Find out how bold actions by visionary leaders can inspire powerful stories that drive culture change.

Data indicates that most strategic efforts to change a company's culture fail. So how do companies succeed in this endeavor?

A top strategy professor and two highly successful CEOs found that, in companies that had successfully changed their culture, leaders had taken dramatic actions that embodied the new cultural values. These actions inspired stories that became company legends, repeated in every department and handed on to new employees.

Through compiling and analyzing 150 stories from business leaders who have achieved change, they identified 6 attributes that every successful culture change story has in common:

1. The actions are authentic
2. They revolve around the CEO
3. They signal a clean break with the past, and a clear path to the future
4. They appeal to employee heads and hearts
5. They're often theatrical or dramatic
6. They're told, and re-told, throughout the organization

With extensive and inspiring examples of stories containing these attributes, the authors illustrate how readers can harness the power of stories within their company in order to change or create a winning culture to align with any strategy.

In the next few years the world will be facing a huge talent shortage. Demographic trends in America, Europe, Russia, and Japan are reducing the pool of new workers. As the need for talent grows, China’s and India’s educational systems won’t be able to produce enough qualified graduates for themselves, let alone the rest of the world. But the heart of the problem is that the education-to-employment system worldwide is badly outmoded. We’re not producing graduates with the kinds of technical, communications, and thinking skills needed in the 21st century. In Winning the Global Talent Showdown, Ed Gordon surveys the sorry state of the world talent pipeline, with separate chapters on the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Each region faces its own challenges, yet the result is the same: a dramatic shortage of workers who can function in what Gordon calls our “cyber-mental” age. But this is fundamentally a book about solutions. Gordon argues that we need to completely reinvent our talent-creation system—and some pioneering efforts are already underway. He describes dozens of “gateways to the future,” innovative partnerships in which local governments, schools, businesses, labor unions, parents, training organizations, community activists, and others are collaborating to develop completely new approaches to education. Based on personal experience, Gordon outlines how concerned citizens can establish these partnerships in their own communities. And he looks down the road to 2020, explaining how we can build on the best of these new ideas so that the jobs pipeline flows freely again.

• Exposes the root causes of the coming talent crisis facing America, Asia, and Europe

• Shows how we can prevent the crisis by reinventing the education-to-employment system

• Includes dozens of examples of how this is already being done across America and around the world

In the next few years the world will be facing a huge talent shortage. Demographic trends in America, Europe, Russia, and Japan are reducing the pool of new workers. As the need for talent grows, China’s and India’s educational systems won’t be able to produce enough qualified graduates for themselves, let alone the rest of the world. But the heart of the problem is that the education-to-employment system worldwide is badly outmoded. We’re not producing graduates with the kinds of technical, communications, and thinking skills needed in the 21st century.

In Winning the Global Talent Showdown, Ed Gordon surveys the sorry state of the world talent pipeline, with separate chapters on the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Each region faces its own challenges, yet the result is the same: a dramatic shortage of workers who can function in what Gordon calls our “cyber-mental” age.

But this is fundamentally a book about solutions. Gordon argues that we need to completely reinvent our talent-creation system—and some pioneering efforts are already underway. He describes dozens of “gateways to the future,” innovative partnerships in which local governments, schools, businesses, labor unions, parents, training organizations, community activists, and others are collaborating to develop completely new approaches to education. Based on personal experience, Gordon outlines how concerned citizens can establish these partnerships in their own communities. And he looks down the road to 2020, explaining how we can build on the best of these new ideas so that the jobs pipeline flows freely again.

Entrepreneur and executive development expert Mike Dulworth's THE CONNECT EFFECT provides readers with a simple framework and practical tools for developing that crucial competitive advantage: a high-quality personal, professional/organizational and virtual network.Networking is not mere socializing—it is a vital personal and professional development skill. An effective network can make you more knowledgeable, help you address critical issues, accelerate your career, and even improve your health and well-being. As a recent article in MIT’s Sloan Management Review reports, “What really distinguishes high performers from the rest of the pack is their ability to maintain and leverage their networks.” Networking is simply too important to be left to chance. In this book, Michael Dulworth shows how to take a conscious, systematic approach to networking. After a short quiz to measure your “networking quotient” (NQ), The Connect Effect identifies three distinct kinds of networks: personal, professional, and virtual. Dulworth examines their specific characteristics and offers strategies, tools, and resources for building up and making the best use of each one. Stories from Dulworth’s twenty years of experience running networks, as well as interviews with top executives, researchers, and thought leaders, provide insights and advice about how networks function in the real world. Few of us are born networkers, but anyone—introvert, extrovert, or in-between—can learn to master this important skill. And as you build your networks and the connections between members multiply, you’ll find that the benefits you gain grow exponentially. This extraordinary return on your networking investment is what Dulworth terms “The Connect Effect”—and in this book he shows how it can enrich every aspect of your life.

•Offers a systematic approach to developing your networking skills—including an “NQ test” to help you quantify your networking ability

•Features tools and techniques specific to each type of network, as well as advice from leading executives, researchers, and thought leaders

•Copublished with ASTD, the leading association for human resource development professionals

 

There are all kinds of books about building trust. But The Improvisation Edge is the only one that draws on the wisdom of those who are truly experts in the dynamics of trust-building: theatrical improvisers. Think about it: other than combat, no situation requires more extreme trust than improvisation. You have no script, costumes or set—nothing to depend on but your fellow improvisers. When you collaborate on such an intense level you intrinsically engender trust. Karen Hough describes four principles that will help leaders, managers, trainers, and front-line employees adopt the improviser’s mindset. You’ll learn techniques to create a positive environment, encourage fearless participation and selfless collaboration, play to your own and your colleagues’ strengths, and turn surprises, mistakes and disasters into opportunities for something new, unexpected and maybe better than you planned. The Improvisation Edge offers a fun, engaging and very hands-on way to build the kind of organizational trust and collaboration that makes breakthrough business results possible.

This is the first book focused on how to do and use scenario planning – which is one of the most widely used tools in the world for strategic planning, change management, innovation, problem solving, and similar purposes – for social change at the community, national, and global levels. Adam Kahane is one of the world's pioneers and leaders on this topic and he is the author of two bestselling books.People who are trying to solve tough economic, social, and environmental problems often find themselves frustratingly stuck. They can't solve their problems in their current context, which is too unstable or unfair or unsustainable. They can't transform this context on their own-it's too complex to be grasped or shifted by any one person or organization or sector. And the people whose cooperation they need don't understand or agree with or trust them or each other.

Transformative scenario planning is a powerful new methodology for dealing with these challenges. It enables us to transform ourselves and our relationships and thereby the systems of which we are a part. At a time when divisions within and among societies are producing so many people to get stuck and to suffer, it offers hope-and a proven approach-for moving forward together.