Book Recommendations

  • Leading the Revolution - “Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life” by Gary Hamel. Gary Hamel, world-renowned business thinker and coauthor of “Competing for the Future”, the book that set the management agenda for the 1990s, now delivers an agenda for the twenty-first century with the national bestseller, “Leading the…
  • Thinking in Systems: A Primer - Thinking in Systems: A Primer – by Donella H. Meadows In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth–the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet– Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in…
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow - Thinking, Fast and Slow – by Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision making, is one of our most important thinkers. His ideas have had a profound and widely regarded impact on many fields –…
  • Adaptive Enterprise - Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-And-Respond Organizations – by Stephan Haeckel Unpredictable, discontinuous change is an unavoidable consequence of doing business in the Information Age. Because this intense turbulence demands fast – even instantaneous – response, many large companies are fragmenting themselves into smaller, quick-response units. But in doing so, they relinquish important advantages of…
  • Leaders Make the Future - “Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World” by Bob Johansen. We are in a time of disruptive leadership change. In a VUCA world – one characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity – traditional leadership skills won’t be enough, noted futurist Bob Johansen argues. Drawing on the latest ten-year forecast…
  • Analyzing Performance Problems - Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna – How to Figure out Why People Aren’t Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It – by Robert Mager The reaction to the behaviors of problem employees is much too often “more training” that doesn’t do anything to improve the situation.  Usually it’s…
  • The Power of Appreciative Inquiry - The Power of Appreciative Inquiry:  A Practical Guide to Positive Change – by Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom Many of our clients spend huge amounts of time focusing on what is going wrong and little time thinking about what is going well.  Aside from the inherent downer in this approach, there is significant value to…
  • Fierce Conversations - Fierce Conversations:  Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time – by Susan Scott In almost all of our client organizations, one of the most critical problems is the lack of open and honest feedback about tough subjects. This isn’t about not wanting feedback – almost everyone does. What it’s about…
  • The Leadership Pipeline - The Leadership Pipeline:  How to Build the Leadership Powered Company – by Stephen Drotter, Ram Charan and James Noel This book is a must read for any manager or executive who is struggling to stay strategic. Many of the leaders we consult with are working one or two levels below where they should be working.…
  • Good to Great - Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t – by Jim Collins We find two of Collins’ main ideas highly relevant to our clients’ leadership teams: 1) when is responsibility taken or credit given, and 2) are they serious enough about making sure the right people are on (and off)…