This edition examines the role overconsumption played in the 2008 economic collapse, & how our economy and society have changed since.

• New edition of a classic book-the first two editions sold over 150,000 copies
• Still the most thorough diagnosis of the disease of overconsumption: symptoms, causes, consequences, and cures
• Updated to incorporate the 2008 economic collapse, new measures of societal health, and new policy prescriptions

Welcome to the enhanced edition of Affluenza!  Each chapter of this updated third edition features scenes from the popular national PBS specials “Affluenza” and “Escape from Affluenza,” co-produced by Affluenza co-author John de Graaf and hosted by National Public Radio's Scott Simon.

This iconic book shows 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. In the enhanced edition you'll see hilarious skits including the frightening original diagnosis of “affluenza” and the shocking “surrender of the Joneses.”  You'll meet experts and hear from ordinary people about how affluenza has affected their lives and what they are doing about it.  You'll see victims of shopping fever and swollen expectations as they roam through the “affluenza hot zones” of tourist-destination shopping malls, watch in horror as marketers plan the manipulation of children, take a quick trip through the history of this dreaded disease, and see its often invisible but terrible consequences made visible.  But it's not all gloom and doom—far from it.  You'll also drop in on a simplicity circle (“affluholics anonymous!”), wander through a magical marsh where you come out enriched “and your wallet is still as full as when you left home,” and share the life of an urban family who is beating the bug! The authors also trace the role overconsumption played in the Great Recession, discuss new ways to measure social health and success (such as the Gross Domestic Happiness index), and offer policy recommendations to make our society more simplicity-friendly.
 
Remember that nine out of ten doctors recommend this book as the cure for affluenza!  Happy reading and…happy viewing!
 
 
There are a total of 23 videos spanning 39:36 minute. File size: 379.7 MB
 

Based on two highly acclaimed PBS documentaries watched by 10 million viewers, Affluenza uses the whimsical metaphor of a disease to tackle a very serious subject: the damage done-to our health, our families, our communities, and our environment-by the obsessive quest for material gain. In cleverly titled chapters such as "Swollen Expectations" and "A Rash of Bankruptcies," the authors examine the origins, evolution, and symptoms of the affluenza epidemic. But they also explore cures and suggest strategies for rebuilding families and communities and for restoring and respecting the earth.

The 2008 economic collapse demonstrated how prophetic this book was. The third edition examines the role overconsumption played in the collapse and how our economy and society have changed since then. The authors also discuss new ways to measure social health and success, such as the Gross Domestic Happiness index, and offer policy recommendations to make our society more simplicity-friendly. The underlying message isn't to stop buying; it's to buy carefully and consciously, remembering, always, that the best things in life aren't things.

affluenza, n. a painful, contagious, virally transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.

This book gives leaders encouragement, examples, and inspiration as they make their way from the "lower" branches of the tree to the "highest."

• Introduces Being-centered leadership, which emphasizes the higher reality of business (such as its connection to humanity and nature) to create lasting business value
• Offers a four-stage road map to guide leaders in their efforts to realize this new approach
• Features moving examples of Being-centered leadership by twenty-one CEOs of globally recognized companies

Financial meltdowns and environmental disasters have made it obvious that business leaders have a responsibility for the environment and society with which their business is inextricably intertwined. But it's one thing to understand that idea-Ram Nidumolu knows that nothing is really going to change unless leaders feel it. Stories and metaphors have a power to transform that dry facts and numbers don't, so in this extraordinary book, Nidumolu turns to the ancient Indian philosophical texts, the Upanishads, to offer leaders a powerful message that transcends religion, culture, and tradition.

Two Birds in a Tree takes its title from a parable in the Upanishads. One bird, in the lower branches, hops from branch to branch, anxiously eating all the fruit it sees. The bird at the top of the tree sees the tree below and the world beyond and understands it is part of a larger whole. The higher bird is in touch with and symbolizes what the Upanishads call Being, the fundamental reality that underlies and unifies all phenomena-the very essence of existence.

Leaders whose sense of self is anchored in Being won't have to think about "corporate responsibility"-their actions will be driven by an instinctive sense of interconnection. Throughout this profound and enlightening book, Nidumolu uses stories not only from the Upanishads but also from his own life as well as the experiences of CEOs of global companies like PepsiCo, Southwest Airlines, Timberland, Costco, and many others to illustrate the principles of Being-centered leadership. And he provides what he calls a four-stage road map to help leaders cultivate a conscious connection to Being.

But this is a book meant to inspire, not prescribe. Nidumolu doesn't offer a specific, step-by-step set of instructions. Rather, he offers leaders advice, encouragement, examples, and inspiration as they make their way from the lower branches of the tree to the highest.

A half century ago Peter Drucker put management on the map. Leadership has since pushed it off. Henry Mintzberg aims to restore management to its proper place: front and center. “We should be seeing managers as leaders.” Mintzberg writes, “and leadership as management practiced well.”

This landmark book draws on Mintzberg's observations of twenty-nine managers, in business, government, health care, and the social sector, working in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. What he saw—the pressures, the action, the nuances, the blending—compelled him to describe managing as a practice, not a science or a profession, learned primarily through experience and rooted in context.
But context cannot be seen in the usual way. Factors such as national culture and level in hierarchy, even personal style, turn out to have less influence than we have traditionally thought. Mintzberg looks at how to deal with some of the inescapable conundrums of managing, such as, How can you get in deep when there is so much pressure to get things done? How can you manage it when you can't reliably measure it?

This book is vintage Mintzberg: iconoclastic, irreverent, carefully researched, myth-breaking. Managing may be the most revealing book yet written about what managers do, how they do it, and how they can do it better.

The number of employment discrimination cases has grown by more than 2,000 percent in the past 20 years, and the number is expected to increase by 10 percent a year. Win or lose, these cases are a drain on time and resources. Rather than battling it out in court, wouldn't it be better to nip them in the bud?

Based on his many years as an employment law attorney, Jathan Janove sees one overriding cause behind most employee lawsuits--a normal human desire on the part of managers to avoid dealing with difficult situations. Janove points out eight common pitfalls that result from avoidance--the Eight Deadly Sins of Mismanagement--and eight techniques for addressing each one: the Eight Virtues. Entertaining real-life stories illustrate each Sin and corresponding Virtue, and the book features a number of exercises and tools for increasing awareness of managerial Sins and cultivating managerial Virtues, including the Sin Self-Assessment tool and the Sin-to-Virtue Transfer Plan.

Employers and employees will always have their differences, but Managing to Stay Out of Court shows that, with good, people-centered management, these differences can nearly always be resolved through communication rather than litigation.

• Shows how to institute strong, people-centered management practices that help companies avoid costly lawsuits
• Combines lively text and real-life examples with practical analysis and concrete steps
• As a practicing attorney who has focused on workplace disputes for more than twenty years, Janove has the perfect credentials to write this book

In this personal and political narrative, Salon.com journalist and anti-globalization activist Marisa Handler offers readers both a compelling coming-of-age memoir and eye-opening insights into what’s really going on inside the global justice movement.Combining captivating personal memoir and astute political reportage, Marisa Handler offers a fascinating inside look at the burgeoning global justice movement through her own compelling coming-of-age story. Born in apartheid South Africa, Handler emigrated to Southern California at the age of twelve. Her gradual realization that injustice existed even in this more open, democratic society spurred a lifelong commitment to activism that would take her around the world and back again. Handler shares intimate details of her life as a global justice activist to offer a revealing perspective on what drives the movement. Tracing her own evolution as an activist, her story crisscrosses the globe, examining current sociopolitical issues from apartheid and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, corporate globalization, and the wars of the Bush administration. Along the way, Handler paints compelling portraits of the people she's encountered, shares gritty details of the sometimes-harrowing events that have changed and shaped her, and describes how she came to advocate a spiritually based, nonviolent activism as the best means for building the kind of world we wish to see.

Revised edition of Hock's award-winning Birth of the Chaordic Age, updated throughout and featuring two new chapters • The only first-person account of the rise of VISA, the world's largest business enterprise--in 2004, VISA’s products were used by more than a billion people at 20 million locations in more than 150 countries • Hock, VISA’s founder, details the revolutionary "chaordic" organizational philosophy that was instrumental in VISA’s success Hock skillfully weaves together the story of VISA with his own remarkable life story and elaborates the visionary philosophy that allowed VISA to thrive. Hock calls his approach "chaordic"--simultaneously chaotic and orderly. Hock makes a compelling argument that this organizational philosophy is a more supple, responsive and creative alternative to mechanistic Industrial Age models, one more in tune with what we see in nature. One from Many--revised throughout from its original hardcover publication as The Birth of the Chaordic Age--includes two new chapters in which Hock reflects on his post-VISA experiences as an advocate for chaordic principles, and details some examples of chaordic principles in action: the Internet, World Weather Watch, Alcoholics Anonymous, and others. Lyrical, playful, philosophical, and straight from the heart, One From Many challenges us to change forever the way we think about money, organizations, leadership, management, the human spirit, and our relationship to the natural world.