Knowing how to work effectively in and through groups may be the single most important skill anyone can develop in today's collaborative, team-based workplace. Unfortunately, all of the resources available on teamwork put the emphasis on group process and ignore the role of-and benefits to-the individual. But effective teamwork isn't only a group skill set; it's an individual skill set as well. Teamwork Is an Individual Skill shows readers how to develop the skills to thrive on any team, under any circumstances. No longer will readers find themselves complaining, "I got assigned to a bad team." Instead, they'll know what to do to make any team work for them. Drawing on over twenty years of experience successfully developing professional teams in product development, R&D, and high-tech environments, Christopher Avery and his coauthors use brief thought-provoking essays, personal and teambuilding exercises, case studies, and insights from business leaders to teach readers how to build responsible and productive relationships at work. The authors show how and why your ability to assume personal responsibility-for your own work on a team and for the team's collective work-is the most important factor in ensuring a productive team experience. Teambuilding, the authors point out, is essentially a series of conversations between people who share responsibility to get something done. Teamwork Is an Individual Skill describes the way these conversations typically progress, and shows the reader how to predict and direct these conversations so that they can maximize the benefits to both themselves and to their team. Designed for easy access and for use by both individuals and groups, Teamwork Is an Individual Skill will equip readers with the mental skills and behaviors that will help them achieve personal goals while contributing to their team's success.Knowing how to work effectively in and through groups may be the single most important skill anyone can develop in today's collaborative, team-based workplace. Unfortunately, all of the resources available on teamwork put the emphasis on group process and ignore the role of-and benefits to-the individual. But effective teamwork isn't only a group skill set; it's an individual skill set as well. Teamwork Is an Individual Skill shows readers how to develop the skills to thrive on any team, under any circumstances. No longer will readers find themselves complaining, "I got assigned to a bad team." Instead, they'll know what to do to make any team work for them. Drawing on over twenty years of experience successfully developing professional teams in product development, R&D, and high-tech environments, Christopher Avery and his coauthors use brief thought-provoking essays, personal and teambuilding exercises, case studies, and insights from business leaders to teach readers how to build responsible and productive relationships at work. The authors show how and why your ability to assume personal responsibility-for your own work on a team and for the team's collective work-is the most important factor in ensuring a productive team experience. Teambuilding, the authors point out, is essentially a series of conversations between people who share responsibility to get something done. Teamwork Is an Individual Skill describes the way these conversations typically progress, and shows the reader how to predict and direct these conversations so that they can maximize the benefits to both themselves and to their team. Designed for easy access and for use by both individuals and groups, Teamwork Is an Individual Skill will equip readers with the mental skills and behaviors that will help them achieve personal goals while contributing to their team's success.

• The first book to identify the individual-rather than group-behavior skills vital to every team's success
• Offers specific strategies followed by application exercises to help readers be powerful and thrive in teams, partnerships, and collaborations
• Reveals step by step how readers can be achieve outstanding business results through building responsible, effective, and productive relationships at work

A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. This book describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals.

• Identifies an essential but overlooked and endangered sector of our economy
• Beautifully written-clear, accessible, poetic
• Filled with examples of what can be done to protect, nurture, and share our common wealth

A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. "The commons" is a term that denotes everything we share as opposed to own privately. Some parts of the commons are gifts of nature: the air and oceans, the web of species, wilderness, and watersheds. Others are the product of human creativity and endeavor: sidewalks and public squares, the Internet, our languages, cultures, technologies, and infrastructure. In graceful and down-to-earth prose, Jonathan Rowe illuminates the scale and value of the commons, its symbiotic relationship with the rest of the economy, its importance to our personal and planetary well-being, and how it is threatened by privatization and neglect.

Rowe also describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals such as a "sky trust" to charge polluters and distribute the proceeds to all of us. Simple gestures can be powerful too: Rowe relates how he set some benches in a vacant lot and watched a public gathering space take shape.

For decades, people have defended the commons and not known it. They've battled pollution, development, corporate marketing assaults on their kids, and many other attacks on common wealth. What's been missing is a story that unifies all these seemingly unrelated battles with the force of a powerful idea. This is what Jonathan Rowe provides in this thought-provoking book.

• Identifies an essential but overlooked and endangered sector of our economy
• Beautifully writtenclear, accessible, poetic
• Filled with examples of what can be done to protect, nurture, and share our common wealth
• Click here for the press release

A huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege. "The commons" is a term that denotes everything we share as opposed to own privately. Some parts of the commons are gifts of nature: the air and oceans, the web of species, wilderness, and watersheds. Others are the product of human creativity and endeavor: sidewalks and public squares, the Internet, our languages, cultures, technologies, and infrastructure. In graceful and down-to-earth prose, Jonathan Rowe illuminates the scale and value of the commons, its symbiotic relationship with the rest of the economy, its importance to our personal and planetary well-being, and how it is threatened by privatization and neglect.

Rowe also describes a growing movement to recognize and defend the commons on many fronts: community initiatives, legal actions, and visionary proposals such as a sky trust to charge polluters and distribute the proceeds to all of us. Simple gestures can be powerful too: Rowe relates how he set some benches in a vacant lot and watched a public gathering space take shape.

For decades, people have defended the commons and not known it. Theyve battled pollution, development, corporate marketing assaults on their kids, and many other attacks on common wealth. Whats been missing is a story that unifies all these seemingly unrelated battles with the force of a powerful idea. This is what Jonathan Rowe provides in this thought-provoking book. 

Social justice work is more crucial than ever, but it can be physically and emotionally draining. Longtime activist Denise Collazo offers three keys to help Hispanic women keep their focus, morale, and energy high.

Winner of the gold medal at the International Latino Book Awards for Best Latina-Themed Book and Best Self-Transformational Book!

Doing the work of social change is hard. Waking up every day to take on the biggest challenges of our time can be overwhelming, and sometimes progress is hard to see. She understands that Latina and all women of color activists do their best work when they are thriving, not simply surviving.

Denise Padín Collazo has been there. She is the first Latina, the first woman of color, and the first woman period to raise a family and stay in the work of community organizing at Faith in Action, an international progressive network of 3,000 congregations and 2 million members. Drawing on her own experiences of triumph and failure, and those of other Latina activists, Collazo lays out three keys to thriving in the movement for social change: leading into your vision, living into the fullest version of yourself, and loving past negatives that hold you back. She also warns about the three signs that you may be surrendering: wishing for a future reality to emerge, wondering where your limits are, and waiting for permission and answers to come from others. 

Using this framework, Collazo offers wise and compassionate advice on some of the most important leadership challenges facing Latina activists. She explains how you can integrate family and work, step out of the background and claim your leadership potential, confront anti-Blackness in your own culture, keep focused on your ultimate purpose, and raise the necessary resources to keep fighting for justice. This honest, practical, and inspirational book will help Latina activists to burn bright, not burn out.

“Ed Hess's Hyper-Learning is uniquely practical and is the essential starting point for charting new ways of thinking, living, working, leading, and being fulfilled in our new world.”
—Gary Roughead, Admiral, US Navy (retired) former Chief of Naval Operations

The Digital Age will raise the question of how we humans will stay relevant in the workplace. To stay relevant, we have to be able to excel cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally in ways that technology can't.

Professor Ed Hess believes that requires us to become Hyper-Learners: continuously learning, unlearning, and relearning at the speed of change. To do that, we have to overcome our reflexive ways of being: seeking confirmation of what we believe, emotionally defending our beliefs and our ego, and seeking cohesiveness of our mental models.

Hyper-Learning requires a new way of being and a radical new way of working. In Part 1 of this how-to book, Hess takes a practical workbook approach and helps readers create their Hyper-Learning Mindset, choose and embrace their needed Hyper-Learning Behaviors, and adopt their daily Hyper-Learning Practices. In Part 2, Hess focuses on how to humanize the workplace to optimize Hyper-Learning. Featuring case studies of three business leaders and two public companies, this book shows how to harness the power of human emotions, choices, and behaviors to enable the highest levels of human cognitive, emotional, and behavioral performance—individually and organizationally.

Audio-Visual Recording of LIVE VIRTUAL KEYNOTE On Septemer 23, 2009, The Ken Blanchard Companies and Berrett-Koehler Publisehrs presented a live virtual keynote featuring The Secret co-authors Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller. They discussed the five 'Servi

Audio-Visual Recording of LIVE VIRTUAL KEYNOTE

On Septemer 23, 2009, The Ken Blanchard Companies and Berrett-Koehler Publisehrs presented a 60-minute live virtual keynote featuring The Secret co-authors Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller. They discussed the five 'Serving Leader' components from The Secret and provided tips on how to use these practices in everyday work life.

The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do

Presenters: Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller

Now this event is available in a 26-minute QuickTime movie version that includes the complete 18 slides and abridged co-authors' audio track.

At one time or another, everyone in a position of authority-whether in a multi-national corporation or a local volunteer group-wonders what the key to great leadership is. And who better to answer that question than the team of Ken Blanchard, whose books on leadership have sold over 20 million copies, and Mark Miller, who worked his way up from line worker to vice president of one of the largest fast-food chains in the country.

In this recording of the Live Virtual Keynote, Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller, co-authors of The Secret , showed attendees how to become a 'Serving Leader' rather than a 'Self-Serving Leader'.

Watching and listening to this recording, you'll learn the secrets of success including:

• How to create a compelling vision that inspires and motivates people to take action. Once a clear vision is established, you’ll learn how goals and strategies can be developed within the context of the vision.

• How to turn your organizational pyramid upside-down to put the people closest to the customer at the top of the organization so they can take care of your customers in a way that creates customer maniacs and raving fans.

• The importance of focusing on both results and relationships. Both are critical for long-term survival. The way to maximize your results as a leader is to have high expectations for both.

• How to build trust. All genuine leadership is built on trust. You’ll learn that it starts with walking your talk. A leader, above all, has to be a walking example of the vision. Leaders who say, “Do as I say, not as I do” are ineffective in the long run.

Presentation: 18 visual slides with co-authors' audio track

Duration: 26 minutes

Format: download 31.6 MB QuickTime file (free QuickTime video player availabe from Apple Computer website)

The Restoration Economy reveals the previously undocumented trillion-dollar global industries that are restoring our natural and manmade environments. Restorative development is rapidly overtaking new development because we are running out of things to develop. Most natural areas are already either farmed or degraded, and cities have built all the way to their borders. However, there is no lack of things to redevelop and restore. Storm Cunningham surveys the wide range of restoration industries and points out the connections among them. He shows, for example, how the restoration of a river ecosystem can have a major impact on the commercial success of a redeveloped historic urban waterfront. Written for a broad range of audiences, The Restoration Economy is an entertaining blend of business, science, and economics that details exciting new business and investment opportunities in this dynamic economic sector.

• The first book to reveal the "hidden" trillion-dollar-plus industry that is revitalizing our manmade and natural environments
• Written for a broad range of readers, including businesspeople, investors, and numerous other professional, community, and government groups
• Describes the explosive growth in restoration activity in eight different areas