Book Resources

 Adrienne Maree Brown

 An essential read if you are seeking to support change and possibility in yourself, your organization and community.  Emergent strategy is about how we shape and generate systems and patterns through our own relatively simple interactions.  As natural beings we move like nature – creating possibilities from small interdependent changes. 

  Kemi Nekvapil  

“Leaders who constantly make decisions feel the need to respond quickly. They confuse the speed of the response with the response itself. 

• In what areas of your life do you react even if pausing would be a more powerful choice?
• What are the effects of reacting instead of pausing? 
• How would pausing benefit you in your life and work?”

  Tara Mohr 

“We do a disservice to women when we advise them to simply 'be confident.' We will all feel profound self-doubt when we boldly create, speak up, or lead. This is even more so for women because of the bias we face and the dearth of role models we see. But here’s the good news: we don’t need confidence to play big. What we need is a new, more conscious and skillful relationship to our self-doubt. That is entirely learnable." 

 Tammy Lenski 

I appreciate her thoughtful and practical book, The Conflict Pivot, with its worksheets and communication tools. On her website she encourages us to practice scales when talking about difficult topics or when we are feeling a bit stuck. We practice scales by asking questions like these:  “On a scale of 1-10, how sure are you that your picture of the problem is complete and accurate?” 

Charles Duhigg

 What I enjoyed most about this book is how it complements the leaders and writers I follow on conflict transformation, discussing what matters most, and healthy relationships at work and at home. The author talks about ways to cultivate a deeper understanding of what each person wants and needs in a conversation and relationship. He gives examples of connecting questions and how learning about each other’s needs, goals, and meaningful experiences are the foundation for trusting relationships at work. If we don’t understand each other’s needs we most likely feel unheard and grow a sense of disconnection. When listening at work, discerning what the person sharing really wants right now (to be heard? hugged? helped?) is a starting place for connection. 

Robert Kegan & Lisa Lahey

Charles Feltman

This book offers a practical framework for cultivating trust and having conversations to

restore it as needed by paying attention to our behaviors. The best way to go from the

concept of trust to the behaviors that support or damage it is to look at trust in four

areas in which we can assess behaviors and actions.

Care | Sincerity | Reliability | Competence

1. How would you order these four areas of trust by their importance to you in

choosing to trust someone?

2. In which trust area do you think you are most trustworthy from the perspective of

your supervisor? team? employees?  and least?

 12 powerful tools for Leadership, Coaching and Life

Marilee Adams 

 A key takeaway from this leadership tale -Look carefully at your questions because they affect how we think, feel and act. Leaders, teams and organizations with judging tendencies have greater stress, interpersonal distress, turnover and burnout.  

 Rosamund Stone Zander 

“So if you are going to cause a shift in another, you accept that you are obliged first to bring about a shift in yourself, a transformation, which is equivalent to walking into a new story; and you may keep on experiencing little shifts as interactions take place in the new narrative. The world will occur differently to you, and therefore you will act differently, and people will act differently in response.”  

 C. Otto Scharmer 

 A research-based organizational development approach that blends systems thinking,

innovation, and leading change with awareness practices. Taking a closer look at how

the quality of results in any kind of system are a function of the quality of relationships

(relationship to self, others, etc.) and to change the quality of relationships need to

transform the mindsets of the people enacting the system. If you are seeking tools and

methods for leading from the emerging future, enabling leaders to create solutions that

realize future possibilities, you may enjoy what Otto Scharmer offers. It is an innovative pathway to update our mental and organizational operating systems for effecting

change.

Amanda Ripley 

Us vs Them conflict is rarely what it seems to be about. It has an understory which is

the most interesting part. Investigating the understory means going deeper in a

conversation along side people, getting curious about what lies underneath what they've

said.

Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen

Marshall B. Rosenberg 

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is founded on language and communication skills

that strengthen our ability to be relational as opposed to being right. While the principles

are not new, they serve as a powerful reminder of how to relate to one another by

reframing how we express ourselves and how we listen to others.

Rather than reacting out of habit or automatically, our words can become conscious

responses, rooted in an awareness of what we are perceiving, feeling, and

wanting—both in ourselves and in others.

Prentis Hemphill

 Michael Baran and Tiffany Jana 

This practical handbook shifts the conversation around microaggressions by introducing

a new term: Subtle Acts of Exclusion (SAEs). The authors share how overt

discrimination is easier to recognize, SAEs are often unintentional and rooted in

everyday behaviors that can still cause harm. These may include stereotypes,

backhanded compliments, or assumptions made under the guise of humor or

friendliness. The book offers actionable guidance for individuals and organizations to

recognize SAEs in everyday interactions, understand their impact, address them

constructively, and foster conversations that build trust and inclusive environments.

 Brené Brown 

"Language matters. It's the raw material of story, it changes how we feel about ourselves and others, and it's a portal to connection. With the same amount of power, language can also be used to strip people of their dignity and humanity. With awareness about how dehumanization works comes the responsibility to call out dangerous language when we recognize it." 

 Byron Katie 

Byron Katie has created a process called “the work” to help us better understand our meaning making habits and patterns and learn if they serve us, our relationships and our happiness. I find her tools valuable as a way to explore greater authenticity and alignment in our professional and personal lives.  

Elizabeth Lesser

 “If there is one thing that has made a difference in my life, it is the courage to turn and face what wants to change within me.”  

 So much of my work in adaptive leadership, change and conflict transformation is to explore individual and group behaviors, beliefs and values. To explore what is below the defensiveness. What is at the heart of the matter? What are the needs of individuals, groups, and organizations? What if we think of poetry as language against which you have no defenses? 

In this way, I find poetry to be a rich and fruitful exploration for growth, change and adult development.