• From the bestselling author of When Corporations Rule the World
• An extensively researched, powerfully argued, eye-opening critique of how today's corporate captialism is destroying the things of real value in the world-like cancer destroys life
• Portrays a hopeful future-alternatives to a corporate-dominated and money-ruled world-in showing how to resore health to markets, democracy, and every day life
• Offers practical suggestions for individuals who want to contribute to the process of change
• Co-published with Kumarian Press
There is a deep chasm between the promises of the new global capitalism and the reality of social breakdown, spiritual emptiness, and environmental destruction it is leaving in its wake. In this important book, David Korten makes a compelling and well-documented case that capitalism is actually delivering a fatal blow not only to life, but also to democracy and the market. Among his startling ideas:
Capitalism is a pathology that commonly afflicts market economies in the absence of vigilant public oversight. Since the economy internal to a corporation is a planned economy, the current consolidation of economic control under a handful of global corporations is a victory for central planning-not the market economy. The alternative to the new global capitalism is a global system of thriving, healthy market economies that function as extensions of healthy local ecosystems to meet the livelihood needs of people and communities.
Radical as such proposals may seem, they actually reflect processes that are steadily gaining momentum around the world. The Post-Corporate World provides a vision of what's needed and what's possible, as well as a detailed agenda for change. Korten shows that to have a just, sustainable and compassionate society, concentrated absentee ownership and footloose speculative capital as embodied in the global, for-profit public corporation must be eliminated in favor of enterprises based on patient, rooted, stakeholder ownership limited to those who have a stake in the firm as a worker, supplier, customer, or member of the community in which it is located.
Korten outlines numerous specific actions to free the creative powers of individuals and societies through the realization of real democracy, the local rooting of capital through stakeholder ownership, and a restructuring of the rules of commerce to create "mindful market" economies that combine market principles with a culture that nurtures social bonding and responsibility.
Like Korten's previous bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World, this provocative book is sure to stimulate national dialogue and debate and inspire a bevy of grassroots discussions and initiatives. The Post-Corporate World presents readers with a profound challenge and an empowering sense of hope.
1997
Unlikely as it may seem, sprinters who relax run faster. In fact, simultaneously feeling both aggressive and relaxed is essential to their peak performance. Similar, seemingly contradictory patterns abound: Bill Gates's success is built on both his vision and his practicality; former New York governor Mario Cuomo is both passionate and intellectual, action-oriented and reflective.
After more than fifteen years of studying thousands of detailed examples of people performing at their best, Fletcher and Olwyler have found that individuals are always paradoxical when performing optimally and that each person has a particular combination of contradictory and paradoxical qualities that work together to produce that person's best work.
In Paradoxical Thinking they provide a 5-step process to help you identify your own core personal contradictions, and harness them to achieve outstanding results at work and in your personal life.
You can probably recall a difficult situation in which you performed surprisingly well-and being mystified after the fact as to exactly how you achieved such a high level of performance. Paradoxical Thinking takes the mystery and unpredictability out of performing at your peak by providing an easy-to-learn method of understanding and maximizing your personal success.
Based on years of real-world road testing with individuals and corporate leaders, the authors' five-step "Paradoxical Thinking" method helps you consciously bring together the paradoxical sides of yourself to achieve outstanding results individually, on teams, and in organizations. Using an important problem or goal you are currently facing, Paradoxical Thinking will help you:
o Identify your own core personal paradox
o Redefine your problem or goal so that it can be approached paradoxically
o Monitor how well you are utilizing your personal paradox
o Take positive action steps to overcome roadblocks and banish cycles of ineffectiveness of your paradoxical qualities and tools for using-instead of fighting-them, you can realize your potential, maximize your inherent strengths, and consistently achieve the results you seek in every aspect of your personal and professional life.
2017
Shows how managers can develop the talents of their employees naturally, efficiently and effectively.
Shows how managers can readily embed talent development into their day, going well beyond the usual coaching and training programs--an incredible complement to talent management systems
Offers five exceptional development practices derived from research with managers and professionals at twenty-eight companies
Filled with real examples and easily accessible advice
Most organizations report that talent is the key to their success. Yet they struggle mightily to develop their workforce. McKinsey's ten-year follow-up to its famous "War for Talent" concluded that heavy instruments in talent managements processes have been "insufficient, superficial, and wasteful." Managers consistently say they don't feel they have the time or skills to do the job. Even if they want to develop their people--they are overloaded just meeting their numbers.
Some managers, however, are able to deliver business results and develop their people in significant ways. Wendy Axelrod and Jeannie Coyle studied these "Exceptional Development Managers" in companies like Adidas, Microsoft, Siemens, Merck, Corning, and Kraft. The authors uncovered five practices these managers shared. Without fail they integrated development into day-to-day work, rather than making it a separate event. They leveraged the importance of emotions and trust in making work more developmental. They helped their staff find the right development partners. They taught their people how to increase their impact by navigating organizational politics. And they infused their departments' environment with abundant development opportunities. In all, these managers' efforts were deliberate, resourceful, and continuous.
Axelrod and Coyle offer a wealth of real-life examples and specific techniques to help readers apply these practices for themselves. Working in this way not only pays huge dividends for managers' employees and organizations--it makes the manager's job far richer and more rewarding.