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Affiche du document Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy

Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy

Stan Uhlig

2h58min30

  • Economie
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238 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 2h58min.
Follow the Path to Success in Federal Construction ContractingOpportunities abound in federal government construction contracting, but the devil is in the details. Companies performing work for the federal government must plan and operate based on very specific guidelines and regulations. Knowing how to work within those strict parameters makes the difference between success and failure.Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy is your road map to successfully identifying, planning, and completing government construction projects. This book guides you in finding opportunities, preparing winning proposals, and staying in compliance on construction projects. It is the one resource you will need to work in this competitive arena. The book provides guidance on:• Understanding the Federal Acquisition Regulation and knowing when and how to use it for your benefit and protection• Preparing quality control and safety programs that comply with federal regulations and processes• Determining when a change order is required and how to price and properly process• Identifying a claim and knowing how to process itFederal Construction Contracting Made Easy is an invaluable resource for construction firms, architect/engineer firms, subcontractors, and vendors that want to do business with the federal government.Plus! A handy glossary of terms is included.Bonus: Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy: A Field Guide to the FAR is available as a supplement for project superintendents.
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Affiche du document A Crowdfunder's Strategy Guide

A Crowdfunder's Strategy Guide

Jamey Stegmaier

1h30min00

  • Economie
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120 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 1h30min.
More Than MoneyJamey Stegmaier knows crowdfunding. He's a veteran of seven successful Kickstarter campaigns (and counting) that have raised over $3.2 million, and he's the proprietor of the widely read Kickstarter Lessons blog. In this book he offers a comprehensive guide to crowdfunding, demonstrating that it can be a powerful way for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by building community and putting their customers first.This book includes over forty stories of inspiring successes and sobering disasters. Stegmaier uses these examples to demonstrate how to (and how not to) prepare for a campaign, grow a fan base, structure a pitch, find new backers, and execute many other crucially important “nuts and bolts” elements of a successful crowdfunding project.But Stegmaier emphasizes that the benefits of crowdfunding are much more about the “crowd” than the “funding.” He shows that if you treat your backers as people, not pocketbooks—communicate regularly and transparently with them, ask their opinions, attend to their needs—they'll become advocates as well as funders, exponentially increasing your project's chances of succeeding.PREFACEThis book was supposed to be a young adult dystopian novel set in the year 2094.In March 2012, I was six months into the design and development of Viticulture, the game that would later become the cornerstone of my company, Stonemaier Games. I was burning out. The game was in a pretty good place, but it wasn't ready for Kickstarter, and I had neglected my other creative passion, writing, for a long time.I had also started to understand how big a commitment it is to design and publish a game, and I was worried that once I went down that path, it would be really difficult to accomplish my lifelong goal of writing a novel.I'd tried to write novels before. Two of them, specifically. I approached both as epic projects that would take years to complete. I got about halfway through both before I gave up. Other things took priority.However, I have writer friends who write multiple novels a year. Writer friends with kids. And jobs. And other passions.So in March 2012, I gave myself two months to write a novel from start to finish. It was my sole focus during that time, other than my day job, eating, and sleeping.The strategy actually worked! Two months after I started, I put the finishing touches on Wrinkle, a novel in which overpopulation results in a significant number of people electively traveling to the future.As you can see by this book's cover, you're not reading Wrinkle. But this book wouldn't exist without Wrinkle for several reasons: First, completing a novel after thirty-one years of not completing a novel felt like a full-body cleanse. (That's an assumption—I've never tried a full-body cleanse, unless you count Taco Bell.) I felt unburdened by that long-overdue personal goal, and I was free to go allin on my Kickstarter campaign for Viticulture. Without a successful campaign for Viticulture, it's likely that none of this—the games, the company, the blog, this book—would exist.Second, completing Wrinkle helped me realize that I was the only person or entity holding myself back from the joy of creating something new. That is the difference between an imaginative person and a creative person—a creative person actually creates things. Crossing that threshold prepared me for the creative process that goes hand in hand with being a crowdfunder.Third, after writing and revising Wrinkle in the summer of 2012, the novel came up in conversation with a literary agent I knew through some contacts in the publishing world. Jennifer Chen Tran read the manuscript, gave me some good feedback, and encouraged me to keep working on it.I stayed in touch with Jennifer over the next year, during which time I ran two successful Kickstarter campaigns and built a strong audience on my blog about crowdfunding.1 One day, she e-mailed me and asked, “Have you ever thought about writing a book about crowdfunding?”I had entertained the idea but hadn't seriously considered it. In terms of total content, I had already written a book—all of my blog entries up to that point could fill a large tome.Jennifer pointed out that the blog is pretty technical—it is mostly a step-by-step guide on how to create a successful crowdfunding project. It doesn't read as a cohesive whole. It doesn't tell a story.More important, she added, my blog reaches only those who happen to stumble on it. It's a limited audience, mostly tabletop game creators. “Think of the other people you could help by telling your story—and the stories of innovative crowdfunders—in a book,” Jennifer said. (I'm paraphrasing here—in reality, about twenty e-mail messages were needed before I fully grasped the concept.)She was right. The whole goal of the blog was to help other creators, and I was reaching only a very small subset at that point. So I started writing this book for all types of entrepreneurs who are intrigued by the idea of crowdfunding, particularly those who are open to the idea that creating something is less about them—the creators—and more about others—the backers, customers, fans, and supporters who share a passion for the thing the creators are trying to make.If you like this book, you can thank Jennifer Chen Tran and my readers for inspiring and encouraging me to create something for you. If you don't like it, you can blame its existence on the popularity of the YA dystopian genre.INTRODUCTIONI've run seven successful Kickstarter projects that together have raised more than a million dollars, and I've consulted on and backed countless others. The success of those campaigns has allowed me to run my board game publishing company, Stonemaier Games, full-time.Throughout this book I refer to Stonemaier Games in terms of “we” and “our,” since I'm not alone in this endeavor. I have a business partner (Alan Stone), an advisory board, hundreds of “ambassadors,” and thousands of backers (crowdfunding customers).I designed three of our games—Viticulture, Euphoria, and Tuscany—as well as a game accessory, the Treasure Chest, all four of which have a total of nearly fifty thousand copies in print. To put it in perspective, that's really good for a small publishing company that has been around for about two years and really bad for, say, Hasbro.I write a crowdfunding blog where I share my insights, mistakes, research, and observations to provide a detailed template for how other crowdfunders might, I hope, achieve success. When I refer to “the blog” in this book, I'm talking about the Kickstarter Lessons website, not my personal blog.1 That blog is mostly about my cats.The crowdfunding blog serves as a complement to this book, but the two are very different. The blog is a step-by-step guide to creating a crowdfunding project and running a campaign. I've been told that it contains an almost overwhelming amount of information. So for the readers of this book, I've condensed those 125 lessons down to 125 sentences (well, I tried to limit myself to one sentence per lesson), found in the Resources section of this book. They're not a replacement for the full entries, nor do they explain the logic behind the lessons, but if you trust me by the time you reach the end of this book, they're there for you to consider.A Crowdfunder's Strategy Guide is much more anecdotal than my blog. Whenever I read a book like this, I find myself skipping over the pedantic parts to get to the concrete, real-life examples. So I've tried to fill the book with stories, not lessons.Several projects I feature in this book fall into the category of “megaprojects.” These are projects that wildly overfunded. You can learn a lot from these projects, but it's important to remember that correlation does not equal causation, especially when comparing your project with these. Just because megaproject A launched on, say, July 8 and raised $10 million does not mean that if you also launch your project on July 8, you will raise $10 million, too.When you research megaprojects, dig under the surface a bit before drawing any conclusions. Read the project updates, poke around for a postmortem or lessons-learned post, look into past or future projects to see how their creators' methods changed over time, and so on. Megaprojects are often successful despite their flaws and deviations from best practices, and it's up to you to distinguish how they deviated and the resulting impact.The one common thread between the blog and this book is my belief that you will significantly increase your odds of crowdfunding success if you focus on building community, empathizing with supporters, and developing trust-based relationships. Whenever you're faced with a decision—big or small—simply ask yourself, “What's the right thing for my backers?”I will systematically prove to you in every chapter of this book that by putting your backers first and connecting with individual backers, you will be a better, happier, more successful creator.Even though the stories and lessons in this book will increase your odds of crowdfunding success, nothing is guaranteed. This is actually the great thing about crowdfunding: the crowd will vote with their dollars to tell you whether there is demand for whatever it is you're trying to create. If you put in the legwork and present your idea well, but it still doesn't successfully fund, that's a sign that the world isn't interested. And that's okay. It's a lot better to determine what the demand is before you invest thousands of dollars to make something.Last, it's important to note that a lot of the examples in this book are tabletop game projects. I run tabletop game projects and own a board game company, so it makes sense that I pay more attention to that category and hobnob with other tabletop game creators more than others. However, the vast majority of the examples I use can apply to any category, and I've made sure to include plenty of stories from other categories, not just to reach various types of creators, but also because these stories fascinate me. I've learned just as much from campaigns unrelated to games as I have from those that are.Now, my friends, it's time to make this book all about you.1. You Don't Need to Launch Today2. The Crowd Is the New Gatekeeper3. Crowdfunding Is the Rock Concert for Entrepreneurs4. I Made These Mistakes So You Don't Have To5. Make It about Them6. Backers Are Individuals, Not Numbers 7. How to Make Friends and Lose Money8. Go Small to Win Big9. Build a Better Community10. Don't Quit Your Day Job…Until You Quit Your Day Job11. You Are Your Own GatekeeperAppendix A: 125 Crowdfunding Lessons in 125 SentencesAppendix B: The One-Week Checklist
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Affiche du document When Corporations Rule the World

When Corporations Rule the World

David C. Korten

4h06min45

  • Economie
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329 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 4h7min.
The twentieth-anniversary edition of the book that helped launch the anticorporate movement examines how much corporate control has grown and the new challenges for those who work for a more economically equitable society.Our Choice: Democracy or Corporate Rule A handful of corporations and financial institutions command an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power in an assault against markets, democracy, and life. It's a “suicide economy,” says David Korten, that destroys the very foundations of its own existence. The bestselling 1995 edition of When Corporations Rule the World helped launch a global resistance against corporate domination. In this twentieth-anniversary edition, Korten shares insights from his personal experience as a participant in the growing movement for a New Economy. A new introduction documents the further concentration of wealth and corporate power since 1995 and explores why our institutions resolutely resist even modest reform. A new conclusion chapter outlines high-leverage opportunities for breakthrough change.Prologue: In Search of a Deeper Truth Chapter 1. Our Story Problem Chapter 2. Our Quest to Know Chapter 3. A Brief History of Story Politics Chapter 4. Living Universe Chapter 5. Children of a Living Earth Chapter 6. Making a Living Chapter 7. Enslaved by Corporate Robots Chapter 8. Economics for a Living Household Chapter 9. A Living Economy for a Living Earth Chapter 10. Own the Story, Own the Future
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Affiche du document Making Sustainability Work

Making Sustainability Work

Adriana Rejc Buhovac

3h33min00

  • Economie
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284 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 3h33min.
Most companies today have some commitment to corporate social responsibility, but implementing these initiatives can be particularly challenging. While a lot has been written on ethical and strategic factors, there is still a dearth of information on the practical nuts and bolts. And whereas with most other organizational initiatives the sole objective is improved financial performance, sustainability broadens the focus to include social and environmental performance, which is much more difficult to measure.Now updated throughout with new examples and new research, this is a complete guide to implementing and measuring the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives. It draws on Marc Epstein's and new coauthor Adriana Rejc Buhovac's solid academic foundation and extensive consulting work and includes best practices from dozens of companies in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Africa. This is the ultimate how-to guide for corporate leaders, strategists, academics, sustainability consultants, and anyone else with an interest in actually putting sustainability ideas into practice and making sure they accomplish their goals.List of cases, figures, and tables Foreword from the First Edition--John Elkington, SustainAbility Herman B Dutch Leonard, Harvard Business SchoolPreface Introduction: Improving sustainability and financial performance in global corporationsWhy it's importantManaging corporate sustainabilityThe Corporate Sustainability Model Background to this bookMaking sustainability work: an overview of the revised book And finally 1--A new framework for implementing corporate sustainability What is sustainability?Identify your stakeholders Be accountableCorporate Sustainability Model Summary 2--Leadership, organizational culture, and strategy for corporate sustainability Board commitment to sustainabilityCEO commitment to sustainabilityLeadership and global climate changeThe role of the corporate mission and vision statementsThe role of organizational culture Developing a corporate sustainability strategyThinking globally Voluntary standards and codes of conductWorking with government regulations Social investors and sustainability indices Summary 3--Organizing for sustainability The challenge for global corporations Involve the whole organization Information flow and a seat at the table Outsourcing Philanthropy and collaboration with NGOs Summary 4--Costing, capital investments, and the integration of sustainability risksThe capital investment decision process Capital budgeting in small and medium enterprises Costs in the decision-making process Costing systems Risk assessment Summary 5--Performance measurement, evaluation, and reward systems Performance measurement and evaluation systemsIncentives and rewardsStrategic performance measurement systems Shareholder value analysisSummary 6--The foundations for measuring social, environmental, and economic impacts The concept of value Methodologies for measuring social, environmental, and economic impacts Methodologies for measuring sustainability and political risksSummary 7--Implementing a social, environmental, and economic impact measurement system Mapping the actions that drive performance Sustainability performance metricsEngage with your stakeholders Measuring reputationMeasuring riskMeasuring social, environmental, and economic impacts Summary 8--Improving corporate processes, products, and projects for corporate sustainabilityOrganizational learning: the new battleground? Improving sustainability performanceReducing social, environmental, and economic impacts Involve the supply chainInternal reportingSummary 9--External sustainability reporting and verification Standards for sustainability reportingIndustry guidance on sustainability reporting Let everyone know how you're doingExternal disclosure of sustainability performance measuresVerifying sustainability performance and reporting Internal sustainability auditsExternal sustainability auditsSummary 10--The benefits of sustainability for corporations and society Make sustainability workUse the Corporate Sustainability Model to improve performance Create opportunities for innovation A last wordEndnotesBibliography Index
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Affiche du document Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry

Diana D. Whitney

42min00

  • Economie
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56 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 42min.
Written by the two most recognized Appreciative Inquiry thought leaders A quick, accessible introduction to one of the most popular change methods today--proven effective in organizations ranging from Roadway Express and British Airways to the United Nations and the United States Navy Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a model of change management uniquely suited to the values, beliefs, and challenges of organizations today. AI is a process that emphasizes identifying and building on strengths, rather than focusing exclusively on fixing weaknesses as most other change processes do. As the stories in this book illustrate, it results in dramatic improvements in the triple bottom line: people, profits, and planet. AI has been used to significantly enhance customer satisfaction, cost competitiveness, revenues, profits, and employee engagement, retention, and morale, as well as organizations' abilities to meet the needs of society. This book is a concise introduction to Appreciative Inquiry. It provides a basic overview of the process and principles of AI along with exciting stories illustrating how organizations have applied AI and the benefits they have gained as a result. It has been specifically designed to be accessible to a wide audience so that it can be handed out in organizations where AI is either being contemplated or being implemented. Written by two of the key figures in the development of Appreciative Inquiry, this is the most authoritative guide available to a change method that systematically taps the potential of human beings to make themselves, their organizations, and their communities more adaptive and more effective.
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Affiche du document The Appreciative Inquiry Handbook

The Appreciative Inquiry Handbook

David L. Cooperrider

5h28min30

  • Economie
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438 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 5h28min.
In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of one of the most popular change methods in the world, Cooperrider et al. track the recent changes in the field and explain how AI can contribute to sustainability and the triple bottom line.One of today's most popular change methods, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has been used to undertake transformational initiatives in dozens of organizations, ranging from McDonalds to the U.S. Navy to Save the Children. The assumption of AI is simple. Every organization has things that work right-things that give it life when it is vital, effective, and successful. AI begins by identifying this positive core and connecting organizational visions, plans, and structures to it in ways that heighten energy and inspire action for change. This book presents all of the concepts, examples, and aids necessary to engage groups of all sizes in Appreciative Inquiry. The authors provide background information on what AI is and how it works and offer sample project plans, designs, agendas, course outlines, interview guidelines, participant worksheets, a list of resources, and more. This second edition has been extensively revised, updated, and expanded, including new case studies, new tools and supplemental articles, an expanded bibliography and resource list, and an entirely new chapter on case applications. And throughout, the authors focus on how AI can support an organizational focus on sustainability and the triple bottom line of people, prosperity, and planet.Appreciative Intelligence: The Missing LinkA fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.-William Blake (1790)When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, the general public, as well as scientists in the aerospace field, held high hopes. The world waited expectantly for discoveries and answers to riddles of the universe that would be revealed by the telescope's views of space.But blurry images caused by a flawed mirror sent those hopes crashing down to earth. Congress demanded an explanation for the failure. The project and its creators became the butt of late-night television jokes. Stress was high among NASA engineers, as were health problems.It was traumatic, said Charlie Pellerin, the former director of NASA's astrophysics division, who oversaw the launch of the Hubble. Nobody could see how to fix the problem, which many seemed afraid even to address.Well, nobody except Pellerin. He not only had the initial insight to solve the problem but also found the funding and the resources to repair the telescope, for which he received NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal. The ultimate reward was that over the next decade, the telescope provided spectacular images and important discoveries of stars, galaxies, and other cosmic phenomena.2What was behind Pellerin's success? There were dozens of other people at NASA with high IQ and world-class technical knowledge-they were, after all, rocket scientists. They could perform the same analysis, use the same logic, and wield the same models and mathematical formulas. So what gave Pellerin the insight to help the telescope get a metaphorical pair of eyeglasses? What made him persist until the telescope was fixed when others felt overwhelmed by the challenge?Pellerin possessed something more than the others did: Appreciative Intelligence. While he lived with the same conditions and circumstances as everyone else, his mind perceived reality very differently than others did. He reframed the situation as a project that was not yet finished, not as a completed product that had failed. He saw the potential for a positive future situation-a working space telescope. He saw how that positive future could happen as the result of technical solutions-a corrective optics package and repairs performed by a crew of astronauts1-that were already possible with a rearrangement of funding and resources that already existed within NASA. By reframing, recognizing the positive, or what worked, and envisioning the repaired telescope, he was able to help orchestrate the unfolding of a series of events that changed the future.Consider another story. In 1979, after participating in a project to immunize children in the Philippines against polio and reading about the worldwide eradication of smallpox, Clem Renouf, then president of the civic organization Rotary International, telephoned John Sever, then chief of the Infectious Diseases Branch at the National Institutes of Health and a fellow Rotarian. Renouf asked Sever to find out whether Rotary could help eradicate a disease. A month later, Sever recommended pursuing polio eradication.For the next two decades, a group of key stakeholders, backed by a million Rotarians, overcame challenge after challenge to battle the disease. They reassured the medical community that focusing on polio wouldn't take away from the battle against other diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, or HIV/AIDS. Rotarians raised millions of dollars to buy polio vaccine. They persuaded reluctant government health ministries in many countries to help the cause and invited the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control to join Rotary as its 3program partners. They motivated volunteers who transported vaccine in developing countries where there were few roads and who found ways to keep the vaccine vials cold where there was no electricity. Rotary provided infrastructure, organization, and helping hands worldwide to deliver and administer the oral polio vaccine to millions of children, many whose parents were impoverished, illiterate, and afraid that the vaccine was voodoo or a disguised attempt by culturally or politically different organizations to sterilize or harm their children. With the audacious goal of eradicating the virus, the program raised awareness of immunization and disease prevention for illnesses beyond polio. It spurred the allocation of government funds for vaccines in certain countries and improved disease surveillance processes. At the same time the program was changing the world's response to disease, it reduced the incidence of polio by 99%, from over 350,000 cases in 125 countries in 1988 to 1,255 cases in 2004.2What was behind the string of creative and innovative solutions behind the polio eradication project? What differentiated this project from the medical community's attempts to eradicate other diseases such as malaria and yellow fever? What was behind more than 20 years of persistence? If the same vaccine, medical knowledge and expertise, challenges, and conditions existed for others who looked at the situation, what ability made the difference for this group of Rotarians-a volunteer group of predominantly business and community leaders-to face polio and reduce its incidence by 99%?The opening for a different outcome was created when Rotarians reframed the challenge of eradicating polio. Renouf, Sever, Herb Pigman, and Carlos Canseco, with the help of Dr. Albert Sabin, who had developed the oral polio vaccine, reframed polio as an organizational challenge instead of a medical problem. They focused on Rotarians' organizational skills, leadership, talents, and resources as the key to the solution. They saw a positive future-a world without polio-and envisioned a string of managerial decisions and organizational operations-transportation, refrigeration, finances, communication, and education provided by Rotary's established worldwide network of volunteers-that were already possible at that time.What did Charlie Pellerin and the leaders of Rotary have in common that led to their projects' success? What is the ability that enables 4some people to take new or challenging circumstances and turn them into golden opportunities and enriching experiences for themselves and those around them, while others falter at similar situations? It is Appreciative Intelligence, the ability to perceive the positive inherent generative potential within the present. Put in a simple and metaphorical way, Appreciative Intelligence is the ability to see the mighty oak in the acorn. It is the ability to reframe a given situation, to appreciate its positive aspects, and to see how the future unfolds from the generative aspects of the current situation.Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn offers a new perspective on successful people and provides a road map for those who want to realize their full potential. It offers an explanation of a unique ability of those who formally or informally lead projects and people and who make a difference in their small groups, organizations, the larger community, and the world. It provides a new answer to what enables successful people to dream up their extraordinary and innovative ideas; why employees, students, partners, colleagues, investors, and other stakeholders join them on the path to their end goals; and how they achieve those goals despite obstacles and challenges. It shows how a new type of intelligence, not traditional IQ or other types, links to success. In the next ten chapters, this book introduces Appreciative Intelligence, a new construct that explains a competitive advantage possessed by exceptional leaders in business, education, government, and nonprofit organizations.Appreciative Intelligence also offers another perspective on what it means to be smart or intelligent. Ask a group of people what it means to be intelligent, and their answers might vary considerably. Several people who spoke with us during our research told us that they weren't sure they were that smart-smart enough to have created such success. They felt that luck was certainly a factor in their progress. Yet in every case, the people we interviewed were leaders or participants in exceedingly effective projects with innovative solutions and far-reaching outcomes. Their definition of smart or intelligent was too narrow to encompass the ability that allowed them to see the possibilities that luck provided-a notion described by the nineteenth-century scientist Louis Pasteur, when he said, Chance favors the prepared mind. Their definition excluded the 5mental processes that resulted in ideas and outcomes that amounted to what others would call brilliant or even genius.When Carol, one of the authors, was in grade school, her entire class knew what it meant to be intelligent. Intelligent meant a classmate Chris (not his real name)-sometimes called by his nickname Brains- who earned top grades and quickly understood lessons from teachers and from books. He had a solid grasp of academic fundamentals in math, English, and science. Chris grew up to be a successful Wall Street executive. At a high-school reunion the graduates all knew that our old friend was still just plain smart.In the same grade school, students also considered who wasn't as intelligent. Surely the girl who sat in the back of the class chatting away with her friends, paying less attention to class work than to the behavior of classmates around her, was less intelligent. At a later school reunion, a few alumni overheard her talking about her work. When her father passed away, he left her a piece of property in our small town. She had noticed that as the tiny town grew, more traffic passed by the corner where her property was located, so she opened a convenience store on the corner. Noting new needs and desires around town, she rented her extra space to a startup limousine service. In a relatively short time, she became a successful businesswoman.Both classmates drew upon their abilities-one upon mathematical, analytical cognitive thinking, the other upon the ability to notice people's behaviors and recognize opportunities inherent in them-to become successful business people. The successful businesswoman used her Appreciative Intelligence to see hidden potential in a piece of property and a situation of changing needs to realize business value.Defining Appreciative IntelligenceAppreciative Intelligence is the ability to perceive the positive inherent generative potential within the present. Put in a simple way, Appreciative Intelligence is the ability to see the mighty oak in the acorn. Metaphorically, it is the ability to see more than the present existence of a small capped nut. It is the capacity to see a strong trunk and countless leaves as emerging from the nut as time unfolds. It is the ability to see a 6breakthrough product, top talent, or valuable solution of the future that is currently hidden in the present situation.There are three components of Appreciative Intelligence:ReframingAppreciating the positiveSeeing how the future unfolds from the present Like a three-legged stool that cannot stand if a leg is missing, Appreciative Intelligence is not present without all its components. Each part is essential to the construct.ReframingThe first component of the intelligence we discuss in this book is the ability to perceive-to see, to interpret, to frame or reframe. Framing is the psychological process whereby a person intentionally views or puts into a certain perspective any object, person, context, or scenario. One of the most common examples of framing is that of calling a glass half empty or half full. Regardless of how the glass is described, the amount of water is the same; it is only the perspective that is different.In any act of perception or reframing, a person is faced with a series of choices. He or she chooses to pay attention to one stimulus and, at least for the time being, to ignore the remaining stimuli. That decision is a judgment call, value-based in the sense that what gets focused on must have more value than what does not. Consider the scenario of the half-glass of water. Factors, such as whether the perceiver is an optimist or pessimist, dying of thirst or attempting to bail out a boat that is about to sink, will affect his or her value judgment of the amount of water. Using Appreciative Intelligence, the person consciously or unconsciously reframes what is in the present, thereby shifting to a new view of reality that leads to a new outcome, just as the Rotarians reframed polio eradication as an organizational, not medical, challenge.Appreciating the PositiveAsk several people what it means to be appreciative. Some may refer to rising property value; another may recall that a thank-you note or recognition speech needs to be written. But most will have an accurate sense of what the word means and that subjective value is at play. In this 7book, the term appreciation specifically refers to a process of selectivity and judgment of something's positive value or worth. This is the second component of Appreciative Intelligence.Consider the following scenario: You are browsing through an art exhibit at a museum while your friend is checking out a few paintings at a nearby flea market. You both see similar paintings by the same artist.Assuming neither of you is an art critic, you are more likely to have a better appreciation of the painting than your friend has at the flea market. Because you are in the art museum, you have an appreciative mindset. Aware that an expert might have picked the painting as worthy of being displayed in the art gallery, you are intentionally looking for beauty in the painting. As you look intently, you see aspects of the painting you might have missed had you looked with a casual eye. Meanwhile, your friend might be looking for a bargain. She tries hard to discover some fault in the artwork in order to negotiate a lower price. It is reasonable to think that your friend is intentionally looking for deficits while you are trying to appreciate the picture. A cognitive psychologist would say that you are actually interpreting or reframing the details of the painting as beautiful or exquisite because of the appreciative context that has been created. In the end, both your friend and you find what you are looking for.Similarly, successful people have a conscious or unconscious ability to view everyday reality-events, situations, obstacles, products, and people-with appreciation. Because they are reframing to see the positive, they often see talents or potential that others might miss.Seeing How the Future Unfolds from the PresentThe implication of the second component is that useful, desirable, or positive aspects already exist in the current condition of people, situations, or things, but sometimes they must be revealed, unlocked, or realized. People with high Appreciative Intelligence connect the generative aspects of the present with a desirable end goal. They see how the future unfolds from the present, the third component of Appreciative Intelligence. Many people have the ability to reframe and the capacity to appreciate the positive. Yet, if they don't see the concrete ways that the possibilities of the present moment could be channeled, they have not developed their Appreciative Intelligence.8Consider an instance in the story of Brownie Wise, the marketing genius of Tupperware, who was building a sales force in the 1950s to sell plastic home products through home parties. Once, a poorly dressed woman showed up in a coal delivery truck to talk with Wise about becoming a Tupperware dealer. Wise reframed the context by ignoring the appearance of the woman and intentionally focusing on the positive, the desire in her eyes.3 Furthermore, Wise had the ability to see how the future could unfold from the present as she saw what could generate success-the woman's strong determination-and a concrete way to realize it-by booking parties, demonstrating products, and selling Tupperware.The following real-life examples, historical and present-day, have characteristics in common with Charlie Pellerin and the Hubble Telescope repair, and Rotary International's and their partners' 99% reduction of polio worldwide. They show Appreciative Intelligence and hint at the power and consequences of the three components working together.Coca-Cola's Asa Candler saw the potential for a top-selling soft drink in a failing headache remedy.4 He reframed the product as a beverage instead of a health product, focused on proving its great taste to other people, and set into motion what is now a multibillion-dollar business.Cosmetic company founder Estee Lauder saw a shoeless woman who entered an upscale store as a possible good customer, and ended up selling two of each cosmetic product to her and more to her relatives the next day.5 Lauder saw beyond the outward appearance of the woman and reframed her as a potentially good customer, rather than as a poor visitor to the store. She treated her as someone of value, thus creating a dramatically different sales transaction from what would have occurred had Lauder listened to the employee who suggested ignoring her.At W. L. Gore & Associates, founder Bill Gore sparked the idea for Glide Floss, shred-resistant dental floss, when he attached a ribbon of Gore-Tex fabric to his toothbrush and began to floss his teeth. Company associate (Gore's term for an employee) Dave Myers had a flash of insight that led to Elixir guitar strings after coating his mountain bike gear cables with a thin layer of slick plastic material. Since Gore's inception in 1958, its innovators have dreamed up and 9realized a range of other products, including wires and cables that have gone to the moon and a waterproof cast lining that allows patients to swim or shower while their broken bones heal. The company is best known for Gore-Tex fabric, used in sportswear and outdoor clothing. By reframing the uses of their plastic materials, seeing the positive value in their products and people, and connecting technology and materials possible in the present with the vision of better products for the future, the company has enjoyed a long tradition of bringing original products to the market.In response to concerns that the number of U.S. students earning engineering degrees has declined in the past decade, Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). He formed the organization to address the decline as a cultural issue, rather than as an educational problem. FIRST introduced math, science, and engineering principles to 73,000 high-school-aged students in 2005, not through additional classes or science fairs but through a giant robotics event akin to an Olympics for Smarts,6 featuring games, music, and cheering spectators at the Georgia Dome.The leaders in these stories have commonalities-persistence, big dreams, passion, conviction that their actions matter, ability to overcome obstacles, creativity, innovation, and a knack for persuading people to share their goals and hard work. They also created significant business and organizational success.At the same time, we all could also point to examples of leaders, and their organizations, who couldn't overcome obstacles or change their circumstances; couldn't disentangle themselves from a web of difficulties; couldn't attract and hold talented employees, loyal customers, or investors; and couldn't accomplish goals. In short, we all know people who didn't succeed.The Genesis of Appreciative IntelligenceWhat is the ability that enables some people to take new or challenging circumstances and turn them into successful experiences for themselves and those around them, while others waver at similar situations?10That was the question that Tojo Thatchenkery, one of the authors of this book, asked shortly after he arrived in the United States in 1987. While working on his doctoral studies in organizational behavior, he observed that in the culture of his university department, leaders possessed a distinctive manner of dealing with fellow faculty, students, and their environment. They were constantly looking for ways that others' ideas might work, how their proposed concepts might be realized and developed. He also noticed an aura of success among the faculty that, in turn, led to successful graduates. This was in marked contrast to a culture of critique he was previously familiar with, where it was assumed that if the gaps and deficiencies in ideas were pointed out, it would lead to improvement. It quickly became apparent to him that a culture that appreciatively framed others' ideas into possibilities led to more original and more rapidly generated concepts and discoveries.On a larger scale, Tojo noticed a high incidence of innovation in the United States, such as that associated with the phenomena of Silicon Valley. The technology center in California that originated as Stanford's University's solution to financial shortages ultimately became the birthplace of many of the world's computers, semiconductors, electronics, and software inventions. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Silicon Valley produced a significant quantity of intellectual capital that resulted in the phenomenal growth of the Internet and the subsequent Information Technology revolution and globalization. As he witnessed a pervasive attitude of looking for the next nugget of gold in the pan of dust, Tojo began to perceive that there was a link between entrepreneurs' and leaders' positive and appreciative approach, innovative and creative ideas, and successful organizations. He also noticed that such people had a unique ability to perceive opportunities, talents, and innovative ideas and to bring them to fruition when others didn't. Tojo coined the term Appreciative Intelligence to capture this ability.After studying hundreds of stories of real-life leaders and talking with additional ones (in a methodology described in Chapter 9 of this book), and examining research from the new field of social cognitive neu-roscience (discussed in Chapter 10), we found evidence to explain what Tojo previously had intuitively perceived. A common characteristic of many successful leaders and innovators is a unique way of thinking-the newly identified intelligence called Appreciative Intelligence.11Appreciative Intelligence is a new construct. Different from a concept, which expresses an abstraction formed by generalization from particulars, a construct is a concept that has been deliberately and consciously invented or adopted for a specific scientific purpose.7 Constructs are developed to help us make sense of various phenomena in our world. They can be observed and measured, thus allowing us to make predictions about behavior. Development of new constructs can also lead to theory development, research, and practice.The new construct of Appreciative Intelligence helps explain the thinking behind success. Behind top leaders', inventors', and innovators' achievements, it shows up in a myriad of ways, foremost in the perception of products, places, people, events, and situations. In each case, reality is seen as possessing high value, regardless of its face value. In much the same way that Coca Cola's Asa Candler saw possibilities for a popular beverage in an unpopular health product, an architect with high Appreciative Intelligence may see a quaint historic home in what others view as a rundown house in a depressed neighborhood. A sports or talent scout might see a future star in an amateur athlete or actor. Or another person might see a catastrophe as an opportunity for change. Appreciative Intelligence encompasses the capacity to appreciate people, to see and reveal the hidden value in others, and to look past stereotypes, as did Estee Lauder, who saw the shoeless woman as a potential customer, and Tupperware's Brownie Wise, who saw a successful salesperson in an untested, unremarkable-looking job candidate with few credentials. Such leaders see positive endings to stories where others might not even perceive a story exists.This ability is followed by persistence, the conviction that one can achieve a goal or perform a task as a result of one's own actions, tolerance for uncertainty, and irrepressible resilience, the ability to bounce back from a crisis or difficult situation. Appreciative Intelligence is associated with uncommon perceptions and beliefs about accomplishing a task that rely less on the extent of abilities or resources available as how abilities and resources available can be utilized. This notion is expressed in the famous American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver's explanation for creating his own lab apparatus for experiments from bits of trash-Equipment is not all in the laboratory, but partly in the head of the man running it.812Unlike other models of intelligence, Appreciative Intelligence is linked to humans' need for meaning, vision, and value. There is inten-tionality about it. Appreciative Intelligence is behind creating new possibilities and helping see the steps necessary to realize them. It allows us to dream and to strive. It keeps humanity's desire for continuous improvement alive by generating new opportunities. Appreciative Intelligence is also about a way of knowing and interpreting situations. It is similar to what Viktor Frankl, survivor of a German concentration camp, wrote in his classic book, Man's Search for Meaning, about the power of looking horror in the face and finding leverage in it to survive. It is that capacity not to flinch or deny but to learn from failure and the things we fear. To quote Frankl, everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.9Those with high Appreciative Intelligence have a capacity to endow everyday activity with a sense of purpose. Because they can reframe, they are flexible and actively and spontaneously adaptive. Seeing a situation from a new perspective allows them to deal with obstacles with courage and resilience. Because they can see what is positive and how the future unfolds from the present, they have a capacity to face adversity without letting it destroy them. They are predisposed to see the larger picture and the connections between diverse things because they can shift their frames of reality to see possibilities, not boundaries. Due to their higher capacity to embrace ambiguity, or shades of gray in situations, they can live in uncertainty without knowing the answers. Because they see how a positive future can come from the present, they live their lives with a sense of realistic optimism.Those who possess a high level of Appreciative Intelligence lead organizations to higher incidence of innovation and creativity, more productive members, and greater ability to adapt in a changing environment. Hence, their organizations enjoy a competitive advantage, greater financial success, and greater world impact.The identification and development of Appreciative Intelligence has far-reaching implications for individuals, organizations of all types and sizes, and our society as a whole. As we discuss further in subsequent chapters, everyone has Appreciative Intelligence to a greater or lesser 13degree. The most recent understanding of intelligence as a changing capacity that can be enhanced and nurtured, rather than as a static entity, leads to the conclusion that Appreciative Intelligence can be developed and enhanced. Recognizing and cultivating it means the ability to affect prosperity, health, and success on individual and organizational levels. Further ramifications are that we can shape the future we desire by choosing and grooming leaders and innovators who possess high Appreciative Intelligence and helping expand its application.The most effective and successful people exhibit the ability to reframe, appreciate the positive, and see how the future unfolds from the present. They have Appreciative Intelligence, the ability to see the mighty oak in the acorn.Ahead in This BookThe following ten chapters of this book are designed to walk you through a deeper introduction to the core of Appreciative Intelligence and its components through a variety of studies and real-life stories.Chapter 2 discusses the application of this new intelligence. Appreciative Intelligence leads to four qualities-persistence, conviction that one's actions matter, tolerance for uncertainty, and irrepressible resilience-as shown in this chapter through stories of real-life leaders and innovators.In Chapter 3, we look at Appreciative Intelligence in action by examining a school whose leaders, teachers, and mentors use their Appreciative Intelligence to shape the next generation.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 take a closer look at the three components of Appreciative Intelligence. Chapter 4 discusses reframing. It also discusses the mysterious quirks of human perception and the effect of conscious and unconscious choices we make as we see reality. Chapter 5 further probes the second component, appreciating the positive. It includes information from the fields of Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Behavior and discusses the methodology and technique of Appreciative Inquiry. Chapter 6 discusses the third component, seeing how the future unfolds from the present.Chapter 7 explores the organizational effects of leaders and members with high Appreciative Intelligence. Whether an organization is a 14for-profit corporation or a not-for-profit institution, whether it works with adults or students and sells products or services, an organization that weaves its members' Appreciative Intelligence into the fabric of its culture displays some extraordinary practices and results.Chapter 8 provides a Personal Appreciative Intelligence Profile and practical, concrete exercises to develop your own personal Appreciative Intelligence. The profile and exercises spring from the notions that everyone has Appreciative Intelligence to a greater or lesser degree, that intelligence isn't static, and that because our brains are continually evolving, our intelligence and behaviors can change, too.For those of you curious about how Appreciative Intelligence came about or others who are looking for the technical background, Chapters 9 and 10 provide explanations and studies of intelligence, Positive Psychology, and the brains behind the mental processes we call Appreciative Intelligence. They discuss others' studies from the field of social cognitive neuroscience, as well as some of our analysis and insight from reading about and interviewing successful leaders and innovators.Finally, Chapter 11 concludes with a deeper look at possibilities and implications for the future and an invitation to develop further practices and approaches to evaluation, development, and predictions of the construct. We invite others to plant their own acorns from the knowledge of this intelligence.List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Essential Elements of Appreciative InquiryChapter 1: The Theoretical Basis of Appreciative InquiryChapter 2: Appreciative Inquiry Process: How it WorksChapter 3: Introducing, Defining and Planning an Appreciative Inquiry InitiativeApplication of the 4-D Cycle of Appreciative InquiryChapter 4: Discovery: What Gives Life?Chapter 5: Dream: What Might Be? Chapter 6: Design: How Can It Be? Chapter 7: Destiny: What Will Be?Learning Applications and ResourcesChapter 8: Sample Interview Guides and Summary ReportChapter 9: AI Case Applications Chapter 10: AI Worksheets Chapter 11: The AI Classics: Selected Articles Appreciative Inquiry Bibliography Glossary of Terms Index Statement of Taos Institute Taos Institute Publications Statement of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting Positive Organizational Scholarship About the Authors
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Affiche du document Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition

John Perkins

3h18min45

  • Economie
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265 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 3h19min.
Los Angeles Times Bestseller How do we stop the unrelenting evolution of the economic hit man strategy and China's takeover?The riveting third edition of this New York Times bestseller blows the whistle on China's economic hit man (EHM) strategy, exposes corruption on an international scale, and offers much-needed solutions for curing the degenerative Death Economy. In this shocking expos, former EHM John Perkins gives an insider view into the corrupt system that cheats and strong-arms countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars and ultimately causes staggering income inequality and ecological devastation. EHMs are highly paid professionals who use development loans to saddle countries with huge debts and force them to serve US interests. Now, a new EHM wave is infecting the world, and at the peak of the devastation sits China, a newly dominant economic power, with its own insidious version of the US EHM blueprint. Twelve explosive new chapters detail the allure, exploitation, and wreckage of China's EHM strategy in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.If allowed to continue its rampage, the EHM strategy-whether executed by the United States or China-will destroy life as we know it. However, all is not lost. Perkins offers a plan for transforming this system that places profits above all into a Life Economy that restores the earth. He inspires readers to take actions toward a new era of global cooperation that will end the United States's and China's EHM strategies for good.
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