My grandfather was a labour activist in Hull in the UK and my father had many classic labour texts such as the book by Tressell, listed below. That got me interested in the world of work and later more specifically in managing people. I moved from studying economics to employment relations /human resource management. Given that most of us (workers) spend 80,000 hours of our lives at work - more time than we are likely to spend on any other activity during our lifetimes - how we spend these lives has remained a source of fascination
This is a brilliant scholarly book (which has been valuable in my own work) arguing that the traditional economic view of the employment relationship needs to be balanced with employee entitlement to fair treatment (equity) and the opportunity to have meaningful input into decisions (voice).
The aim is to strike a balance between efficiency, equity, and voice and give employment “a human face”, allowing for shared prosperity and human dignity.
John W. Budd contends that the turbulence of the current workplace and the importance of work for individuals and society make it vitally important that employment be given "a human face." Contradicting the traditional view of the employment relationship as a purely economic transaction, with business wanting efficiency and workers wanting income, Budd argues that equity and voice are equally important objectives. The traditional narrow focus on efficiency must be balanced with employees' entitlement to fair treatment (equity) and the opportunity to have meaningful input into decisions (voice), he says. Only through a greater respect for these human concerns can…
I am a self-taught guy, having started in my first job at IBM Oslo, when I was 18 years old, as punched card machine operator, and plug-board ‘programmer'. I did night studies in sociology/philosophy for 10 years at University of Oslo. I read about 30 books a year, and I’m 82 in 2023. I have spent most of my career as an independent international consultant to corporations and governments, while building up my ideas of useful methods to solve problems. In retirement, I love to spread my ideas, and learn more. I also write about 5 new books a year, when at my Oslofjord Summer cabin. They're all digital and free or free samples.
From my notes after I read it, “Great content and organization. Triggered me to write and plan a 2022 Book.”
There was specific practical content like removing vacation policy, removing travel and expenses policy. An opening the books, which showed the practices behind the no rules idea, and their consequent results in the business. As a consultant, these give me a tool for discussion with clients. What if you did the same?
Again a great leader, and successful businessperson, using persistence and imagination to deal with the forces against change.
Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss.
These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower - with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin…
I've always been fascinated by the ways religion reconciles contradiction. Both of my parents were public school teachers in the panhandle of Florida, and I now work at a public university in Texas, yet the culture in which I was raised, of white evangelicalism, supported economic policies of neoliberalism that defunded public life. My interest in American religion is motivated by the question of why we participate in systems that harm us. This is an economic question, but sufficient answers must address the power of religion to shape what we see as morally good and bad. These books all do that.
Austin, Texas, where I now live, is home to the first Whole Foods in America. Before the chain of grocery stores was bought out by Amazon, I used to shop there. Then I stopped, or well, I no longer went as often, because I learned in LoRusso's book that company founder John Mackey promoted a libertarian spirituality that considered government interference morally hostile and went as far as to proclaim Obama Care a form of fascism.
By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that one's job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the "spiritual" health of individuals and society alike.
While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce "spirituality in the workplace" as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth…
Jim Tamm was a Senior Administrative Law Judge for the State of California with jurisdiction over workplace disputes. In that role, he mediated more school district labor strikes than any other person in the United States. Ron Luyet is a licensed psychotherapist who has worked with group dynamics pioneers such as Carl Rogers and Will Schutz. He has advised Fortune 500 companies for over forty years specializing in building high-performance teams. Together they wrote Radical Collaboration and are excited to share this list with you today.
Stan captures the essence of the mindset needed to Collaborate. To quote Slap: “When an employee culture is repositioned as a newly precious, workable asset, a company will naturally protect it, same as with any asset. An employee culture can’t be protected without protecting their humanity. If we lose humanity in business, we’re all doomed. If we save it we will have saved ourselves. In case you fear this icy hand of altruism will grip your own company by the throat and choke the life out of revenue, not to worry: We’re talking here about making the business case for humanity. In any environment where meaning is determined by metrics, the point of view and processes in this book are going to cause measurable, sustainable results." We agree.
You can't sell it outside if you can't sell it inside.
You want maximum business performance? Look under the hood and you’ll find your employee culture: it is the power that drives the enterprise engine. To harness that rumbling power you’ve got to solve the mystery of what an employee culture actually is, how it operates and how to move it forward. These are the keys that this book will put right in your hands.
Renowned business culture expert Stan Slap knows the difference between understanding your employees and understanding your employee culture. The distinction isn’t semantics; it’s the key…
I'm a sociologist at the University of Edinburgh, and for almost fifty years I’ve researched a large variety of topics, from the story of the guidance systems of nuclear missiles to the instantaneous auctions that, today, determine the ads you are shown online. But I keep returning to the topic of trading and the global financial system. The processes that lie behind this shape our lives in profound ways, but they are often both complicated and opaque. We need reliable guides for them, and the authors and books that I am recommending are among the very best guides!
Taking the Floor is the story of a 20-year intellectual odyssey, by Daniel Beunza, one of the world’s most insightful analysts of the financial system. He delves in-depth into the organization of a Wall Street trading room, beginning with him negotiating access to it when he was working on his PhD. He also reveals how later conversations with key people in the trading room made him rethink many of his first impressions, showing him that what he took to be a typical form of organization was actually very deliberately designed to be unusual.
I particularly admire Beunza’s nuanced take (co-developed with the sociologist David Stark) on how traders use mathematical models. Traders are far from the naïve users of models that they are often portrayed as being, and instead often use models in a sophisticated way, not as guides to the truth of markets but as insights into what their…
An inside look at a Wall Street trading room and what this reveals about today's financial system
Debates about financial reform have led to the recognition that a healthy financial system doesn't depend solely on how it is structured-organizational culture matters as well. Based on extensive research in a Wall Street derivatives-trading room, Taking the Floor considers how the culture of financial organizations might change in order for them to remain healthy, even in times of crises. In particular, Daniel Beunza explores how the extensive use of financial models and trading technologies over the recent decades has exerted a far-ranging…
I was born in Toronto, yet spent formative years in Atlanta during the height of the civil rights movement. My family shared values dedicated to social justice and actively working against discrimination. Yet at times, I endured antisemitic jokes and name-calling while observing the parents of my “friends” using racist and hateful language toward Black people. We moved to the Seattle area where I later studied political science at the University of Washington, then earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership from the City University of Seattle. For 20+ years, I led global teams at Microsoft and Amazon.
This book gave me a framework to understand change management at a strategic level, that you don’t have to create an enormous change all at once. Instead, you can take small, intentional actions. Meyerson describes this action as “dropping a pebble,” one that causes a ripple, which in turn motivates someone else to drop a pebble that also causes a ripple, which in turn motivates someone else to drop a pebble, and so on.
It is the aggregation of all those pebbles that leads to waves of systemic change. I also found Meyerson’s “rocking the boat” metaphor incredibly valuable. I learned the importance of having the courage and heart to do what is right and not what is expected. I love the “tempered radical” moniker. You need to rock the boat to effect change, but not so hard that you knock yourself and others out of the boat. You need…
"Very well researched, very readable. Anyone who feels they don't fit in or who manages those who don't fit in will want to take a look." - "Inc. Magazine". In this engaging book, Debra E. Meyerson reveals how adaptive, family-friendly, and socially responsible work places are built not by revolutionaries but by those she calls "tempered radicals," a group of people that balance company conformity with individual rebellion. While their differences often put them at odds with the "mainstream" organizational culture, Meyerson argues that these "everyday leaders" act as crucial sources of new ideas, alternative perspectives, and organizational learning and…
My passion for leadership and aspiring women leaders comes from my own leadership experiences and working with women and men executives and aspiring executives, every day. I had to make some difficult work choices in my 20s and 30s (with four young children) and was wonderfully supported by some wise women. Many of my choices were different from my peers and we continue to have to make more difficult choices than our male colleagues. We need to help each other, every day. I lead a blended life co-leading an executive search and leadership advisory firm, while also being a mother, grandmother, wife, mentor, friend, and lover of good music, theatre, food, wine, and curious people.
The Advantage lays out a compelling case that if an organization has strong organizational health it is well placed to succeed in its goals and in its industry.
Goodorganizational healthembraces great teamwork, clear and consistent company culture and goals, and how to have effective meetings. Lencioni brings together many pragmatic and practical perspectives through many years of working with executive teams.
The key element for me is his articulation of the ‘five dysfunctions of teams’ and then how to address these. That one chart has been pivotal to my facilitation of many challenging executive discussions with clients, particularly when paired with Covey’s approach to trust and trust building.
Modelling Trust is the first step in building effective executive teams.
There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides. Simply put,…
Although I’ve worked in many professions and industries, a common theme in all my jobs is that I love helping people succeed in their careers. I’ve started or sponsored employee networks that focused on professional development, I’m a certified coach that focuses on propelling a client’s career, and I am a conference keynote speaker on the topics of careers and leadership. Everyone deserves to have a great career that makes them want to jump out of bed on Monday morning and that provides a good living and lifestyle. I love to make that happen!
If you’re early- or mid-career and seeking to climb the ladder, this book offers great advice on how to advance and how to position yourself as high potential within your organization.
The authors look at five key differentiators, which they call the “X factors,” that set people apart from average performers.
I’ve worked in large and small companies throughout my career and can attest that these “X factors” really are what we look for when we are deciding who is a key player within our organization.
Do You Know What It Takes to Be a High Potential in Your Organization?
Being seen as a high-potential leader is essential to getting promoted and reaching your organization's upper echelons, but most companies keep their top-talent list a closely guarded secret. And the assessment process they use to decide who is and isn't a future leader is an even greater mystery.
The High Potential's Advantage takes you behind the scenes and shows how you can get on, and stay on, your company's fast track. Leadership development experts Jay Conger and Allan Church draw upon decades of research and experience--designing…
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to make a difference—by helping others become wiser and/or happier. But how? Colleagues, clients, and friends tell me that I have a capacity for energy that is boundless. I resisted that statement. It sounded “fluffy”. How could I make a difference if I saw “energy” as being some flighty firefly? Then, when I went through 2 bouts of burnout, I realized that energy was the secret—the secret to resilience, the secret to growth and service. Reading, writing, and speaking fill me with the energy to grow, learn, laugh, and serve. I trust these books and my writing will bring the same to you.
To live and work in a world of turmoil and change requires courage. Resilience is a life skill that can be learned—but it takes courage. In this book, Hurt and Dye come up with very practical but realistic ways to identify organizational practices that encourage or cut-off valuable conversations.
I’m in the field of communications and their advice is not only timely but timeless. I reach for their book when I went to coach someone who is overwhelmed by the workplace. It might be a manager trying to hold a team together, or individual contributors trying to determine if a role is right for them. Hold this on your bookshelf. I guarantee you will use it for yourself—or for others.
From executives complaining that their teams don't contribute ideas to employees giving up because their input isn't valued--company culture is the culprit. Courageous Cultures provides a road map to build a high-performance, high-engagement culture around sharing ideas, solving problems, and rewarding contributions from all levels.
Many leaders are convinced they have an open environment that encourages employees to speak up and are shocked when they learn that employees are holding back. Employees have ideas and want to be heard. Leadership wants to hear them.
Too often, however, employees and leaders both feel that no one cares about making things better.…
It might be a stretch to call me an expert in ethics, but I have taught ethics for more than 30 years and I’ve read deeply in the field of behavioral ethics. I'm proud of the work I’ve done with the Ethics Unwrapped video project, though most of the credit goes to filmmakers Cara Biasucci (co-author of Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions) and Lazaro Hernandez (producer ofEthics Unwrapped). My passion for this topic is driven largely by the fact that I want my two daughters to live in a world where most people are trying to do the right thing most of the time.
Love this book! This is a foundational behavioral ethics book, written by two giants in the field—psychologists Bazerman of Harvard Business School and Tenbrunsel of Notre Dame.
It is research-based, yet very accessible to the novice, directly addressing, as the title indicates, why people sometimes mess up and how they can avoid it. It introduces the reader to cognitive biases and other influences that can fool people’s brains into making poor moral choices.
Blind Spots was an invaluable resource for Cara Biasucci and me for many of the 150 or so videos we have produced for Ethics Unwrapped.
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In "Blind Spots", leading business ethicists Max Baseman's and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the…
