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The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Your Technology Choices Create the Future
by Vivek Wadhwa Alex SalkeverTech experts Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever describe dozens of astonishing technological advances in this fascinating and thought-provoking book, which asks what kind of future lies ahead—Star Trek or Mad Max? Breakthroughs such as personalized genomics, drones, self-driving vehicles, and artificial intelligence could make our lives healthier, safer, and easier. On the other hand, the same technologies raise the specter of a frightening future—eugenics, a jobless economy, a complete loss of privacy, and ever-worsening economic inequality. Wadhwa says that we need to ask three questions about every emerging technology: Does it have the potential to benefit everyone equally? What are the risks and the rewards? And does it promote autonomy or dependence? This edition is updated throughout and includes a new chapter on quantum computing, which promises vastly increased processing times—and vastly increased security risks. In the end, our future is up to us; our hands may not be on the wheel, but we will decide the driverless car's destination.
Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias
by La'Wana Harris"La'Wana Harris has opened this coach's eyes to the power of coaching practices to create new paths for diversity and inclusion work—whether or not you are formally trained as a coach. Please read this book and help create workplaces with honest engagement and access for all." —Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers 50 #1 Executive Coach and two-time #1 Leadership Thinker in the worldThe ugly truth about diversity is that some people worry they must give up their power for others to have a chance. La'Wana Harris's Inclusion Coaching method helps people realize that sharing power isn't the same as losing it. The elephant in the room with diversity work is that people with privilege must use it to allow others equal access to power. This is often why diversity efforts falter—people believe in diversity until they feel that they have to give something up. How do we talk them through this shift?La'Wana Harris introduces Inclusion Coaching, a new tool based on cutting-edge research that identifies the stages of preparation, implementation, and "self-work" necessary to help individuals, teams, and organizations build a sustainable culture of inclusion. Harris's six-stage COMMIT model—Commit to courageous action, Open your eyes and ears, Move beyond lip service, Make room for controversy and conflict, Invite new perspectives, and Tell the truth even when it hurts—provides a proven process for making people aware of their own conscious and unconscious biases and concrete steps to make inclusion an embedded reality. Harris offers managers and diversity coaches new models to empower everyone from employees to CEOs to "do" inclusion and address deep-rooted biases that are often invisible. She addresses the growing need to challenge bias and build authentic cultures where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.
Ideaship: How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace
by Jack FosterInnovative, original ideas are a company's most powerful competitive advantage. Nathan Mhyrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft, has said that a great employee is worth 1,000 times more than an average one simply because of his or her ideas. In Ideaship, the sequel to his bestselling book, How to Get Ideas, Jack Foster shifts from how individuals spark their new ideas to how to unleash the creative genius of an entire organization. To create an idea-prone workforce, Foster proposes a totally new concept of leadership: "ideaship." Leaders shouldn't be spending their time obsessing over profits or sales or quality or service. Instead, they should devote most of their energies to making the office a place where creative ideas flow, where the workforce truly believes in its ability to brilliantly solve any problem put before it. Above all, where it's fun to work. With energy and humor, Foster draws on over thirty-five years as creative director of major advertising agencies-organizations whose only purpose is to constantly generate ideas-to offer dozens of fun, fast, often surprising nuggets of practical advice on how to create an environment where innovation and fresh thinking thrive. He reveals why you should only hire people you like, insist employees take vacations whether they want to or not, why efficiency is sometimes inefficient, and how sometimes you can accomplish more by playing the fool instead of the capital L "Leader." Ideaship spells out proven ways to encourage creativity, simply and clearly and cogently, without a lot of charts and graphs and formulas and acronyms and statistics and fillers. It flips traditional leadership on its head and shows how simple acts of compassion, trust, and generosity of spirit, as well as some seemingly zany actions, can unleash unexpected, vital bursts of creativity.
98 Opportunities to Improve Management in Government
by Stewart Liff98 Opportunities to Be a 100 Percent Better Government ManagerGovernment managers face myriad challenges every day. Whether dealing with an ever-shrinking pool of resources or the threat of sequestration and shutdowns, the government manager must work to maximize staff performance to meet mission objectives. Now, supervisors, managers, and leaders have some help. In this new book, veteran government leader, trainer, and author Stewart Liff offers practical and proven guidance aimed at helping people at every level of the organization. First-line managers as well as top agency leaders will find Liff's actionable suggestions invaluable in dealing with a broad spectrum of issues, including:+ People management+ Performance management+ Resource management+ Systems design+ Organizational politicsEach of the 98 opportunities—and the included strategies, tools, techniques, and tips to help you take advantage of them—is valuable in and of itself. Together they provide a complete guide to managing effectively in the federal workplace.Do your part to change government—one opportunity at a time!
The Dojo Coach's Pocket Guide: Maximizing Immersive Learning for Agile Teams
by Jess BrockThis go-to guidebook helps agile practitioners overcome upskilling challenges in their organizations through effective Dojo coaching.Agile has changed the way we work in our organizations. But by demanding constant innovation and product delivery, individuals and teams struggle to find time to improve their skills. That's where the Dojo comes in. Dojo-style coaching encourages this kind of learn-by-doing form of skill development, one where guided breakthroughs and upskilling happen while delivering on current work. In this useful pocket guide, experienced Dojo coach Jess Brock delivers practical advice based on her extensive experience in real-world Dojos. Combining proven tactics and a comprehensive tool kit, along with actionable tips needed to drive engagement in both physical and virtual Dojo spaces, this pocket guide will equip you to maximize the impact of your Dojo.Whether you are a seasoned pro or you are just starting to develop your Dojo coaching skills, this no-nonsense book will help Dojo coaches at any stage of their journey.
The Jazz of Preaching, 20th Anniversary Edition: How to Preach with Great Freedom and Joy
by Kirk Byron JonesLearn to preach from your soul!What if preachers were as contagiously joyful in their preaching as Louis Armstrong was in his playing and singing? As rich in their sermonic renderings as Sarah Vaughn was in her virtuosic vocals? As honest about heartache as Billie Holiday every time she sang the blues? As alluringly clear as the voice of Ella Fitzgerald? As tenaciously uninhibited in the action of creating as Duke Ellington?This may be too much ask, even of persons who are "called by God." However, as Kirk Byron Jones demonstrates, preaching can be enhanced by an understanding of the inner dynamics of jazz. The forms, rules, and styles of jazz can inform one's practice of preaching, and its simultaneous structure and spontaneity can help preachers better understand their own art.In his classic text for students and practitioners, Jones explains how preaching is dramatically improved with the application of key elements of jazz, including innovation, improvisation, rhythm, call and response, honesty about heartache, and delight. This 20th Anniversary Edition includes a new element—preaching from your genuine soul. Chapters include instruction and exercises for applying the jazz elements to preaching preparation and performance. This edition also includes an Introduction, in which the author sets the context for the new material and articulates his conviction that this approach to preaching is needed now more than ever.The Jazz of Preaching 20th Anniversary Edition introduces the rich and rewarding possibilities that arise when preachers tap into their own creativity—and their own soul--when constructing and delivering the sermon.
Gardens in the Desert: How the Adaptive Church Can Lead a Whole New Life
by Kenneth H. Carter Jr. Michael Adam BeckYour church can thrive in this strange new world!Many church people and leaders feel like exiles in their own land. We are facing tremendous challenges. And, just as for those who came before us, the challenges are also opportunities. If we adapt to our new environment, as people and as the body of Christ. Gardens in the Desert offers local and denominational church leaders a practical, inspired, scripture-rooted vision for how we can do this—how we can become God’s church now for God’s intended future. Michael Adam Beck and Ken Carter draw from Jeremiah 29 to provide wise guidance for leaders and churches seeking to adapt and thrive. Jeremiah’s imperatives resonate deeply today, compelling us to experiment, cultivate new relationships, prioritize faith-sharing with people of all ages, interact with others in humility, to “seek the wellbeing of the other,” and to move forward with confidence. The chapters are brief and packed with practical ideas and instruction. The authors include ideas from leaders inside and outside the Church, offering multiple ways for leaders to see and understand what it means to be an adaptive leader and how to shape an adaptive church. The book is rich with lists, diagrams, illustrations, clarifying questions, and frameworks, making the material easy to grasp. It is an excellent resource to share with leadership teams at every level of the local church and in denominational settings. Gardens in the Desert is for laity, leaders, and clergy who have been feeling lost, immobilized, powerless—as exiles—and who are ready to do something new.
An Unlikely Advent Leader Guide: Extraordinary People of the Christmas Story
by Rachel BillupsExpect the unexpected this Christmas.This four-week Advent study focuses on the experiences of four sets of often overlooked characters in the Nativity story. During this Advent season, Rachel Billups guides readers through the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace by sharing the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Herod, the Magi, and the shepherds. Each set of unexpected characters has something to teach about living faithfully on the journey to Christmas.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 Rachel Billups.
Pursued - Women's Bible Study Leader Guide: Gods Relentless Love for YOU (Pursued)
by Jennifer CowartDiscover how God is pursuing you as you explore.We all want to be loved. We long to be desired, pursued—whether by a special someone, our friends, or others in our lives. This longing for love and acceptance is the underlying story of many of our lives, and it's the overarching story we see throughout the Scriptures. Although the Bible tells many stories, the main theme is God’s relentless love for us.In Pursued, a six-week Bible study by Jennifer Cowart, we will explore God’s great love for us from Genesis to Revelation. We will see that God passionately pursues people who do not deserve His love, and we are those people! Like Cain, Abraham, Sarah, Rebekah, David, the woman caught in adultery, Peter, and so many others, we are the ones who have broken relationship with God. But He runs after us anyway to bring us home. In this study, we will explore God’s love as evidenced in the stories of creation, the patriarchs, the judges and prophets, Jesus, and the early church. Together we will dive into a great love story and discover that it is our story!Through this study women will:- See the big picture of God’s love for them throughout the Scriptures- Discover that God wants a personal relationship with them- Experience God’s relentless love for them individually- Realize that God never stops pursuing themComponents for this six-week Bible study, each available separately, include a Participant Workbook, a Leader Guide, and video sessions with six 25-minute segments (with closed captioning).
Parables Leader Guide: Putting Jesus's Stories in Their Place
by Josh ScottRead the stories of Jesus in a new light.The Leader Guide contains discussion questions and session plans for a six-week study of Parables: Putting Jesus’s Stories in Their Place, by Josh Scott. It includes opening and closing prayers, optional activities, and session goals for each week and is designed to be used with the book and DVD.When Jesus taught in parables, he was doing more than telling simple morality tales. His stories were grounded in the world in which he lived and his vision of the Kingdom of God. This study explores six parables that give us a window into Jesus’s message and movement, and, once they are heard in their own context, ask what they might mean for us today. Parables include: the New Wine and Wineskins, the Mustard Seed, the Leaven, the Wedding Party, the Workers in the Vineyard, and the Wicked Tenants.
Adult Bible Studies Summer 2025 Teacher/Commentary Kit
by Clara K. WelchGrow your faith. Transform your life.The Kit includes a teacher’s book and a commentary that supplement and complement the Adult Bible Studies student book.The teacher’s book provides biblical background, exposition, and suggestions for leading weekly group discussions and nurturing spiritual practices among class members. Small group leaders, teachers, and facilitators—both seasoned and just starting out—love the easy-to-use format and the wealth of information provided to prepare for each week’s discussion.Based on the trusted Abingdon Basic Bible Commentary, the Concise Commentary provides expert biblical commentary for the focal Bible passages used in Adult Bible Studies. The commentary includes each Sunday’s focal Bible passages, unit introductions, and expert commentary on each passage. Plus, you can pronounce everything correctly with the included pronunciation guide for Bible names and places.Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enhance your preparation and teaching with the help of the Adult Bible Studies Teacher Book and Concise Commentary!Cultivate a deeper relationship with God through Adult Bible Studies. Each weekly lesson offers background and focal Scriptures, key verses, and doctrinally sound and relevant biblical interpretation and application in a readable font size. Annual plans provide comprehensive coverage of the Bible, special lessons during the church seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter, and suggestions for developing spiritual practices such as prayer, worship, community, and service, among many others. Adult Bible Studies is a reliable companion and guide for learning and growing in the Christian faith.Spring 2025 Theme: Living FaithThis spring, our Bible lessons follow the theme “Living Faith.” They offer a series of lessons in two units during Lent and the weeks following that encourage us to consider what we need to let go of and what we need to take on as followers of Jesus.With the help of the Adult Bibles Studies Teacher/Commentary Kit, and DVD, your group will embrace the fact that it’s not just about learning - it’s about living out biblical teachings.Visit AdultBibleStudies.com and sign up for the weekly newsletter to automatically receive the FREE Current Events Supplement and other information about these resources and more!This resource, endorsed by the Curriculum Resources Committee of The United Methodist Church, offers a year-round, weekly Bible study plan for Sunday school classes and other small groups.
More Messy People Women's Bible Study Participant Workbook: Life Lessons from Imperfect Biblical Heroes
by Jennifer CowartGod can use imperfect people to do incredible things.Jen Cowart continues her study of the very messy lives of biblical heroes—people who, like us, made mistakes but found God was able to use them in powerful ways. They all play a significant role in the biblical narrative, but their stories are far from perfect.Through the lives of rival sisters like Leah and Rachel, or sisters with very different personalities like Martha and Mary, we see God chooses to use people who don’t have it all together. Through the lives of great, but imperfect, biblical heroes like Moses, Elijah, Peter, and Paul, we see God meets us in our troubles and chooses us even if we seem unqualified.The Participant Workbook includes five daily readings for each week, combining study of Scripture with personal reflection, application, and prayer and is designed to use with the Leader Guide and DVD.
On the Way to Bethlehem Leader Guide: An Advent Study
by Rob FuquayThe journey to Christmas begins in Rome.The leader guide includes four small group sessions complete with prayers, summaries, and discussion questions to inspire active group engagement. It will support group leaders of all experience levels in creating strong learning communities.On the Way to Bethlehem follows the long journey to Christmas. The story begins in Rome with a decree issued from the seat of worldly power for a census, setting into motion events leading to the birth of the Savior of the world in a town that represents the very opposite of worldly power, Bethlehem.Author Rob Fuquay provides insight into the geographical and historical significance of Rome, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, along with the important characters through whom the Christmas drama unfolds. You will be drawn into those places in a way that helps you experience the spiritual truths each location holds. The reflection we give in these places prepares the heart and soul to experience wonder, awe, mystery, and joy.Chapters include:Rome – A Place of LongingJerusalem – A Place of WaitingNazareth – A Place of SimplicityBethlehem – A Place of HumilityComponents available to use this book in a small group study include the book and video available on DVD.
On Purpose Leader Guide: Finding God's Voice in Your Passion
by Susan Robb Sam McGlothlin Jevon Caldwell-Gross Magrey deVegaBe part of something more.We are hungry for a sense of purpose, direction, and calling in our lives. That’s as basic an ingredient to the human experience as they come. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to participate in something that has eternal merit and lasting impact. We do not want to live a shallow, hollow existence. We yearn for deeper meaning, for deeper purpose within our lives. We want to be more than we are.In On Purpose: Finding God’s Voice in Your Passion, authors Magrey deVega, Sam McGlothlin, Jevon Caldwell-Gross, and Susan Robb help us see God's purpose for our lives, how to open ourselves to God's voice, and how to take the first or next step to follow God's call. As you read this book and explore your life alongside others, you’ll learn how to channel your passions, hear God’s voice, and live the life you were meant to live.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 the authors.
An Unlikely Advent: Extraordinary People of the Christmas Story
by Rachel BillupsExpect the unexpected this Christmas.This four-week Advent study focuses on the experiences of four sets of often overlooked characters in the Nativity story. During this Advent season, Rachel Billups guides readers through the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace by sharing the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah, Herod, the Magi, and the shepherds. Each set of unexpected characters has something to teach about living faithfully on the journey to Christmas.Additional components to use the book as a four-week small group study include a leader guide and DVD/Video Sessions featuring Rachel Billups.
The Government Manager's Guide to Project Management
by Jonathan Weinstein PMP Timothy Jacques PMPThis realistic cross-section of the project management discipline in the federal arena will help anyone leading, working on, or affecting the direction of a project team. It covers the entire scope of project management from organization to methodology, technology to leadership. This volume focuses on the three project management organizational dimensions of culture, systems, and structure. Federal practices and successes in the areas of communication, project leadership, stakeholders, and key competencies are highlighted. The book offers clear and practical advice drawn from a variety of project management successes in the federal arena.
The End of Diversity As We Know It: Why Diversity Efforts Fail and How Leveraging Difference Can Succeed
by Martin N. DavidsonWell-intentioned diversity programs are failing to create true workplace equality; Martin Davidson provides a new model for the future that makes "leveraging difference" a critical business strategy, not just politically correct window dressing.The idea for this book came to Martin Davidson during a disarmingly honest conversation with a CFO he worked with. Look, the executive said, clearly troubled. I know we can get a diverse group of people around the table. But so what? What difference does it really make to getting bottom-line results?Answering the so what? led Davidson to explore the flaws in how companies typically manage diversity. They don't integrate diversity into their overall business strategy. They focus on differences that have little impact on their business. And often their diversity efforts end up hindering the professional development of the very people they were designed to help.Davidson explains how what he calls Leveraging Difference turns persistent diversity problems into solutions that drive business results. Difference becomes a powerful source of sustainable competitive advantage instead of a distracting mandate handed down from HR.To begin with, leaders must identify the differences most important to achieving organizational goals, even if the differences aren't the obvious ones. The second challenge is to help employees work together to understand the ways these differences matter to the business. Finally, leaders need to experiment with how to use these relevant differences to get things done. Davidson provides compelling examples of how organizations have tackled each of these challenges.Ultimately this is a book about leadership. As with any other strategic imperative, leaders need to take an active role-drive rather than just delegate. Successfully leveraging difference can be what distinguishes an ordinary organization from an extraordinary one.
The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations
by The Arbinger InstituteThe new edition of an international bestseller helps individuals and organizations shift to a new mindset that will improve performance, spark collaboration, accelerate innovation, and make your life and the lives of everyone around you better.Without even being aware of it, many of us operate from an inward mindset, a single-minded focus on our own goals and objectives. This book points out the many ways, some quite subtle and deceptive, that this mindset invites tension and conflict. But incredible things happen when people switch to an outward mindset. They intuitively understand what coworkers, colleagues, family, and friends need to be successful and happy. Their organizations thrive, and astonishingly, by focusing on others they become happier and more successful themselves! This new mindset brings about deep and far-reaching changes. The Outward Mindset presents compelling true stories to illustrate the gaps that individuals and organizations typically experience between their actual inward mindsets and their needed outward mindsets. And it provides simple yet profound guidance and tools to help bridge this mindset gap. This new edition includes a new preface, updated case studies, and new material covering Arbinger's latest research on mindsets. In the long run, changing negative behavior without changing one's mindset doesn't last—the old behaviors always reassert themselves. But changing the mindset that causes the behavior changes everything.
Outward Bound Lessons to Live a Life of Leadership: To Serve, to Strive, and Not to Yield
by Mark Michaux BrownThis is the first book to describe in detail the principles of Outward Bound, told through the stories of former instructors and graduates who show how to apply them to create healthier, more effective teams, organizations, and communities. For nearly six decades Outward Bound USA's education programs have shaped the lives of tens of thousands of participants. Strangers are put in an unfamiliar and unpredictable setting, where to succeed they must develop a sense of teamwork, resilience, self-confidence, and a focus on the greater good. But, Mark Brown asks, isn't the modern world just as unpredictable and challenging as any mountain or desert? He shows how the same principles that bind people together in the natural world work just as well in cities, companies, and communities. This book explores the concept of Expeditionary Leadership through the stories of people such as third-generation business steward Laura Kohler, the Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank, and former United States Senator Mark Udall, whose lives were touched by Outward Bound and who then went on to make a positive difference in the world. They show how each of us can, in our own way, use the Outward Bound philosophy to bravely face the wild unknowns in our daily lives.From training the first Peace Corps volunteers to partnering with thousands of educational institutions and corporations, Outward Bound has helped build the self-confidence and character of participants who have gone on to live richer, more fulfilling, and successful lives. Outward Bound internationally operates in thirty-three countries and impacts nearly a quarter of a million people annually.
Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist
by Marisa HandlerCombining captivating personal memoir and astute political reportage, Marisa Handler offers a fascinating inside look at the burgeoning global justice movement through her own compelling coming-of-age story. Born in apartheid South Africa, Handler emigrated to Southern California at the age of twelve. Her gradual realization that injustice existed even in this more open, democratic society spurred a lifelong commitment to activism that would take her around the world and back again. Handler shares intimate details of her life as a global justice activist to offer a revealing perspective on what drives the movement. Tracing her own evolution as an activist, her story crisscrosses the globe, examining current sociopolitical issues from apartheid and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, corporate globalization, and the wars of the Bush administration. Along the way, Handler paints compelling portraits of the people she's encountered, shares gritty details of the sometimes-harrowing events that have changed and shaped her, and describes how she came to advocate a spiritually based, nonviolent activism as the best means for building the kind of world we wish to see.
The Ethical Sellout: Maintaining Your Integrity in the Age of Compromise
by Lily Zheng Inge HansenWe all fear selling out. Yet we all face situations that test our ideals and values with no clear right answer. In a world where compromise is an essential aspect of life, authors Lily Zheng and Inge Hansen make the bold claim that everyone sells out-and that the real challenge lies in doing so ethically.Zheng and Hansen share stories from a diversity of people who have found their own answers to this dilemma and offer new ways to think about marginalization, privilege, and self-interest. From these stories, they pull out teachable skills for taking the step from selling out to selling out ethically. The Ethical Sellout is for all those committed to maintaining their integrity in a messy world.
Theory Building in Applied Disciplines
by Richard A. Swanson Thomas J. ChermackA Comprehensive Method, Tools, and Techniques for Building Sound Theory Richard Swanson and Thomas Chermack present a complete five-step approach for developing sound theory in applied disciplines, from conceptualizing a theory to creating relevant assessment criteria, establishing a research agenda to test the theory’s validity, applying the theoretical concepts in the real world, and using that experience to further refine and improve the theory. The method is not restricted to any single discipline, nor is it limited by any research ideology. The authors provide a set of tools for each phase of the process, making this book accessible to a wide audience. And in addition to examples in each chapter, they offer two extended case examples of full theory building.
Streamlining Business Requirements: The XCellR8 Approach
by Gerrie CaudleEffectively Define and Gather Your Business Requirements Today!Many programming systems today are designed and constructed before business requirements are completed and finalized. Without a proper foundation, these systems will eventually crumble. Streamlining Business Requirements: The XCellR8™ Approach provides project managers and business analysts with the foundation, principles, and steps needed to document business requirements in an accurate and efficient manner. Author Gerrie Caudle introduces the XCellR8™ approach, an analysis method used to gather business requirements in a structured, well-defined set of steps.This book offers comprehensive framework needed to:• Effectively analyze business requirements• Properly identify business events• Prepare for a requirements session• Better understand the "big picture"
Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age
by Edward D. Hess Katherine LudwigSmart machines are replacing more and more jobs. Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig show how to develop abilities that machines don't have so we can thrive in this Smart Machine Age. Underlying them all is a sense of personal humility: honestly recognizing our limitations and working to mitigate them. In nearly every industry, smart machines are replacing human labor. It's not just factory jobs-automated technologies are handling people's investments, diagnosing illnesses, and analyzing written documents. If we humans are going to endure, Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig say we're going to need a dose of humility. We need to be humble enough to let go of the idea that smart means knowing the most, using that information quickest, and making the fewest mistakes. Smart machines will always be better than we are at those things. Instead, we need to cultivate important abilities that smart machines don't have (yet): thinking critically, creatively, and innovatively and building close relationships with others so we can collaborate effectively. Hess and Ludwig call this being NewSmart. To develop these abilities, we need to practice four specific behaviors: keeping our egos out of our way, managing our thoughts and emotions to curb any biases or defensiveness, listening to others with an open mind, and connecting with others socially and emotionally. What all these behaviors have in common is, again, humility-avoiding self-centeredness so we can learn from and work with other humans. Hess and Ludwig offer a guide to developing these NewSmart abilities and to creating organizations where these qualities are encouraged and rewarded.
Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration
by Stewart LevineOur current models for ending conflict don’t really work. They waste incredible amounts of time, money, and energy and take an enormous emotional toll on participants. The parties remain embittered, relationships are destroyed, and often the conflict just reappears later in a different form. In this second edition of his classic book, Stewart Levine offers a revolutionary alternative approach that goes beyond compromise and capitulation to provide a satisfactory resolution for everyone involved. Marriages run amuck, neighbors at odds with one another, business deals gone sour, and the pain and anger caused by corporate downsizing are just a few of the conflicts he addresses. The new edition has been thoroughly revised with new examples, new tools, new material about building trust and virtual collaboration, as well as a more global outlook. Levine rejects the adversarial legal model: "If both sides are unhappy, you probably have a good settlement." Resolution, he shows, provides relief and completeness for both sides. No one goes away unhappy. Effective resolution stops anger and resentment cold, drastically cutting the emotional cost and allowing both sides to return to productive, satisfying, functional relationships. Getting to Resolution outlines the ten principles underlying this new approach—what Levine calls “resolutionary thinking. Levine provides a detailed seven-step process for using this new mindset to resolve conflicts in a way that fosters dignity and integrity, optimizes resources, and allows all concerns to be voiced, honored, and woven into the resolution. Levine's model has a thirty-five-year track record. It has been developed, implemented, tested, and proven in business, personal, and governmental contexts. Getting to Resolution will enable readers to shift from thinking about problems, fighting, and breakdowns to thinking about collaboration, engagement, learning, creativity, and the opportunity for creating enduring value.