- Table View
- List View
Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go, Third Edition: Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Still Want
by Beverly Kaye Julie Winkle GiulioniThis new edition of the bestselling employee development classic includes advice on engagement and retention in today's more flexible employment environment, a new chapter on remote and hybrid work, and a deeper discussion of career development in your organization.Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. But most managers feel they just don't have time for it. This book offers a better way: frequent, short conversations with employees about themselves, their goals, and the business that can be integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business.Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees' awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; and point out where their organization and their industry are headed. The authors provide new assessments, worksheets, and a discussion guide to help employees and managers pull all of that together to create forward momentum. The accompanying AI Bookbot enhances this experience by offering real-time guidance, conversation prompts, and personalized insights based on the book's proven methodologies.
The Government Manager's Guide to Leading Teams
by Lisa DiTullioBuilding and leading teams that ensure project success may not be easy, but the techniques involved are straightforward and workable. Lisa DiTullio demonstrates that enhancing team dynamics to improve performance in the federal environment does not have to be complicated or time-consuming. Her time-tested best practices, tips, and processes will help any government manager develop and lead a better team.
Convinced!: How to Prove Your Competence & Win People Over
by Jack NasherCompetence does not speak for itself! You can't simply display it; you have to draw people's attention to it. World-renowned negotiation and deception detection expert, business professor, and mentalist Jack Nasher offers effective, proven techniques to convince others that we are talented, trustworthy, and yes, even brilliant. Nasher offers the example of Joshua Bell, possibly the world's most famous violinist. In January 2007, at rush hour, he stepped into a Washington, DC, subway station, dressed like any street busker, and began to play a $4,000,000 Stradivarius. It was part of an experiment staged by a journalist of the Washington Post, who expected Bell's skill alone to attract an immense, awed crowd. But Bell was generally ignored, and when he stopped, nobody applauded. He made $34.17.The good news is that you don't have to accept obscurity: you can positively affect others' perception of your talent. Whether you're looking for work, giving an important presentation, seeking clients or customers for your business, or vying for a promotion, Nasher explains how to use techniques such as expectation management, verbal and nonverbal communication, the Halo Effect, competence framing, and the power of nonconformity to gain control of how others perceive you. Competence is the most highly valued professional trait. But it's not enough to be competent, you have to convey your competence. With Nasher's help you can showcase your expertise, receive the recognition you deserve, and achieve lasting success.
Hidden Strengths: Unleashing the Crucial Leadership Skills You Already Have
by Milo Sindell Thuy SindellBuild a Foundation for Continual GrowthIn today's turbulent world you need to continually develop new skills to remain agile and adaptive—otherwise, your strengths will become crutches. But contrary to what many people believe, the best way to develop new skills isn't working on your weaknesses—it's identifying and elevating the underdeveloped abilities that lie between your weaknesses and your strengths. Books like StrengthsFinder 2.0 have helped leaders build on what they're best at—but they stop there. If you only go that far you're missing a huge opportunity for professional growth. Leading Silicon Valley consultants Thuy and Milo Sindell argue that relying exclusively on your top abilities can actually hold you back—it's critical that you expand your repertoire of skills. The most effective way to do that is find your hidden strengths—midlevel skills that can quickly be elevated into learned strengths with attention and focus. This book shows you how.Too many people waste their time working on their weaknesses, say the Sindells. Although focusing on shoring up weaknesses on the surface makes sense, they've found that it takes too much time and effort—the ROI just isn't there. The neglected skills in the middle, neither strengths nor weaknesses, are where the most potent development opportunities lie. They're close enough to being strengths that putting your energy there can offer a fast and powerful payoff. Us the Sindells' free online Hidden Strengths Assessment, along with the exercises and case studies in the book, you'll be able to identify your most promising hidden strengths and create a plan to turn them into major assets. In today's work environment, not growing and stretching yourself translates into lack of innovation, stagnation, and obsolescence. You can't keep leaning on the things you're naturally good at or your strengths will become training wheels. But with the Sindells' help, you'll continually develop new skills that will keep you riding at the front of the pack.
STEWdio: The Naphic Grovel ARTrilogy of Chuck D
by Chuck DChuck D (Public Enemy, Prophets of Rage, etc.) brings his personal insights and social critiques to the page in fierce, passionate, and evocative visual art and prose"The Public Enemy mastermind combines art and hip-hop rhymes to provide his compelling, personal views on the chaotic years between 2020 and 2022. Though they often feel like diary entries, each installment has an overarching storyline and theme . . . In an engaging, distinctly hip-hop style, Chuck D reveal important lessons from the early pandemic years." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred ReviewLegendary hip-hop artist and social activist Chuck D has used every opportunity in his groundbreaking career to stand up for civil rights. His rap group Public Enemy is widely regarded as a revolutionary act both in terms of its impact on hip-hop and its use of music to impart a message of race and class equality. The band emerged from the late 1970s/early '80s coalescence of rap, punk, and street art into hip-hop music culture on the East Coast. At the time, Chuck D had completed his BFA in graphic design, and while his music career exploded, his passion for visual art never left his heart.In February 2020, he turned his gaze once again to the page, and began to fill three 5 x 8 journals with his written and drawn reflections of a world beginning to unravel. STEWdio: The Naphic Grovel ARTrilogy of Chuck D recreates format of his original art, combining three full-color paperback bound books into a beautiful box set. The box set is the inaugural offering from Enemy Books, the new Akashic Books imprinted curated by Chuck D.Spanning the onset of COVID-19 through the first year of the Joe "Bye-Don" administration, Chuck D lends his powerful artistic voice to one of the most tumultuous periods in American history, and puts it in a capsule. Like the neo-expressionist graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Chuck D's energetic "Naphic Grovels" marry text with drawings, commenting on contemporary events with the same activist instinct that propelled Public Enemy's "music-with-a-message" reputation. His inventive, Amiri Baraka–esque language and accompanying art is also occasionally used as a tool for introspection, providing unparalleled insight into one of the most important cultural figures of our time.Each journal follows a distinct period in Chuck D's (and America's) life; There's a Poison Goin On chronicles the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, from February–April 2020; 45 Daze of REaD Octobot follow the days leading up to and the aftermath of the historic 2020 election; and Datamber Mindpaper, which focuses on the early days of the Biden administration.No song may be more reflective of 1980s America than Public Enemy's "Fight the Power;" no document may come to capture our COVID era like Chuck D's STEWdio.
Experiencing Christmas Leader Guide: Christ in the Sights and Sounds of Advent
by Matt RawleDiscover how everything changed when God was born.Everything seems different at the end of the year. We put lights on our houses to dispel the growing darkness, Christmas music floods local radio stations, apple cider and cranberry sauce are again on the menu, and wrapping paper and tape are always ready. Things just look, smell, and taste differently during the Advent and Christmas season, and these differences are a sign to us that God is about to do something radical and different. Christmas is when God surrounded the divine with senses of his own. That first noel was when God had eyes to see suffering, ears to hear our cries, and hands to hold those in need, and all of these senses were bundled in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. “This will be a sign to you,” the angel told the shepherds, and they traveled to Bethlehem and found a child. What signs do you see during the Advent and Christmas season that point you to the divine?The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the four-week study, including session plans, activities, discussion questions, and multiple format options. Additional components for the four-week small group study include the book and DVD/Video Sessions featuring Matt Rawle. The Leader Guide also includes a link to free downloadable teaching resources for children and youth.
Prepare! 2025-2026 CEB/NRSVue Edition
by David L. Bone Mary ScifresA weekly worship planning book for pastors and musicians—refreshed!Discover the enhanced 2025-2026 edition of Prepare!, your ultimate music and worship planning companion for local churches of all sizes. This updated resource has new features, including full texts from the popular CEB and NRSVue Scripture translations, blank writing space for your ideas, music recommendations for various ensembles, hymn and song suggestions, visual worship suggestions, and more.With a user-friendly layout and comprehensive indexes, Prepare! makes planning worship services easier for both music directors and pastors. This all-in-one spiral bound guide provides everything you need to plan worship throughout the Church Year. It includes extensive musical suggestions from a wide range of denominations, including the standard hymnals from the major Christian churches.Hymnals: Africana Hymnal, The Baptist Hymnal, Chalice Hymnal (Disciples of Christ), The Faith We Sing, Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal, The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopal), Hymns for the Family of God, Lutheran Book of Worship, The Presbyterian Hymnal, The New Century Hymnal (United Church of Christ), Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship, Songs for Praise and Worship Sing along Edition, The United Methodist Hymnal, Voices United, Worship & Song, and Worship III (Roman Catholic).
The Bible With and Without Jesus - Participant Guide: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently
by Amy-Jill Levine Marc Zvi BrettlerScholars show how Jews and Christians read the same texts differently.This participant guide introduces the main text and further Scripture commentary and reflection questions. It, along with the leader guide and DVD, is everything needed for an engaging study for your small group.In this Bible study based on their book, The Bible With and Without Jesus, esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Passages include the creation of the world, the role of Adam and Eve, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, the book of Jonah, and Psalm 22, whose words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” Jesus quotes as he dies on the cross.Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, illuminating the Bible’s ongoing significance. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings; it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all readers.
AI and ML for Coders in PyTorch
by Laurence MoroneyEager to learn AI and machine learning but unsure where to start? Laurence Moroney's hands-on, code-first guide demystifies complex AI concepts without relying on advanced mathematics. Designed for programmers, it focuses on practical applications using PyTorch, helping you build real-world models without feeling overwhelmed.From computer vision and natural language processing (NLP) to generative AI with Hugging Face Transformers, this book equips you with the skills most in demand for AI development today. You'll also learn how to deploy your models across the web and cloud confidently.Gain the confidence to apply AI without needing advanced math or theory expertiseDiscover how to build AI models for computer vision, NLP, and sequence modeling with PyTorchLearn generative AI techniques with Hugging Face Diffusers and Transformers
Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations
by Jane E. Dutton Monica WorlineCaring Is a Competitive AdvantageSuffering in the workplace can rob our colleagues and coworkers of humanity, dignity, and motivation and is an unrecognized and costly drain on organizational potential. Marshaling evidence from two decades of field research, scholars and consultants Monica Worline and Jane Dutton show that alleviating such suffering confers measurable competitive advantages in areas like innovation, collaboration, service quality, and talent attraction and retention. They outline four steps for meeting suffering with compassion and show how to build a capacity for compassion into the structures and practices of an organization—because ultimately, as they write, "Compassion is an irreplaceable dimension of excellence for any organization that wants to make the most of its human capabilities."
Building a Win-Win World: Life Beyond Global Economic Warfare
by Hazel HendersonIn Building a Win-Win World , world-renowned futurist Hazel Henderson extends her twenty-five years of work in economics to examine the havoc the current economic system is creating at the global level. Markets are now spreading worldwide-a spread which is often equated with the hope of democracy spreading along with it. But markets still run on old textbook models that ignore social and environmental costs-leading to a new kind of warfare: global economic warfare. Building a Win-Win World demonstrates how the global economy is unsustainable because of its negative effects on employees, families, communities, and the ecosystem. Henderson shows that win-win strategies can become the norm at every level when people see the true current and future costs of short-sighted, narrow economic policies. Henderson shows how humans are encountering the endgames of the competition/conflict paradigm, and identifies the signs of transition. Using warfare as a metaphor for the dark side of today's world economic system, she shows how both are destructive, inhumane, wasteful, irrational, inefficient, competitive, and crisis-driven. Both create more new problems than they solve. She describes how the globalization of the war system, technology, and industrialization brought the Cold War to a dead end. By the mid-1980s the global warfare paradigm had given ground to a global economic warfare which many economists, politicians, and business leaders hailed as a victory of capitalism and competitive "free markets." Yet this new type of warfare proved little better than the military warfare it was advertised to replace. By the mid-1990s global economic warfare had already reached crisis points of its own. Building a Win-Win World examines how jobs, education, health care, human rights, democratic participation, socially responsible business, and environmental protection are all sacrificed to "global competitiveness." Henderson shows many ways out of the dilemmas faced by all countries. New agreements are described to tame the global economic casino, regulate multi-national corporations, and levy fees for commercial use of global common resources-oceans, atmosphere, space, etc.-and tax their abuse. These revenues can then be invested in civilian needs and sectors worldwide. She also describes a trend toward "grassroots globalism"-citizens movements that are addressing poverty, social inequities, pollution, resource-depletion, violence, and wars. Grassroots globalism, she says, is about thinking and acting-globally and locally. It is pragmatic problem-solving, implementing local solutions that keep the planet in mind. Such social innovations can raise the ethical floor under the global playing field so that the most ethical companies and countries can win.
Office Shock: Creating Better Futures for Working and Living
by Bob Johansen Joseph Press Christine Bullen"A thoughtful, practical read about the future of the flexible office."—Adam Grant“Office shock” is an abrupt, unsettling change in where, when, how, and even why we work. In this visionary book, three prominent futurists argue that the office is both a place and a process—offices and officing—with a new range of choices, including what they call the emerging officeverse. To see the possibilities with fresh eyes, we must use future-back thinking to ask, What is the purpose of your officing? What are the outcomes—especially regarding climate—you want to achieve? With whom do you want to office? How will you augment your intelligence? Where and when will you office? How will you create an agile office? Traditional offices were often unfair, uncomfortable, uncreative, and unproductive. This book explores how to seize this great opportunity to transform office work.
Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World
by Michael EdwardsA powerful critique of a seemingly beneficial trend that is actually undermining the effectiveness of philanthropy Written by an insider -- a former official with several high-profile nonprofits Co-published with the prominent New York think tank Demos A new movement is afoot that promises to save the world by bringing the magic of the market to philanthropy. Nonprofits should be run like businesses, its adherents say, and businesses can find new sources of revenue by marketing goods and services that benefit society. Dubbed “philanthrocapitalism,” its supporters believe that business principles can and should be the primary drivers of social transformation. What could be wrong with that? Plenty, argues, former Ford Foundation director Michael Edwards. In this hard-hitting, controversial expose he marshals a wealth of evidence to show just how far short the promise of philnthrocapitalism has fallen, and why the whole concept is fundamentally flawed. Some business practices can be beneficial to nonprofits, and it’s definitely a good thing that the for-profit sector is developing a social conscience. Edwards carefully specifies when businesses and business thinking can help. But to really get at the root causes of the systemic problems most nonprofits wrestle with—hunger, poverty, disease, violence—requires a completely different way of operating. Social transformation demands cooperation rather than competition, collective action more than individual effort, and values patient, long-term support for solutions over short-term results. Philanthrocapitalism concentrates power in the hands of a few major players, mirroring the very inequities civil organizations should be trying to ameliorate. With a vested interest in the status quo it shies away from fundamental change. At most all it can promise is valuable but limited advances: small change. Ultimately, Edwards argues that the use of business thinking can and does corrupt civil society. It’s time to differentiate the two and re-assert the independence of global citizen action.
Managing for People Who Hate Managing: Be a Success By Being Yourself
by Devora ZackProfessional success, more often than not, means becoming a manager. Yet nobody prepared you for having to deal with messy tidbits like emotions, conflicts, and personalities—all while achieving ever-greater goals and meeting ever-looming deadlines. Not exactly what you had in mind, is it? Don't panic. Devora Zack has the tools to help you succeed and even thrive as a manager. Drawing on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Zack introduces two primary management styles—thinkers and feelers—and guides you in developing a management style that fits who you really are. She takes you through a host of potentially difficult situations, showing how this new way of understanding yourself and others makes managing less of a stumble in the dark and more of a walk in the park. Her enlightening examples, helpful exercises, and lifesaving tips make this book the new go-to guide for all those managers looking to love their jobs again.
Healing Our Future: Leadership for a Changing Health System
by Andy GarmanThis book is a practical, evidence-based guide to seven key leadership disciplines that will help anyone working in healthcare to pursue brighter futures.In this book, Andrew Garman looks at the major changes facing healthcare organizations and the leadership competencies required to successfully meet those challenges. He explains how people become more effective leaders over time and what science tells us works best in making this happen. At the heart of this book are seven universal disciplines—values, health system literacy, self-development, relations, execution, boundary-spanning, and transformation—which Garman divides into "enabling" and "action" disciplines. The enabling disciplines encompass the foundational work that makes leadership efforts more effective: learning more about ourselves, deepening our understanding of the world around us, and taking care of ourselves. The action disciplines describe leadership in the context of getting the work done: setting and resetting direction, collaborating inside and outside our organizations, anticipating what's coming, and helping people prepare for it. Collectively, they form an evidence-based common language of leadership that readers can easily map to any model that their organization or profession may already be using. Each chapter provides a description of the discipline, illustrates why it is important, and offers specific advice on how to raise proficiency. Appendixes offer step-by-step guidance on recruiting and engaging good mentors, along with input on developing long-term and foresight skills.
The 3 Simple Rules of Investing: Why Everything You've Heard about Investing Is Wrong — and What to Do Instead
by Carol Fabbri Michael Edesess George Peacock Kwok L. TsuiWhat if the most effective investment portfolio was also the easiest to manage and the least expensive? As the authors of this clear, practical, and enlightening book—part financial guide, part exposé—prove, there are just three simple rules you need to follow and only a few, very inexpensive investment products that are necessary for an ideal portfolio. The authors deftly bust investing’s myths—what they call investing's Seven Deadly Temptations—and dispense with all that complicated, confusing, and self-serving advice of the Wall Street wolves. By embracing commonsense solutions and rejecting investments that seem enticing but are overpriced, needlessly complex and risky, you'll put not only yourself in a stronger position, but the entire economy as well.
Creating Introvert-Friendly Workplaces: How to Unleash Everyone’s Talent and Performance
by Jennifer Kahnweiler"This important book offers organizations the keys to introvert inclusion."—Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet InfluenceThe first guide to creating a welcoming culture that maximizes the powerful contributions introverts bring to the workplace.As the diversity, equity, and inclusion wave widens and deepens its reach, introversion is becoming a natural part of that movement. After all, about half the population identify as introverts, but many organizations are stuck in traditional extrovert-centric workplace cultures that reward people for speaking up publicly, expect them to log face time, and employ hiring and promotion practices rooted in the past. This ultimately discourages introverts from contributing and reaching their full talent potential, which could have a major impact on the bottom line."Champion for introverts" Jennifer Kahnweiler offers a road map for everyone in the workplace--including leaders, human resource managers, and team members--to create inclusive, introvert-friendly cultures. Kahnweiler provides an assessment to determine how introvert friendly your organization is and looks at every aspect of organizational life--hiring, training, leading, communicating, meeting, designing workplaces, and more--through an inclusive lens. You'll discover how to make open-space offices introvert friendly, what the best practices are for encouraging introverts to participate on teams, which training techniques work best for introverts, and how to make remote positions work.
The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action
by Margie Warrell, PhDThe Courage Gap offers on-point leadership advice. —Kirkus ReviewsDo you sometimes hold back when you know you need to speak up or step forward?Fear creates the gap. Courage closes it.This powerful guide from the bestselling author of You've Got This! cuts through the hype to connect the 'why' of courage to the 'how' of courage. Drawing on cutting-edge research woven together with stories that compel head and heart, The Courage Gap will help you bridge the think/do gap between what you've been doing and what you can do; between where you are and where you want to be-in your career, relationships, leadership, and life. Distilling theory and hard-won wisdom spanning from Margie's childhood in rural Australia to her decades of living around the world and coaching ‘insecure overachievers' in Fortune 500 organizations, Margie shares a powerful 5-step roadmap to reprogram the self-protective patterns of thought and behavior that sabotage success to bring your bravest self to your biggest challenges and boldest vision. At a time when courage seems in short supply, in a culture continually stoking insecurity and anxiety, this book will transform your deepest fears into a catalyst for your highest growth and the greatest good. Applying the five steps will:• Ignite passion and unlock the potential fear holds dormant• Rewrite the scripts that have kept you stuck, stressed, and living too safely• Reset your ‘nervous' system and embody courage in critical moments• Transform discomfort as a cue to step forward and expand your bandwidth for bold action• Reset your relationship to failure and make peace with the part of you that wimps out For leaders, The Courage Gap provides a guide to operationalize and scale the courage mindset across your team and organization to deepen trust, dismantle silos, foster innovation, accelerate learning, and unleash collective courage toward a more secure and rewarding future.
Mission, Inc.: The Practitioners Guide to Social Enterprise (false)
by Kevin Lynch Julius Walls, Jr.Business has the power to change the world, but some businesses embrace that opportunity more aggressively than others do. Social enterprises put their change mission first – what they sell or what service they provide is a means to accomplishing a larger goal, rather than an end in itself. Their front-and-center commitment to doing good makes social enterprises immensely attractive. But if you want to run one successfully, you have to manage a tricky balancing act. How can you be as efficient as any of your for-profit or nonprofit competitors while at the same time staying true to your social purpose? In this groundbreaking guide, social entrepreneurs Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls draw on their own extensive experiences and those of twenty other social enterprise leaders to focus on the fundamental blocking and tackling tactics that make the difference between success and failure. Exploring the many paradoxes that can hamstring social enterprises, the authors explain how starting and running a social enterprise requires leaders to adopt an entirely different mindset and often a wholly different perspective on the day-to-day choices they’re forced to make. Likewise, Walls and Lynch help readers grapple with a different set of expectations from employees, investors, customers, and the community. For social enterprise practitioners, these expectations present an added layer of difficulty – but they can also offer unique advantages, which the authors explain how to leverage. Whether readers are looking for guidance on finding and hiring talent, marketing, finances, or scaling, this practical, accessible guide offers clear and compelling answers that light the way.
Las Vegas Noir (Akashic Noir #0)
by Jarret Keene, Todd James PierceIn this chilling portrait of America's Sin City, lady luck is just as likely to dispense cold hard cash as a cold-hearted killing. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: John O’Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Tod Goldberg, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, José Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, and Janet Berliner.From the introduction by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce:“‘Ooh, Las Vegas,’ sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons. ‘Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know you’re gonna make a wreck out of me.’ As Las Vegans, we regularly read about these wrecked lives in newspapers and magazines. We routinely observe people going about their wildly destructive antics on mainstream TV. Often we can’t believe these stories are unfolding in our city. They almost seem like put-ons, elaborate pranks borrowed from atrocious cut-rate screenplays. But there they are, these inhabitants of our city, their mug shots staring us down, making us wonder if what Parsons said is really true—that in Las Vegas your only real friend is the queen of spades . . ."The stories gathered in Las Vegas Noir are written by longtime residents and avid chroniclers of Sin City, authors who take you far beyond the neon of Caesars Palace and into the neighborhoods too dangerous for CSI. Absolutely cliché-free, these stories are full of flesh-and-blood characters trapped in dire circumstances that only real Las Vegas neighborhoods can spring."
Home Girl: A Novel
by Alex WheatleWhen Naomi, a fourteen-year-old white girl, is placed with a black foster care family, her life takes some dramatic twists and turns.“Another powerful and poignant novel deftly created by one of the most prolific master novelists on either side of the pond. Home Girl is a page-turner, with not a dull moment. Loved it from the rooter to the tooter.” —Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times best-selling author of Before We Were WickedNew from the best-selling black British author Alex Wheatle, Home Girl is the story of Naomi, a teenage girl growing up fast in the foster care system. It is a wholly modern story which sheds a much-needed light on what can be an unsettling life—and the consequences that follow when children are treated like pawns on a family chessboard.Home Girl is fast-paced and funny, tender, tragic, and full of courage—just like Naomi. This is Alex Wheatle’s most moving and personal novel to date.
Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Good Life
by Richard J. Leider David A. ShapiroIn this revised and updated new edition of a classic—over 560,000 copies sold and translated into 18 languages—is a practical guide for "unpacking" your physical, emotional, and intellectual baggage and "repacking" for the journey ahead. People everywhere feel overwhelmed today—weighed down by countless responsibilities and buffeted by never-ending changes in their personal and professional lives. Repacking Your Bags shows readers how to climb out from under these burdens and find the fulfillment that is missing in their lives. "Living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose." This is how Richard Leider and David Shapiro define the good life. Technological advancements, economic shifts, and longer lifespans mean most of us will need to repeatedly reimagine our lives. In this wise and practical guide, Leider and Shapiro help you weigh all that you're carrying, leverage what helps you live well, and let go of those burdens that merely weigh you down. This third edition has been revised with new stories and practices to help you repack your four critical "bags" (place, relationship, work, and purpose); identify your gifts, passions, and values; and plan your journey, no matter where you are in life.
The Peon Book: How to Manage Us
by David HaynesManagement books are traditionally written by industry "experts": scholars, consultants, senior managers. They're writing about how to manage workers, but none of these experts really understands the viewpoint of the average worker, the regular grunt in the trenches-the peon. Peons are the ones affected when a manager decides to manage-in-one-minute, to move somebody's cheese, to try that fifth discipline. Rather than consult some expert, why not go to the source, and ask the peons? Who better to teach you how to train a dog than the dog himself? And who better to tell you how to manage than one of those who are being managed? The Peon Book gives managers the perspective they've been lacking. Author and self-proclaimed Chief Executive Peon Dave Haynes' sole, powerful source of expertise is that he has been managed in different companies and in different industries, and he knows what worked-and what failed catastrophically. In irreverent, straight-talking terms, Haynes tells managers what they really need to do to make their employees motivated, committed, and productive-and it's not memorizing yet another "technique" or "strategy" or "discipline." Haynes writes in a common sense, easy-to-read style that is both witty and wise. Every boss can benefit, and every employee can empathize with the words in The Peon Book. "The inability to empathize can be a real speed bump on the road to a trusting, personal relationship with your employees. So how are you supposed to show more empathy? I take issue with management books that give you a phrase to say to show empathy like 'I understand,' or 'I know what you mean,' or that say that by rephrasing a statement you can show empathy. Don't use some coined phrase to show empathy, just mentally put yourself in our shoes. Sometimes it's just a matter of remembering what it's like to have to get all those reports turned in on a Friday. Or remembering what it's like to have to ask for time off. Or remembering what it's like to be the new guy on the job, and have a hard time remembering everything. Do you see the key concept I'm getting at? Empathy = remembering. Who said you'd never use math in the real world?"
Robert K. Greenleaf: A Life of Servant Leadership
by Don M. FrickThousands if not millions of people have heard the term “servant leadership,” introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf in his landmark essay The Servant as Leader, published in 1970. There are now Centers for Servant Leadership in ten countries and counting. His work is regularly cited by some of the most prominent business writers and leaders in the world, such as Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, and Peter Block. And yet until now there has been no biography of the man who first developed this revolutionary idea. Don Frick was given unfettered access to all of Greenleaf’s papers and correspondence. The result is a fascinating book that details the sources of Greenleaf’s thought, describes his friendships with dozens of well-known people, and shows how he influenced business history well before his first book was published at the age of 73, and lived his own life as a servant leader. As Director of Management Research at AT&T for 38 years, Greenleaf was known as “AT&T’s Kept Revolutionary.” Among other unusual initiatives, he oversaw a novel program which taught executive decision making through great literature, established the first corporate assessment center using knowledge gleaned from the OSS’s approach to training civilian spies during World War II, and invited leading philosophers and theologians to have conversations with AT&T executives. After a period of soul searching and some surprising experiments in consciousness, Greenleaf retired from AT&T and began to develop the concept of servant leadership, the then-heretical notion that leaders lead best by serving their followers rather than “commanding” them. He continued to promote the idea through teaching, writing, and consulting until his last years, and was instrumental in creating a score of important organizations such as The Center for Creative Leadership and Yokefellow Institute. Always, Greenleaf was a seeker opening himself up to novel experiences and astonishing people. He was a complex person—an introvert who served in public roles, a wise person who refused to give others “The Answer,” a brilliant thinker who often declared, “I am not a scholar.” His grave carries the epitaph he wrote for himself: “Potentially a good plumber; ruined by a sophisticated education.”
Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better
by Maya SchenwarThrough the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family's experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives. But looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us.