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We're no longer conducting elections, we're holding auctions. Longtime activist and former political candidate Derek Cressman shows how we can return free speech to the people, not the biggest bankroll.
Now that the Supreme Court has equated money with speech and thrown out campaign spending limits, Americans want to know what they can do about it. Derek Cressman gives them the tools, both ideological and tactical, to fight back.
Cressman points out that there's nothing inherently unconstitutional in limiting speech. We do it all the time-for example, cities control when and where demonstrations can take place, or how long people can speak at council meetings. More importantly, he argues that while you choose to patronize Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal when they exercise their free speech rights, political advertising is forced upon you. It's paid speech-not at all what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.
Cressman looks at why attempts to limit paid political speech have failed so far, what a constitutional amendment limiting paid speech should say, and explains how citizens can use an overlooked political tool to help gain its passage. Seven times in our history we've passed constitutional amendments to overturn wrongheaded rulings by the Court-there's no reason we can't do it again.
Now that the Supreme Court has equated money with speech and thrown out campaign spending limits, Americans want to know what they can do about it. Derek Cressman gives them the tools, both ideological and tactical, to fight back.
Cressman points out that there's nothing inherently unconstitutional in limiting speech. We do it all the time-for example, cities control when and where demonstrations can take place, or how long people can speak at council meetings. More importantly, he argues that while you choose to patronize Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal when they exercise their free speech rights, political advertising is forced upon you. It's paid speech-not at all what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.
Cressman looks at why attempts to limit paid political speech have failed so far, what a constitutional amendment limiting paid speech should say, and explains how citizens can use an overlooked political tool to help gain its passage. Seven times in our history we've passed constitutional amendments to overturn wrongheaded rulings by the Court-there's no reason we can't do it again.
Why do teams settle for bad ideas or kill good ones? Popular consultant B. Kim Barnes's unique process of constructive debate shows how teams can create better ideas and outcomes by eliminating obstacles to honest discussion, creativity, and collaboration.
In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Honest opinions often show up in the “meeting after the meeting” because people fear conflict or repercussions. Bad ideas move forward and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results-financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes's process of Constructive Debate shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting heard. By using this tested model, any company or team can improve outcomes and bring out everyone's best ideas.
In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Honest opinions often show up in the “meeting after the meeting” because people fear conflict or repercussions. Bad ideas move forward and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results-financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes's process of Constructive Debate shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting heard. By using this tested model, any company or team can improve outcomes and bring out everyone's best ideas.
All team leaders worry and wonder about improving team performance. Using his experience leading the precision Thunderbirds aerobatic team, Venable shows that "closing the gaps" is the job of leaders and followers alike.
As a pilot, commander, and demonstration leader for the Thunderbirds, JV Venable gained key insights into team performance. Organizations need leaders who will minimize emotional friction and the gaps in alignment that slow teams down. But leaders can't do it all. To illustrate this, JV borrows a phenomenon common to racing and aerobatic teams alike: "drafting." When teams of bikes, cars, or jets are aligned and move in perfect formation, everyone shares the load of breaking resistance. But if the team is misaligned, or gaps between members grow by mere inches, the draft falters and the load falls back on the leader. Everybody loses.
JV's book gives teams and team leaders new tools for improving alignment and fostering closeness through commitment, loyalty, and trust. When trust is complete, team members move quickly to "close the gaps" and take on more of the load. This allows leaders to focus less on giving orders, and more on the road ahead.
Thunderbird pilots operate on a level of trust that allows them to sustain 18 inches between jets, which is all the more remarkable as the team experiences 50% turnover every year. JV's experience leading one of the most celebrated teams in the world makes for an unforgettable handbook. Can your team fly higher?
As a pilot, commander, and demonstration leader for the Thunderbirds, JV Venable gained key insights into team performance. Organizations need leaders who will minimize emotional friction and the gaps in alignment that slow teams down. But leaders can't do it all. To illustrate this, JV borrows a phenomenon common to racing and aerobatic teams alike: "drafting." When teams of bikes, cars, or jets are aligned and move in perfect formation, everyone shares the load of breaking resistance. But if the team is misaligned, or gaps between members grow by mere inches, the draft falters and the load falls back on the leader. Everybody loses.
JV's book gives teams and team leaders new tools for improving alignment and fostering closeness through commitment, loyalty, and trust. When trust is complete, team members move quickly to "close the gaps" and take on more of the load. This allows leaders to focus less on giving orders, and more on the road ahead.
Thunderbird pilots operate on a level of trust that allows them to sustain 18 inches between jets, which is all the more remarkable as the team experiences 50% turnover every year. JV's experience leading one of the most celebrated teams in the world makes for an unforgettable handbook. Can your team fly higher?
The expanded and revised edition of Community tackles the hysteric rise of isolation and fear in a digitally interconnected world.
In the second edition of Community, author Peter Block offers practical advice and uplifting stories as a way to reject the increasing pull towards isolation and fear of the stranger in a new world of constant connection. This book explores the benefits of community and belonging to foster social change and reconciliation. As we continue to find new ways of being in constant connection with each other through technology, our workplaces are depopulated and we face growing trends of fundamentalism and nationalism, our fear of the stranger deepens. Block challenges this mindset and proves that community and the structure of belonging has the power to bring about positive social change when supported by the frameworks of compassion, equity and respect for the other. Backed by extensive research, this updated and expanded edition illuminates successful stories of community building as a form of healing. Covering stories about political gridlocks, poverty, people of faith, to institutional life, this revolutionary book offers a compelling argument of why we need community now more than ever.
In the second edition of Community, author Peter Block offers practical advice and uplifting stories as a way to reject the increasing pull towards isolation and fear of the stranger in a new world of constant connection. This book explores the benefits of community and belonging to foster social change and reconciliation. As we continue to find new ways of being in constant connection with each other through technology, our workplaces are depopulated and we face growing trends of fundamentalism and nationalism, our fear of the stranger deepens. Block challenges this mindset and proves that community and the structure of belonging has the power to bring about positive social change when supported by the frameworks of compassion, equity and respect for the other. Backed by extensive research, this updated and expanded edition illuminates successful stories of community building as a form of healing. Covering stories about political gridlocks, poverty, people of faith, to institutional life, this revolutionary book offers a compelling argument of why we need community now more than ever.
Who are some of the most confident, fabulous people on the planet? Drag queens-and Jackie Huba wants to teach you how to channel the courage and confidence of drag in your personal and professional lives.
We all want to be fabulous. But too often we let self-doubt derail us from pursuing our passions and accomplishing our biggest goals. This was the situation Jackie Huba found herself in. At the lowest point in her life she serendipitously stumbled upon the wonderful world of drag queens, and to her surprise, she found them inspiring and energizing. They were supremely confident, utterly fearless, strong, powerful, and unabashedly and completely themselves-no apologies, no compromises. So she immersed herself in the world of drag, eventually becoming a female drag queen herself aka Lady Trinity.
Fiercely You is a creative, playful approach to the serious problems that women face regarding confidence and risk-taking. Drawing on her own experiences and interviews with the world's top drag queens, Huba offers five keys to the Queendom that will help readers ignore criticism and live life more fearlessly. This is not a guide to drag, it's a guide to life-but in a sense, all life is drag. As RuPaul, the most famous drag queen in the world, herself says, “We're born naked, and the rest is drag.” Huba and her coauthor Shelly Stewart Kronbergs-who explains the psychology research that supports each of Huba's keys-help readers become the amazing person they see inside their heads and feel in their hearts.
We all want to be fabulous. But too often we let self-doubt derail us from pursuing our passions and accomplishing our biggest goals. This was the situation Jackie Huba found herself in. At the lowest point in her life she serendipitously stumbled upon the wonderful world of drag queens, and to her surprise, she found them inspiring and energizing. They were supremely confident, utterly fearless, strong, powerful, and unabashedly and completely themselves-no apologies, no compromises. So she immersed herself in the world of drag, eventually becoming a female drag queen herself aka Lady Trinity.
Fiercely You is a creative, playful approach to the serious problems that women face regarding confidence and risk-taking. Drawing on her own experiences and interviews with the world's top drag queens, Huba offers five keys to the Queendom that will help readers ignore criticism and live life more fearlessly. This is not a guide to drag, it's a guide to life-but in a sense, all life is drag. As RuPaul, the most famous drag queen in the world, herself says, “We're born naked, and the rest is drag.” Huba and her coauthor Shelly Stewart Kronbergs-who explains the psychology research that supports each of Huba's keys-help readers become the amazing person they see inside their heads and feel in their hearts.
Our economy is designed by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent. This book offers a compelling vision of an equitable, ecologically sustainable alternative that meets the essential needs of all people.
Seventy-one percent of the American people say the economy is rigged against them, and they're right. Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard describe the current economic system as the Extractive Economy-it enables the financial elite to extract maximum gain for themselves, heedless of any damage to people or planet. As an alternative, they offer the Democratic Economy, which is responsive to the concerns of ordinary people and balances human consumption with the regenerative capacity of the earth.
Kelly and Howard lay out seven principles of a Democratic Economy: Community, Inclusion, Place (keeping wealth local), Good Work (putting labor before capital), Democratized Ownership, Ethical Finance, and Sustainability. The book pairs each principle with a portrait of a place where it is being put into practice, from Pine Ridge to Portland to Cleveland to Preston, England, and more. This is a powerful, coherent, and achievable vision of an economy that serves the many, not the few.
Seventy-one percent of the American people say the economy is rigged against them, and they're right. Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard describe the current economic system as the Extractive Economy-it enables the financial elite to extract maximum gain for themselves, heedless of any damage to people or planet. As an alternative, they offer the Democratic Economy, which is responsive to the concerns of ordinary people and balances human consumption with the regenerative capacity of the earth.
Kelly and Howard lay out seven principles of a Democratic Economy: Community, Inclusion, Place (keeping wealth local), Good Work (putting labor before capital), Democratized Ownership, Ethical Finance, and Sustainability. The book pairs each principle with a portrait of a place where it is being put into practice, from Pine Ridge to Portland to Cleveland to Preston, England, and more. This is a powerful, coherent, and achievable vision of an economy that serves the many, not the few.
Based on the bestselling A Complaint Is a Gift (over 275,000 copies sold), this accompanying workbook offers actionable tools that help individuals and organizations transform even the most extreme complaints into gifts that drive their business forward.
A Complaint Is a Gift introduced the revolutionary notion that customer complaints are not annoyances to be dodged, denied, or buried but are instead valuable pieces of feedback-not to mention your best bargain in market research. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints that are well received create customer loyalty.
Built to be interactive and immersive, the workbook teaches a set of practices, approaches, and tools that anyone can use to navigate fraught customer-facing interactions. It allows readers to practice Janelle Barlow's updated, more efficient three-step formula and enables employees to handle complaints with increased emotional resilience rather than taking them as personal attacks.
A Complaint Is a Gift Workbook is packed with the necessary tools to view and treat complaints as a source of innovative ideas that can transform your business.
A Complaint Is a Gift introduced the revolutionary notion that customer complaints are not annoyances to be dodged, denied, or buried but are instead valuable pieces of feedback-not to mention your best bargain in market research. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively strengthen products, service style, and market focus. Most importantly, complaints that are well received create customer loyalty.
Built to be interactive and immersive, the workbook teaches a set of practices, approaches, and tools that anyone can use to navigate fraught customer-facing interactions. It allows readers to practice Janelle Barlow's updated, more efficient three-step formula and enables employees to handle complaints with increased emotional resilience rather than taking them as personal attacks.
A Complaint Is a Gift Workbook is packed with the necessary tools to view and treat complaints as a source of innovative ideas that can transform your business.
This book takes a systematic approach to learning that has been long revered in the education field (approximately 75,000 educators take the Kolb Learning Style Inventory each year) and makes it accessible to any reader who wants to be a lifelong learner.
Being a lifelong learner is one of the secrets to happiness, success, and personal fulfillment. This book awakens and enhances the power of learning that lies within us. David Kolb originated the concept of Experiential Learning-a systematic approach to understanding how we learn-and in this book he and Kay Peterson take what has up until now been a powerful professional development tool and make it accessible to a popular audience.
Peterson and Kolb offer deep, research-based insights into how we learn, what Kolb calls the Experiential Learning Cycle. Then they identify nine specific learning styles and guide you in identifying your dominant style. This will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, but they emphasize that flexibility is the key to lifelong learning. So they suggest ways you can expand your repertoire of learning styles. This book is an eye-opening read for anyone who wants to continue to grow and meet life challenges in a transformative way.
Being a lifelong learner is one of the secrets to happiness, success, and personal fulfillment. This book awakens and enhances the power of learning that lies within us. David Kolb originated the concept of Experiential Learning-a systematic approach to understanding how we learn-and in this book he and Kay Peterson take what has up until now been a powerful professional development tool and make it accessible to a popular audience.
Peterson and Kolb offer deep, research-based insights into how we learn, what Kolb calls the Experiential Learning Cycle. Then they identify nine specific learning styles and guide you in identifying your dominant style. This will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses as a learner, but they emphasize that flexibility is the key to lifelong learning. So they suggest ways you can expand your repertoire of learning styles. This book is an eye-opening read for anyone who wants to continue to grow and meet life challenges in a transformative way.
Two experienced and visionary authors show how institutions and individuals can go beyond conventional and sustainable investing to address complex problems such as income inequality and climate change on a deep, systemic level.
Our financial markets can no longer grapple adequately with the pressing challenges of our times-such as climate change, income inequality, diversity, and the health of our oceans.
Sustainable investment helps investors to manage environmental, social, and governance considerations in their portfolios, but this piecemeal approach stops short of addressing the larger systemic challenges that underlie them, thereby running the risk of missing the forest for the trees. Concerned about climate change, sustainable investors might invest in a portfolio of solar power companies. System-level investors would invest in a portfolio of solar and wind power, batteries, energy efficient and sustainable forest products, regenerative agriculture, and similar resources from companies that provide a holistic vision of what an alternative world could be.
William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg have pioneered this approach through their work at the Investment Integration Project. In this book they provide a guide for investors-both concerned individuals and financial professionals as well as investment advisors-explaining why this investment approach is critical today and how it can be put into practice.
Our financial markets can no longer grapple adequately with the pressing challenges of our times-such as climate change, income inequality, diversity, and the health of our oceans.
Sustainable investment helps investors to manage environmental, social, and governance considerations in their portfolios, but this piecemeal approach stops short of addressing the larger systemic challenges that underlie them, thereby running the risk of missing the forest for the trees. Concerned about climate change, sustainable investors might invest in a portfolio of solar power companies. System-level investors would invest in a portfolio of solar and wind power, batteries, energy efficient and sustainable forest products, regenerative agriculture, and similar resources from companies that provide a holistic vision of what an alternative world could be.
William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg have pioneered this approach through their work at the Investment Integration Project. In this book they provide a guide for investors-both concerned individuals and financial professionals as well as investment advisors-explaining why this investment approach is critical today and how it can be put into practice.
Change is difficult but essential-Esther Derby offers seven guidelines for change by attraction, an approach that draws people into the process so that instead of resisting change, they embrace it.
Organizational change efforts often fail because they focus on top-down methods that rely on coercion, rewards, or positional authority. Well-meaning leaders talk about driving change, as though employees are cattle or cars. At best, this results in compliance--not engagement or commitment. And at worst it simply doesn't work.
Drawing from her experience working with some of today's most successful companies, Esther Derby argues for what she calls change by attraction: giving space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to resist--there is only something they want to move toward. In this book Derby outlines her seven rules for change by attraction: Strive for Congruence; Honor the Past; Assess What Is; Pay Attention to Networks; Experiment; Guide, Don't Standardize; and Use Your Self.
Organizational change efforts often fail because they focus on top-down methods that rely on coercion, rewards, or positional authority. Well-meaning leaders talk about driving change, as though employees are cattle or cars. At best, this results in compliance--not engagement or commitment. And at worst it simply doesn't work.
Drawing from her experience working with some of today's most successful companies, Esther Derby argues for what she calls change by attraction: giving space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to resist--there is only something they want to move toward. In this book Derby outlines her seven rules for change by attraction: Strive for Congruence; Honor the Past; Assess What Is; Pay Attention to Networks; Experiment; Guide, Don't Standardize; and Use Your Self.
In their much-anticipated sequel to the bestseller Ideas Are Free (over 50,000 copies sold), Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder explain that employee ideas are no longer a “nice-to-have” but rather the very lifeblood of competitiveness, culture, and strategy. Their new book shows how to align every part of the organization around generating and implementing ideas at the front line.
Is leadership a question of character or competence? Most leadership training separates these two factors, but Clark shows that anyone at any level can be a superior leader by balancing these dimensions.
Our leadership development programs teach necessary skills, yet we often train individuals who do not have the character to lead, which is a weakness because a leader with skills but no character can be dangerous. But a leader with character but no skills is useless. In this book, author, consultant, and entrepreneur Tim Clark shows how anyone can develop both character and competence.
Clark lays out his model of the “core” (character) and the “crust” (competence) to explain how we can rethink leadership. Most importantly, this model makes no allowance for job title, formal authority, or position. Almost anyone with the right character can learn competence, but Clark makes clear that the formula rarely works the other way around. For each aspect of leadership, he shares a series of mini lessons taken from his research and experience. Clark's book will be a key personal growth tool for anyone anywhere ready to step up, regardless of external labels or job description.
Our leadership development programs teach necessary skills, yet we often train individuals who do not have the character to lead, which is a weakness because a leader with skills but no character can be dangerous. But a leader with character but no skills is useless. In this book, author, consultant, and entrepreneur Tim Clark shows how anyone can develop both character and competence.
Clark lays out his model of the “core” (character) and the “crust” (competence) to explain how we can rethink leadership. Most importantly, this model makes no allowance for job title, formal authority, or position. Almost anyone with the right character can learn competence, but Clark makes clear that the formula rarely works the other way around. For each aspect of leadership, he shares a series of mini lessons taken from his research and experience. Clark's book will be a key personal growth tool for anyone anywhere ready to step up, regardless of external labels or job description.
How can people best develop their leadership skills to match their personality, to amplify their strengths, and to compensate for their weaknesses? This is the first book to answer this question with the latest version of the DiSC model of human behavior, which is one of the most widely used, most scientifically based, and most effective approaches to assessing and improving leadership styles and skills.