2010
Shows how to spot the emergence of a new level of order from the seemingly chaotic change that characterizes modern times
Offers practices and principles that will help you align yourself and your organization with the new order
Features real-world examples of individuals and organizations that have successfully navigated disruptive change
Change is everywhere these days, so much so that it can seem like barely-controlled chaos. As a result, increasing numbers of leaders, managers, workers and change agents feel overwhelmed. Some see too many choices, while others see no choices at all. But sometimes within this seeming chaos are the seeds of a higher order. Science calls the process of a new system arising from the ashes of the old emergence. Understanding the phenomenon of emergence can help leaders to gracefully and successfully cope with change and emerge stronger and more purposeful.
In this profound and insightful book, Peggy Holman offers new ways to think about the potential upheaval contains as a source of emergent change and shows how to engage it productively. This is is an art more than a science, so Holman offers practices that tell you not precisely what to do but rather how to approach disruptive situationswhat to notice, what to explore, what to try, what mindset will leave you most open to identifying the new paradigm as it emerges. She grounds these practices in five overarching principles that apply the scientific understanding of emergence in the natural world to social and organizational change processes. Real-world stories of collapse and renewal serve to illustrate these principles and practices in action. And Holman outlines three questions to help you work compassionately, creatively and wisely with the entire arc of the change process, from coherence to disruption to renewal.
This work can be difficultthe end is rarely in sight and the outcome is often uncertain. But it can also be tremendously exciting. Our survival in an increasingly unpredictable world is at stake, and working consciously with emergence is a promising pathway to doing something about it.
The world is beset with enormous problems that desperately need solutions. And as a nonprofit, NGO, foundation, impact investor, or socially responsible company, your organization is on a mission to provide those solutions.
But what exactly should you do? And how will you know whether it's working? Too many people assume that good intentions will result in meaningful actions and leave it at that. But thanks to Marc Epstein and Kristi Yuthas, social impact can now be evaluated with the same kind of precision achieved for any other organizational function.
Based on years of research and analysis of field studies from around the globe, Epstein and Yuthas offer a five-step process that will help you gain clarity about the impacts that matter most to you and will provide you with methods to measure and improve those impacts. They offer a systematic approach to deciding what resources you should invest, what problem you should address, and which activities and organizations you should support. Once you've made those decisions, they provide tools, frameworks, and metrics for defining exactly what success looks like, even for goals like reducing global warming or poverty that are extremely difficult to measure. Then they show you how to use the data you've gathered to further develop and increase your social impact.
Epstein and Yuthas personally interviewed leaders at over sixty different organizations for this book and include examples from nearly a hundred more. This is unquestionably the most complete, practical, and thoroughly researched guide to taking a rigorous, data-driven approach to expanding the good you do in the world.
People often ask, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we solve global hunger?"
People often ask, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we solve global hunger?" That very question demonstrates the fatal flaw in the dominant way of dealing with difficult social challenges: they're treated like straightforward technical problems. Organizations do a few studies, establish some goals, devise a plan, and attempt implementation. As a look around the world sadly shows, this hasn't worked.
Issues like poverty, ethnic conflict, and climate change are incredibly dynamic and complex, involving an ever-shifting array of factors, actors, and circumstances. They demand a more fluid and adaptive approach. The answer, says Zaid Hassan, is social labs.
Social labs bring together a diverse a group of stakeholders not to create yet more five-year plans but to develop a portfolio of prototype solutions, test those solutions in the real world, use the data to further refine them, and test them again. Their orientation is systemic-they are designed to go beyond dealing with symptoms and parts to get at the root cause of why things are not working.
Hassan builds on a decade of experience-as well as drawing from cutting-edge research in complexity science, networking theory, and sociology-to explain the core principles and daily functioning of social labs, using examples of pioneering labs from around the world. He describes a fast-growing global movement around a new generation of ambitious social labs that are tackling big challenges such as dramatically reducing global emissions, preventing the collapse of fragile states, and improving community resilience. The Social Labs Revolution offers a new generation of problem solvers an effective, practical, and exciting new vision and guide.
o How to embody the values of service, truth, and personal responsibility in leadership roles
o Insights about management, leadership, and purpose from a successful businessman and perceptive student of Gandhi's life and writings
Though Gandhi is one of the most written-about figures of the twentieth century, this is the first book to apply lessons from his life to the practical tasks faced by contemporary leaders-from corporate managers and executives to government administrators, nonprofit professionals, educators, and others.
In times shaped by colonialism, dictatorships, and two World Wars, Gandhi demonstrated that an idealist could also be a practical and effective leader. In our times of increasing cynicism about the quality of leadership we can expect and aspire to, Keshavan Nair reminds us that, "We are all engaged in leadership, in practicing it and selecting those who will lead." In A Higher Standard of Leadership, he offers a pragmatic guide based on the concepts Gandhi exemplified:
o leadership is service, not a path to power and privilege;
o effective goals, decisions, and strategies can be guided by moral principles;
o a single standard of conduct, based on absolute values, should be maintained in both public and private life.
A lifelong student of Gandhi's teachings and a businessman with more than 25 years of experience in corporate and governmental leadership development, Nair is uniquely positioned to bridge the two worlds. Using illustrative examples from Gandhi's life and writings, he identifies commitments-to conscience, openness, service, values, and reduced attachments-and describes the courage and determination necessary to work and lead by them. In simple and direct language, he explores the process of making decisions, setting goals, and implementing actions guided by the spirit of service and commitment to values that is essential to the realization of a higher standard of leadership in our workplaces and communities.