The new edition of the bestselling, acclaimed, and influential guide to applying the new science to organizations and management. In this new edition, Margaret Wheatley describes how the new science radically alters our understanding of the world and how it can teach us to live and work well together in these chaotic times.
 
We live in a time of chaos, rich in potential for new possibilities. A new world is being born. We need new ideas, new ways of seeing, and new relationships to help us now. New science—the new discoveries in biology, chaos theory, and quantum physics that are changing our understanding of how the world works—offers this guidance. It describes a world where chaos is natural, where order exists "for free." It displays the intricate webs of cooperation that connect us. It assures us that life seeks order, but uses messes to get there.
 
This book will teach you how to move with greater certainty and easier grace into the new forms of organizations and communities that are taking shape. You'll learn that:
 
• Relationships are what matters—even at the subatomic level
• Life is a vast web of interconnections where cooperation and participation are required
• Chaos and change are the only route to transformation
 
In this expanded edition, Wheatley provides examples of how non-linear networks and self-organizing systems are flourishing in the modern world. In the midst of turbulence, Wheatley shows, we create work and lives rich in meaning.

Scholarship establishes a new field of study in the organizational sciences. Just as positive psychology focuses on exploring optimal individual psychological states rather than pathological ones, Positive Organizational Scholarship focuses attention on optimal organizational states --- the dynamics in organizations that lead to the development of human strength, foster resiliency in employees, make healing, restoration, and reconciliation possible, and cultivate extraordinary individual and organizational performance.
While the concept of positive organizational scholarship encompasses the examination of typical and even dysfunctional patterns of behavior, it emphasizes positive deviance from expected patterns. Positive Organizational Scholarship examines the enablers, motivations, and effects associated with remarkably positive phenomena --- how they are facilitated, why they work, how they can be identified, and how researchers and managers can capitalize on them. The contributors do not adopt one particular theory or framework but draw from the full spectrum of organizational theories to understand, explain, and predict the occurrence, causes, and consequences of positivity.
Positive Organizational Scholarship rigorously seeks to understand what represents the best of the human condition based on scholarly research and theory. This book invites organizational scholars to build upon and extend the positive organizational phenomena being examined. It provides the definitional, theoretical, and empirical foundations for what will become a cumulative body of enduring work.

• Path-breaking scholarly volume exploring the dynamics in organizations that lead to extraordinary individual and organizational performance
• Establishes a new field of study in the social sciences
• Offers practical guidance for managers, as well as a future research agenda for understanding and enabling positive organizational behavior

Unlike other career books, When You Lose Your Job is written in the style of a story, telling a personal, revealing account of an individual's shock, fears, struggles, self-renewal, learnings, and eventual successes over many months in recovering from job loss. The story offers an inside view of what to expect in dealing with job loss, how to find the support you need, and how to take the steps that will lead to meaningful work.

Interspersed in the story are many practical career transition tools (such as guidelines for networking and interviewing). The book also includes a 65-page resource section that offers detailed information on legal issues, severance agreements, unemployment benefits, who to go to for help, support groups, and much more.

This booklet gives an overview of the Search Conference, a change strategy which uses open systems principles in strategic planning, thereby creating a well-articulated, achievable future with identifiable goals, a timetable, and action plans for realizing that future.

Through a beautifully written and engaging story about two people struggling to create visions—both for the company where they work and for their own lives—Ken Blanchard and Jesse Lyn Stoner detail the essential elements of creating a successful vision.
 
In Full Steam Ahead! you'll learn:
• How to use the power of vision to get focused, get energized, and get great results
• How to create a vision that touches the hearts and spirits of everyone in your organization
• How to create a vision for your own life that provides meaning and direction
 
This new edition is thoroughly revised, with a new chapter on sustaining your vision, updated examples, more information on creating vision for teams, and a new section that includes a vision assessment and a game plan for creating a shared vision.

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Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years, but now it has the power of the Bush administration behind it. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons--all are considered fair game. But does privatization really serve the public good? Or is it a payoff to powerful corporations intent on replacing the government with a Òprivate profit culture,Ó in which there is no meaningful public accountability and the bottom line rules all? In this powerful book, legendary activist Si Kahn and public philosopher Elizabeth Minnich argue that privatization is a threat whose seriousness few appreciate. Kahn and Minnich expose the damage privatization has done in several specific areas of society, as well as to society as a whole. They argue that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to effectively fulfill what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. Some things that are worth doing simply canÕt, indeed shouldnÕt, be done purely for profit. Unless there is a balance between the public and private sectors, vulnerable populations will be chronically underserved and critical public functions will be under-funded to the point of virtual elimination. Privatization is usually dealt with in dry economic terms, but Kahn and Minnich take an unusual and lively approach to the issue. Combining stories, analysis, impassioned argument, and even song lyrics, they discuss how the concept of privatization has evolved and look at the different forces that work for and against it, emphasizing the extreme anti-government ideology motivating many privatization advocates. And they outline principles and practices for combating privatization and its proponents. The Fox in the Henhouse makes a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years, but now it has the power of the Bush administration behind it. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons--all are considered fair game. But does privatization really serve the public good? Or is it a payoff to powerful corporations intent on replacing the government with a Òprivate profit culture,Ó in which there is no meaningful public accountability and the bottom line rules all? In this powerful book, legendary activist Si Kahn and public philosopher Elizabeth Minnich argue that privatization is a threat whose seriousness few appreciate. Kahn and Minnich expose the damage privatization has done in several specific areas of society, as well as to society as a whole. They argue that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to effectively fulfill what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. Some things that are worth doing simply canÕt, indeed shouldnÕt, be done purely for profit. Unless there is a balance between the public and private sectors, vulnerable populations will be chronically underserved and critical public functions will be under-funded to the point of virtual elimination. Privatization is usually dealt with in dry economic terms, but Kahn and Minnich take an unusual and lively approach to the issue. Combining stories, analysis, impassioned argument, and even song lyrics, they discuss how the concept of privatization has evolved and look at the different forces that work for and against it, emphasizing the extreme anti-government ideology motivating many privatization advocates. And they outline principles and practices for combating privatization and its proponents. The Fox in the Henhouse makes a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.

• Read a transcript of Amy Goodman's interview with Si and Elizabeth on Democracy Now!
• A legendary activist and a distinguished public philosopher address a timely but complex issue in a way that is accessible and compelling
• Evaluates privatization not just economically, but in social, political, and human terms
• Offers principles and practices for creating alternatives to privatization and strengthening the public sector

This newly updated and revised edition of the classic (60,000 copies sold) celebrates the global growth of the THEORY U phenomenon and its evolution in multiple industries worldwide.
Access the deepest source of inspiration and vision

We live in a time of massive institutional failure that manifests in the form of three major divides: the ecological, the social, and the spiritual. Addressing these challenges requires a new consciousness and collective leadership capacity. In this groundbreaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways and in so doing discover a revolutionary approach to learning and leadership.

In most large systems today, we collectively create results that no one wants. What keeps us stuck in such patterns of the past? It's our blind spot, that is, our lack of awareness of the inner place from which our attention and intention originate. By moving through Scharmer's U process, we consciously access the blind spot and learn to connect to our authentic Self-the deepest source of knowledge and inspiration. Theory U offers a rich diversity of compelling stories, examples, exercises, and practices that allow leaders, organizations, and larger systems to cosense and coshape the future that is wanting to emerge.

This second edition features a new preface in which Scharmer identifies five transformational trends and describes U process case stories around the world. There are also eight color drawings by Kelvy Bird that capture U journey applications and illustrate the concepts in the book, as well as new resources for applying the principles and practices.