, unlocking valuable resources, fostering positive relationships, and facilitating generative change - that encompass the full range of leadership abilities, from negotiating to inspiring to leading the ethics charge. Above all, each domain focuses on human relationships as the basis of any effective leadership. Proof that positive models of leading are the most productive means to lasting change, this book will give every leader the courage to make a positive difference in the workday.

We are living amidst a remarkable transformation. The linear, throwaway economy of today - in which we extract resources, create products, use them, and throw them away like a cheap plastic fork - is rapidly coming to a close. We are, simply put, running out of things to mine and places to trash. A new economy is being born, one that takes this line and turns it into a circle. Resource scarcity - the overfished ocean - is the reality virtually every company is swimming in. Those managers who deeply understand and master this shift will be able to turn the new reality into disruptive innovation and remarkable competitive advantage. Overfished Ocean Strategy offers five essential principles for developing products and services for this new reality. A business owner herself, Nadya Zhexembayeva fills the book with examples of companies that are already successfully navigating the overfished ocean. Unlike less-farsighted companies, they are not making "green" products as a sideline for a niche market but rather have made dealing with resource scarcity the central, driving force of their entire strategy. As these innovators ride ahead of the wave, new products, new business models, new markets, and new profits follow. You can join them, or you can be left standing on the shore.

It's a paradox: as big companies get better at achieving operational excellence, actual breakthroughs seem to decrease. It's the scrappy little startups, with comparatively tiny budgets, that continue to be founts of innovation. Why is it that as industry leaders get better at what they do, they get worse at innovation?By conducting deep research within companies as diverse as Apple, Google, Pfizer, General Motors, Nike, and Sony, the authors have found the answer: the very pursuit of operational excellence - that is, making one's existing business as efficient as it can be - blinds managers to the kinds of disruptive business model changes vital for innovation. These changes could threaten all that hard work. It's why Nokia famously killed its smart phone - the company was too invested in "dumb phones." Nothing less than a complete redesign and rethinking of the corporation - down to how accountants capture innovation costs and overhead - is necessary to get companies moving again. The authors' new model, "the startup corporation," marries the strengths of corporate scale to the nimbleness of entrepreneurs.For a model of the new startup corporation, the authors return again and again to Apple, which doesn't have the usual corporate structure and accounting systems. Not every company can be an Apple, but all companies can learn to break the bonds of operational thinking if they'll take the authors' lessons to heart.

The world is not coming to an end soon, despite what you may have heard and continue to hear everywhere. Jurriaan Kamp argues that there are reasons to be positive and that, contrary to what the media says, the world is slowly and incrementally getting better. Not only that, but there is solid evidence that optimism - intelligent optimism, not rose-colored glasses wishful thinking - is good for your body and mind too.Certainly there is upheaval and economic, political, and social instability, but the near-exclusive focus on negative developments means that progress too often goes unnoticed, which just contributes to a general sense of pessimism. And pessimism can be fatal: Kamp cites research showing that pessimists are more likely to smoke, be overweight, have high blood pressure, suffer from high cholesterol, and have an increased risk of Parkinson's. Kamp demonstrates that, believe it or not on the whole we're living longer, becoming smarter, and working less, and that wealth is increasing, democracy is on the rise, and violence is on the decline. He explains how we can cultivate an informed optimistic outlook that will make our lives and the world better. Because, as he quotes Helen Keller, "No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed an uncharted land or opened ¿a new doorway for ¿the human spirit."

The United States has the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. But are we any safer? Journalist Maya Schenwar proves that locking people up actually makes society less safe - and that there are alternatives that do a better job of deterring crime and providing justice for victims. Schenwar looks at how incarceration breaks the bonds that hold people together and deprives incarcerated people of exactly the kind of support and life skills necessary to reintegrate into society - which is why more than two-thirds of prisoners are re-arrested within three years of release. She draws heavily on her personal experience (her sister has spent the better part of ten years entangled in the system), as well as the struggles of other prisoners and their families.Far from advocating the complete abolition of prisons, Schenwar simply argues that they shouldn't be the only approach. She describes how highly effective alternative justice programs in the US and other countries do a better job of both preventing recidivism and providing meaningful restitution to victims. Above all, however, Schenwar seeks to convince her readers that prisoners, for all their hurtful deeds, shouldn't be treated as "non-persons." Her book is a passionate argument that "throwing away the key" ultimately hurts individuals and society.

Trust is a non-negotiable for high performing relationships and organizations. Yet trust is fragile, and ninety percent of the behaviors that break it are subtle, fleeting, and unintentional. Drs. Dennis and Michelle Reina have rewritten this third edition of their best-selling, award-winning book Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace to empower everyone at every level of responsibility - not just leaders - to build and sustain trust in their workplaces. Updated and completely rewritten with new case studies, tools, tips, and reflections, this third edition is the culmination of the authors' more than 20 years of rigorous research and "in the trenches" trust building experience with hundreds of organizations and thousands of people around the world. As pioneers in the field of trust, Dennis and Michelle tell the truth about what it takes to build sustainable trust in the workplace - trust that withstands the tests of time, geography, and an increasingly volatile and competitive marketplace. In this third edition, the authors provide the most detailed blueprint available for building highly effective, trust-based connections and organizations. Drs. Dennis and Michelle Reina have devoted their careers to trust because they believe that people don't just want and need trustworthy relationships - they have a fundamental right to them. In this rewritten third edition of Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace, the authors reveal their practical, proven approaches to accessing this right to trust - one thought, intention, and behavior at a time.

According to Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn, the new way to succeed is to give what you have away. They call it the reciprocity advantage: sharing your assets with carefully chosen partners in order to learn how to make money in new ways - think give to grow.Johansen and Ronn explain each of the four steps involved in achieving reciprocity advantage, beginning with uncovering your "right-of-way": the space, resources, or technologies you control and have trust and permission to share with others. The next step is choosing the best partners to share these assets with, which can be surprising - for example, the authors tell how Microsoft partnered with the people who'd been hacking their Kinnect platform to find new uses for it. Then the authors explain how to experiment with your partners to figure out which new products or services might be scalable, and how to look at new technologies that can make scaling up faster than ever.Johansen and Ronn also identify four future forces that will dramatically impact each of these four steps, and include numerous examples of businesses that have succeeded by applying reciprocity principles as well as those that failed by sticking to shortsighted business practices. And they provide detailed, practical guidance for any business that wants to discover its own reciprocity advantage.

In Your Life Isn't for You, Seth Adam Smith expands on the philosophy outlined in his huge hit blog post Marriage is Not for You, which has received over 30 million hits and has been translated into 20 languages (and counting). In this inspiring, funny, and moving book, Seth shows how his philosophy of living for others can enrich every aspect of your life - just as it has his. Seth writes not as an "expert" but as flawed human being sharing what he's learned - and learned the hard way. He reveals how, years before his marriage, his self-obsession led to a downward spiral of addiction and depression, culminating in a suicide attempt at the age of 20.It was the love and support Seth experienced in the aftermath, which he so poignantly depicts here, that opened his eyes to the dead end (literally) of selfishness. With a mix of humor, candor, and compassion, he reflects on the experiences in his life - his difficult missionary stint in Russia, his time as a youth leader in the Arizona desert, his marriage, even a children's book his father read to him - which were the seeds from which his conviction grew that the only way you can find your life is to give it away to others.

Most people regard meetings as places where productivity goes to die. How different would it be if they were places where you could actually get your work done - right there in the meeting? Richard and Emily Axelrod have invested thirty years answering this question, and they have a field-tested answer. Using the same work design principles that transformed the mind-numbing assembly line into the dynamic factory floor, and that make video games so engaging, their new book offers a flexible, repeatable process that has already been used to run thousands of productive meetings in all kinds of organizations. It takes more than an agenda and a note-taker. The Axelrods show how to design every aspect of a meeting - from the way you greet people at the beginning to how you sum up at the end - so that the experience will be energizing rather than enervating, and relevant and helpful to every participant. Their detailed, six-stage approach, which they dub the Meeting Canoe (since, like a canoe, it adapts to changing conditions and is a collective effort) is a seismic shift in the way we view, use, and participate in meetings. The many current users of this system will never go back. Neither will you.

Leaders, managers, and mentors are charged with getting people to stretch their limits, but they avoid doing it because of the potential for tension and conflict - and besides, they don't know if it'll result in any lasting change anyway. Top executive coach Marcia Reynolds here offers a technique that enables readers to take their people through "the discomfort zone" with minimal pain and maximum gain. We can't see our own blind spots (hence the name), so the role of the leader is crucial. Reynolds explains how to pick the right time and place to enter the discomfort zone and how to create a "safety bubble" so that people will trust your intentions. Then, drawing on discoveries in neuroscience about how people learn, she shows how to ask the kinds of questions that will short-circuit the brain's defensive mechanisms and habitual thought patterns and help listeners see clearly where they're falling short and how they can do better. She includes a plethora of actual examples from her coaching practice.Reynolds can't make the discomfort zone into a cake walk - leaders still need the courage to enter it. But she offers a path through it that will result in helping others to achieve lasting changes and enduring success.

In this brilliant historical classic, Dan Sisson provides the definitive window into key concepts that have formed the backdrop of our democracy: the nature of revolution, stewardship of power, liberty, and the ever-present danger of factions and tyranny. Most contemporary historians celebrate Jefferson's victory over Adams in 1800 - which Jefferson firmly maintained was "as real a revolution...as that of 1776 - as the beginning of the two-party system, but Sisson believes it is entirely the wrong lesson. Jefferson saw his election as a peaceful revolution by the American people overturning an elitist faction that was stamping out cherished constitutional rights and trying to transform our young democracy into an authoritarian state. If anything, our current two-party system is a repudiation of Jefferson's theory of revolution, and his earnest desire that the people as a whole, not any faction or clique, would triumph in government. Sisson's book makes clear that key ideas of the American Revolution did not reach their full fruition until the "Revolution of 1800," to which we owe the preservation of many of our key rights. With new contributions from the author and Thom Hartmann, this fortieth anniversary edition contains fresh insights and reflections on how Jefferson's vision can help us in our own era of polarization, corruption, government overreach, and gridlock.

As a banker in Silicon Valley in the 80s, and an entrepreneur who founded a number of successful companies beginning in the 90s, Bill Fisher has seen first-hand that raising capital is the most important part of the startup process. Regardless of vision, motivation, and commitment to social responsibility, nothing will happen without capital. But most entrepreneurs continue to make rookie mistakes that stop them before they have a chance to get started.Fisher looks at six traditional steps in the capital-raising process and digs beneath the surface to expose subtle but critical aspects of each - knowledge that, until now, could only come with experience. For example, everyone knows that you need to have a compelling story to raise capital, but compelling for whom? Not for you or your friends or your potential customers, but for investors. So how do you design your pitch to work for them? And while you obviously need investors, they have to be the right investors. You need people who understand your vision and goals, not just whoever is waving the biggest checks.. Based on Fisher's three-day seminars that regularly sell out all over the world, this book offers the kind of capital-raising street smarts no entrepreneur can do without.

Boards That Excel is a different kind of corporate governance book. Author B. Joseph White, a successful businessman, veteran of several boards, and a distinguished academic, argues that boards enable organizations to excel only when the directors go beyond the standard duties of good governance, such as oversight, monitoring, and facilitating strategy. Directors, he says, must see themselves as stewards who have a responsibility to know the organization inside out and make decisions that create value for all stakeholders - customers, shareholders, and society. The goal should be not just quarterly success, but giving the organization the ability to control its destiny over the long term.White provides a comprehensive guide to all the responsibilities of a board member, always informed by this wider perspective. He draws lessons from his 25 years of personal experience-including serving as governance committee chair of an S&P 500 company board and as a director of one of America's largest privately held, family-controlled businesses. He also includes candid interviews with more than a dozen high-performance directors, including General Motors' recently appointed board chair Tim Solso, Siebel Systems founder Tom Siebel, and legendary real estate investor and Equity Residential chairman Sam Zell. Authoritative and disarmingly honest, this is an inspiring call to board members to understand and fully embrace their critically important role.

Jeffrey Ashe draws on his long, distinguished career in international development and his personal experience helping to build savings groups to explain how this simple and powerful approach works. As this book shows, the poor are not too poor to save, there is enough savings potential within a group of twenty to meet most needs, and very small sums can make a big difference. Savings groups are as convenient as meeting under a mango tree in the village, and they are as flexible as the rules group that members design for themselves. They build on existing resources while avoiding the subsidies, debt, dependency, and high costs of other approaches, including microlending.This model has the potential to revolutionize development programs in many other areas, including health, agriculture, education, and even grassroots political empowerment. "Being organized gives us courage," as one saver said. It is their courage translated into action that explains the success of this "in their own hands" approach to development.

Economic inequality has become like the weather: everyone talks about it and nobody does anything about it. Working Assets founder Peter Barnes actually has a plan: a bold effort to break the stalemate over economic policy, lift up our middle class, and make everyone a stakeholder in a cleaner planet. Barnes argues that, thanks to automation, globalization, and winner-take-all capitalism, there will never again be enough high-paying jobs to sustain a large middle class. The only hope lies in non-labor income - that is, in jobs plus something more.Building upon our Declaration of Independence, an essay by Thomas Paine, and a 30-year-old program in Alaska, Barnes proposes paying monthly dividends to every American. This supplemental income would come from the wealth we own together - such as the atmosphere, our ecosystems, and the benefits that flow from our common cultural, social, legal and intellectual heritage. Such dividends would not only keep our economy humming, but can also be designed to make it unprofitable to abuse nature. And Barnes' proposal bypasses the current gridlock between left and right; once set up, the dividend system is purely market-based. This is a truly visionary yet eminently practical solution to a seemingly intractable problem.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that corporations are people eliminated campaign finance restrictions and dramatically increased corporate power. Attorney and activist Jeffrey Clements shows how you can fight back. In this new edition, he describes the growing movement to reverse the ruling - since the first edition 16 states, 160 Congress people, and 500 cities and towns have called for a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. But at the same time he shows the ongoing destructive effects of the ruling - for example, 5% of the population contributed $7 billion in the 2012 Presidential election, and Chevron spent 1.2 million to influence a single local election in a city of 100,000 people. Clements explains the strange history of how the Supreme Court came to embrace a concept that flies in the face of, not only all common sense, but most of American legal history as well. He shows how unfettered corporate rights will impact public health, energy policy, the environment, and the justice system. And, even more importantly, he provides solutions: the text of a Constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United, and a new chapter, Do Something!, that tells stories of the people leading the movement. His book provides tools every American can use to overturn corporate personhood state by state and community by community.

In The Secret, Debbie, a struggling leader finds herself about to lose her job due to poor performance. In a desperate attempt to save her career, she enrolls in a new mentoring program offered by her company. Much to her surprise, Debbie finds her mentor is the president of the company (Jeff Brown). Debbie decides that all she needs is the answer to one question: "What is the secret of great leaders?" She is convinced that if Jeff will tell her, she can apply the secret in her leadership. Over the next 18 months Jeff explains to Debbie that the secret is rooted in an attitude. He tells her that she must be willing to become a serving leader rather than a self-serving leader. The secret is that all great leaders SERVE.

Drawing from their own ten-year partnership and from interviews with women business partners across the world, Betsy Polk and Maggie Chotas have learned something powerful: when women work together they discover a level of shared support, balance, and a freedom to be themselves that is rarely found in other work relationships.Power Through Partnership is a call for women ready to build on their inherent strengths and to collaborate in trust-based professional relationships. Polk and Chotas discuss new research that demonstrates women are actually wired to be better partners than men. They demolish the myths that keep women from collaborating and then walk readers through the potential challenges: finding the best partner, dealing with conflict, facing fears and taking risks, and knowing when to let go of a partnership. Featuring illuminating interviews with women partners in all kinds of industries, this book shows that when women collaborate - combining complementary skills, pushing ego aside and supporting each other - they can work as full equals to achieve something that's exponentially greater than the two alone.

Turn Strategy into Performance!In today's world of rapid, disruptive change, strategy can't be separate from execution - it has to emerge from execution. You have to continually adjust your strategy to fit new realities. But if your organization isn't set up to be fast on its feet, you could easily go the way of Blockbuster or Borders.Laura Stack shows you how to quickly drive strategic initiatives and get great results from your team. Her LEAD Formula outlines the Four Keys to Successful Execution: the ability to Leverage your talent and resources, design an Environment to support an agile culture, create Alignment between strategic priorities and operational activities, and Drive the organization forward quickly. She includes a leadership team assessment, group reading guides, and bonus self-development resources. Stack will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to help you hit the ground running!

New Edition, Revised and Updatedaffluenza, n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.We tried to warn you! The 2008 economic collapse proved how resilient and dangerous affluenza can be. Now in its third edition, this book can safely be called prophetic in showing how problems ranging from loneliness, endless working hours, and family conflict to rising debt, environmental pollution, and rampant commercialism are all symptoms of this global plague. The new edition traces the role overconsumption played in the Great Recession, discusses new ways to measure social health and success (such as the Gross Domestic Happiness index), and offers policy recommendations to make our society more simplicity-friendly. The underlying message isn't to stop buying - it's to remember, always, that the best things in life aren't things.

Ben & Jerry's have always been committed to an insanely ambitious three-part mission: making the world's best ice cream, supporting progressive causes, and sharing the company's success with all stakeholders: employees, suppliers, distributors, customers, cows, everybody. But it hasn't been easy.This is the first book to tell the full, inside story of the inspiring rise, tragic mistakes, devastating fall, determined recovery, and ongoing renewal of one of the most iconic mission-driven companies in the world. No previous book has focused so intently on the challenges presented by staying true to that mission. No other book has explained how the company came to be sold to corporate giant Unilever or how that relationship evolved to allow Ben & Jerry's to pursue its mission on a much larger stage. Journalist Brad Edmondson tells the story with an eye for details, dramatic moments, and memorable characters. He interviewed dozens of key figures, particularly Jeff Furman, who helped Ben and Jerry write their first business plan in 1978 and became chairman of the board in 2010. It's a funny, sad, surprising, and ultimately hopeful story.

Our leadership models are stuck in an Industrial Age, top-down mentality. But in our complex, data-drenched, 24/7 world, there is simply too much information coming from too many different directions too quickly for any one leader or group to stay on top of it. Hierarchy is breaking down everywhere - why should leadership be any different?Inspired by the peer-to-peer model of computing used in social networking and crowdsource technologies, Mila Baker shows a new way to lead. Organizations, she says, must become networks of "equipotent" nodes of power-peer leaders. The job of the leader is now to set the overall goals and direction and optimize the health of that network, not tell it what to do. In these organizations, leadership roles shift rapidly to fit the needs of any given situation. Information flows freely so those who need it can find it easily and act on it immediately. Feedback becomes an organic part of the workflow, enabling rapid course corrections. Baker shows how companies like Gore and Herman Miller have achieved long-term success practicing these principles and provides a structure that any organization can adapt to build flexibility, resiliency, and accountability.