2007
2010
A new approach, proven in the field, for making progress on our most important and difficult collective challenges
Based on Kahanes first-hand experiences working with teams of business, government and civil society leaders around the world
Profound, personal and practical
The two main ways that people try to solve their toughest group, community and societal problems are fundamentally flawed. They either push for what they want at all costsin its most extreme form this means waror try to completely avoid conflict, sweeping problems under the rug in the name of a superficial peace. But there is a better way: combining these two seemingly contradictory approaches.
Adam Kahane argues that each is a reflection of two distinct, fundamental drives: power, the single-minded desire to achieve ones solitary purpose; and love, the drive towards unity. They are inextricable parts of human nature, so to achieve lasting change you have to able to work fluidly with both. In fact, each needs the other. As Martin Luther King put it, Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Kahane delves deeply in the dual nature of power and love, exploring their complex and intricate interplay. With disarming honesty he relates how, through trial and error, he learned to balance between them, shifting from one to the other as though learning to walkat first falling, then stumbling forward, and finally moving purposefully toward true, lasting reconciliation and progress.
For the last twenty years Kahane has worked around the world on a variety of challenges: economic development, food security, health care, judicial reform, peace making, climate change. He has worked with diverse teams of leadersexecutives and politicians, generals and guerillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. He has seen, up close and personal, examples of inspiring progress and terrifying regress. Power and Love reports what he has learned from these hard-won experiences.
2017
2020
2015
Calling Cards are an interactive tool built to accompany the books The Power of Purpose and Work Reimagined. Using the cards exposes a reader to many different skills, asking him or her to reflect on their own strengths and gifts. The reader then chooses several that reflect their greatest assets. The reader is finally taken through an exercise that uses the results to help identify a new life calling. Additionally, the tool can be played by a friend or family member to offer multiple perspectives to help the reader gain deeper insight into his or her own gifts.
There are 52 cards in the Call Card deck, covering gifts in six major environments: Realistic (data), Structured (tasks), Enterprising (people), Social (feelings), Artistic (ideas), and Investigative (things). Examples of natural gifts on each card are Writing Things, Seeing Possibilities, Fixing Things, Creating Dialogue, Adding Humor, and Getting to the Heart of Matters.