A deeply human exploration of how our relationship with work has evolved--and a guide for leaders who aim to make things right--from the author of The Burnout Epidemic.

Work has recently undergone profound changes, not all for the better.

AI's acceleration has led to worker fears and uncertainties around job security. DEI initiatives are underfunded or canceled. The debate over remote, hybrid, and in-person work is growing more heated. And study after study confirms a widespread sense of employee unhappiness in the workplace.

Workers are left to reexamine their relationship with work, asking themselves, Why are we here?

Workplace expert Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic, takes readers to the front lines of this historic shift. Through extensive interviews, she uncovers why work has changed and highlights the leaders and organizations who have managed to build cultures that everyone really wants.

Packed with fresh insights, new research, and compelling stories, Why Are We Here? illuminates this turbulent time and offers inspiration and practical guidance for leaders navigating our complex, ever-changing world.

A revelatory, paradigm-shifting work from a renowned Columbia professor and one of the great social and cultural psychologists (Amy Cuddy) that demystifies our tribal instincts and shows us how to use them to create positive change.

Tribalism is our most misunderstood buzzword. We've all heard pundits bemoan its rise, and it's been blamed for everything from political polarization to workplace discrimination. But as acclaimed cultural psychologist and Columbia professor Michael Morris argues, our tribal instincts are humanity's secret weapon.

Ours is the only species that lives in tribes: groups glued together by their distinctive cultures that can grow to a scale far beyond clans and bands. Morris argues that our psychology is wired by evolution in three distinctive ways. First, the peer instinct to conform to what most people do. Second, the hero instinct to give to the group and emulate the most respected. And third, the ancestor instinct to follow the ways of prior generations. These tribal instincts enable us to share knowledge and goals and work as a team to transmit the accumulated pool of cultural knowledge onward to the next generation.

Countries, churches, political parties, and companies are tribes, and tribal instincts explain our loyalties to them and the hidden ways that they affect our thoughts, actions, and identities. Rather than deriding tribal impulses for their irrationality, we can recognize them as powerful levers that elevate performance, heal rifts, and set off shockwaves of cultural change.

Weaving together deep research, current and historical events, and stories from business and politics, Morris cuts across conventional wisdom to completely reframe how we think about our tribes. Bracing and hopeful, Tribal unlocks the deepest secrets of our psychology and gives us the tools to manage our misunderstood superpower.

Brigid Schulte is a vital voice on the future of work, and her carefully researched book lights the way to fewer hours, less stress, and more meaning.
―Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the podcast WorkLife

From the New York Times bestselling author of Overwhelmed, a deeply reported exploration of why American work isn't working and how our lives can be made more meaningful

Following Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte's groundbreaking examination of time management and stress, the prizewinning journalist now turns her attention to the greatest culprit in America's quality-of-life crisis: the way our economy and culture conceive of work. Americans across all demographics, industries, and socioeconomic levels report exhaustion, burnout, and the wish for more meaningful lives. This full-system failure in our structure of work affects everything from gender inequality to domestic stability, and it even shortens our lifespans.

Drawing on years of research, Schulte traces the arc of our discontent from a time before the 1980s, when work was compatible with well-being and allowed a single earner to support a family, until today, with millions of people working multiple hourly jobs or in white-collar positions where no hours are ever off duty.

She casts a wide net in search of solutions, exploring the movement to institute a four-day workweek, introducing Japan's Housewives Brigade--which demands legal protection for family time--and embedding with CEOs who are making the business case for humane conditions. And she demonstrates the power of a collective and creative demand for change, showing that work can be organized in an infinite number of ways that are good for humans and for business.

Fiercely argued and vividly told, rich with stories and informed by deep investigation, Over Work lays out a clear vision for ending our punishing grind and reclaiming leisure, joy, and meaning.

A timely and urgent argument for preserving the work that connects us in the age of automation

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and labor-saving technologies like self-checkouts and automated factories, the future of work has never been more uncertain, and even jobs requiring high levels of human interaction are no longer safe. The Last Human Job explores the human connections that underlie our work, arguing that what people do for each other in these settings is valuable and worth preserving.

Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations with people in a broad range of professions--from physicians, teachers, and coaches to chaplains, therapists, caregivers, and hairdressers--Allison Pugh develops the concept of connective labor, a kind of work that relies on empathy, the spontaneity of human contact, and a mutual recognition of each other's humanity. The threats to connective labor are not only those posed by advances in AI or apps; Pugh demonstrates how profit-driven campaigns imposing industrial logic shrink the time for workers to connect, enforce new priorities of data and metrics, and introduce standardized practices that hinder our ability to truly see each other. She concludes with profiles of organizations where connective labor thrives, offering practical steps for building a social architecture that works.

Vividly illustrating how connective labor enriches the lives of individuals and binds our communities together, The Last Human Job is a compelling argument for us to recognize, value, and protect humane work in an increasingly automated and disconnected world.

The always-on, hustle culture creates an unhealthy, counterproductive relationship with work.

Many workers believe that to compete with other top talent, they must embrace a culture that rewards long hours and a constant connection to work. Businesses and society endorse busyness, overwork, and extreme commitment as the most valued traits in workers. Sometimes that endorsement is explicit, as when Elon Musk told X/Twitter employees to work long hours at high intensity or get fired. More often it's an implicit contract, a buildup of organizational and cultural norms and the adoption of new technologies that make it easy to tether people to work.

Either way, this workaholic behavior is unhealthy and counterproductive for workers and for organizations. It's time to fight back. Malissa Clark--a preeminent researcher on the culture of overwork--shows you how in Never Not Working. Clark examines overwork and burnout, not just from the individual's perspective but from an organizational perspective too. She delivers a comprehensive, nuanced definition of workaholism, busting myths along the way--working long hours, it turns out, doesn't automatically make you a workaholic. She also helps you assess whether you're falling prey to the phenomenon and whether you're creating workaholics in your organization.

Clark shows you how to escape the trap of putting work at the center of everything and thus losing your well-being--or your company's performance--in the process. Deeply researched and written for everyone from leaders to individual contributors, Never Not Working is the essential guide to identifying workaholism in yourself and others and starting on the road to recovery.

Americans enjoy the finest healthcare delivery system in the world, but most people will tell you that we still have a long way to go. Far too frequently, patients leave the doctor's office or hospital feeling confused, angry, or neglected. Healthcare leaders recognize this problem, but in their focus on patients (and sometimes financials), they often overlook the true key to lasting patient loyalty and satisfaction: their employees.

Patients Come Second shakes up the traditional healthcare model, arguing that in order to care for and retain patients, leaders must first create exceptional teams and find ways to engage nurses, administrative staff, physicians, supervisors, and even housekeeping staff and switchboard operators. By connecting employees' work with a higher purpose and equipping them with the tools to become leaders themselves, patient care can be dramatically transformed. And with continuing healthcare changes on the horizon and ever-rising pressure to acquire and keep patients, doing so now is more important than ever.

Britt Berrett, president of an 898-bed hospital, and Paul Spiegelman, founder and CEO of a successful patient-experience company, are the perfect guides to the changes needed in healthcare leadership. With a rich combined experience in their field, they have filled each chapter with an abundance of engaging, insightful stories and write with a humor and friendliness that balances and enhances the urgency of their message.

Thinkers50 Top 10 Best New Management Books for 2022

Why do some people break through and make an impact while others get stuck going through the motions?

In every organization there are Impact Players--those indispensable colleagues who can be counted on in critical situations and who consistently receive high-profile assignments and new opportunities. Whether they are on center stage or behind the scenes, managers know who these top players are, understand their worth, and want more of them on their team. While their impact is obvious, it's not always clear what actually makes these professionals different from their peers.

In Impact Players, New York Times bestselling author and researcher Liz Wiseman reveals the secrets of these stellar professionals who play the game at a higher level. Drawing on insights from leaders at top companies, Wiseman explains what the most influential players are doing differently, how small and seemingly insignificant differences in how we think and act can make an enormous impact, and why--with a little coaching--this mindset is available to everyone who wants to contribute at their highest level.

Based on a study of 170 top contributors, Wiseman identifies the mindsets that prevent otherwise smart, capable people from contributing to their full potential and the five practices that differentiate Impact Players:

While others do their job, Impact Players figure out the real job to be done. While others wait for direction, Impact Players step up and lead.While others escalate problems, Impact Players move things across the finish line.While others attempt to minimize change, Impact Players are learning and adapting to change. While others add to the load, the Impact Players make heavy demands feel lighter.

Wiseman makes clear that these practices--and the right mindset--can help any employee contribute at their fullest and shows leaders how they can raise the level of play for everyone on the team. Impact Players is your playbook for the new workplace.

The highly-acclaimed, practical guide for how to be an ally in the workplace, now in its 2nd edition.

Do you want to build a workplace culture that has a certain buzz? Where employees thrive and engagement survey scores soar? Where people from different backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations/identities, ages, and abilities are hired and set up for success?

To create this kind of vibrant and supportive workplace, learn to practice active allyship. With the Better Allies(R) approach, it's something anyone can do.

Since originally publishing Better Allies in 2019, Karen Catlin has amassed dozens of new scenarios and insights through her talks, workshops, and community interactions. In this fully revised second edition, you'll learn to spot situations where you can create a more inclusive culture, along with straightforward steps to take and changes to make. Catlin, a highly-sought after expert on allyship, will show you how to:

- Attract and hire a diverse workforce

- Amplify and advocate for others

- Give effective and equitable performance feedback

- Use more inclusive language

- Run inclusive conferences and events

Read this book to learn the Better Allies(R) approach, level-up your ally skills, and create a culture where everyone can do their best work and thrive.

From the former Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney comes a practical toolkit to help all of us Think Differently, come up with innovative ideas, and bring them to life.

This is not your typical business book!

We are all born creative and curious, but that sense of play and imagination gets squeezed out of us by the time most of us enter adulthood.

Think of The Imagination Emporium as a cherished recipe book, a well-worn companion that busy people like you can dip in and out of, filled with useful ingredients to empower you with innovative solutions for your business, be it big or small.

Why? Because Duncan Wardle, the former Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney, believes that the skills we're born with--Creativity, Empathy, Curiosity, and Imagination--will be some of the most sought-after skill sets of the next decade, as they will be the hardest to program into AI.

Duncan played a pivotal role in fostering innovation across Imagineering, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney Parks, crafting enchanting new storylines and experiences. He has worked with NASA to launch Buzz Lightyear into space and teamed up with brands like the Star Wars empire and Marvel superheroes. Now, in The Imagination Emporium, Duncan shares his extensive expertise to make innovation accessible to all, demystify creativity for those uncomfortable with ambiguity, and infuse the process with joy and excitement.

In a world where we learn a vast variety of subjects, one thing often goes untaught: HOW to actually Innovate.

This book is here to change that by showing you the way to innovate, generate creative ideas, and bring them to life.

Let the journey begin!

What if you held the power to transform your relationships and your life?

In Relationship Alchemy: A Practical Guide to Getting Along Well With Others, renowned personal transformation expert Joey Klein reveals how to create deeper, more meaningful connections across all the relationships in your life. Drawing on his own incredible journey from struggle and heartbreak to fulfillment and purpose, and the tens of thousands he has trained,

Joey offers a step-by-step guide to transforming your relationships from the inside out.

This book is your ultimate guide to:

✔️ Transforming strained relationships into thriving ones.

✔️ Cultivating relationships that align with your values, vision, and needs.

✔️ Mastering emotional and relationship intelligence to elevate every connection.

✔️ Building skills in expectation management, boundary-setting, and communication.

Whether you're seeking deeper intimacy with a partner, harmony with family, or stronger connections at work, Relationship Alchemy provides the proven framework and actionable strategies you need to evolve your relationships-and your life.

Your relationships shape your life. You have the power to claim the life and relationships you deserve.

Contemporary and compassionate teachings for building true workplace diversity

In order to create an inclusive working environment, it is important for companies to understand the experiences that diverse employees face in the workplace. Diversity in the Workplace is a guided tour of what it means to be a minority in today's labor force.

Containing 25 real-life interviews, including stories of trailblazers fighting inequality, you'll be exposed to a slice of life you may not have been privy to. This book explores real world issues in a modern workday dynamic for members of marginalized communities and managers looking to equalize an imbalance.

Diversity in the Workplace includes:

• Exploring intersectionality--Learn about the diversity identities shaping disparity at work: Race, Gender, LGBTQ+, Age & Ability, and Religion & Culture.
• Key takeaways--Each section is followed by summaries that encourage reflection and action.
• Deep dive--Learn tips on how to have progressive conversations with colleagues, and build awareness with key terms such as unconscious bias.

Move toward a more fair and bias-conscious future with Diversity in the Workplace.

In our modern business landscape, the war for talent is more complex than ever. You need to attract and retain the best talent for your organization to win, but without the right strategy or mindset, you won't be able to compete. If your revenue is declining, you're losing market share to your competition, or your organizational health is deteriorating, it's time to evolve how you approach this never-ending war. After all, your PEOPLE-not your product or service-are your strongest competitive advantage.

The Talent War explores how US Special Operations Forces (SOF) assess, select, and develop their world-class talent. You'll learn how to adopt a talent mindset, the single greatest weapon you can possess in the war for talent. When your organization reflects this mindset, you will hire, train, and develop the right people, and put them in the best positions to make decisions that allow you to retake the advantage and win the war.

Join retired Colonel Chris Richie as he entertains readers with stories and leadership lessons from the deserts of the Middle East, the rain forests of Nicaragua, the low country of South Carolina, and many more. Colonel Richie explores the leadership lessons and crucibles that guided his three decades as a United States Marine.

Be prepared to learn what it takes to be the leader you are called to be.

The Invisible Medal is the realization that the success we enable in others is greater than any personal accolade. Invisible medals will be earned if we focus on people and relationships, view life as a stewardship, and recognize that everyone has potential.

Becoming a servant leader is more than simply fulfilling the needs of others. Successful leaders look inward to identify their foundational purpose and values. They reflect on their life's crucibles and understand the leadership philosophy born from those challenges. When leadership dilemmas emerge, the best leaders can weather the storm because their principles have been built on solid ground.

Questions you will consider throughout The Invisible Medal include, What is your purpose? What is your story? What do you value most? What virtues guide your behavior and ethical decisions? How can you shape your unique story into leading others?

Focus on the individual; earn your invisible medal.

Foreword written by New York Times bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.

A must-read for any business leader looking to build elite teams and win on talent.

Talent is the foundation of every success story from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Main Street, and even on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's the hidden asset that never shows up on the balance sheet, despite being the driver for a company's true value. And now, in this hypercompetitive business environment, the war for talent has never been more important, or more complex. Of eight hundred CEOs and six hundred C-suite executives polled in 2019, the overwhelming majority cited the ability to attract and retain top talent as their number one concern.

For your organization to win, you need to attract and retain the best talent. But without the right strategy or mindset, you won't be able to do so--and you won't be able to compete. After all, your people, not your product or service, are your strongest competitive advantage.

When it comes to winning on talent, no one does it better or more consistently than the US Special Operations community. Their success comes down to their people and a widely held foundational belief: Talent + Leadership = Victory.

The Talent War explores how US Special Operations Forces assess, select, and develop their world-class talent. You'll learn how to adopt a talent mindset, the single greatest weapon you can possess in the war for talent. When your organization reflects this mindset, you will hire, train, and develop the right people, and put them in the best positions to make decisions that allow you to retake the advantage and win the war.

The definitive guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Find out why Adam Grant says If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place.

Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become friction fixers.

Sutton and Rao kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, from reframing friction troubles they can't fix right now, so they feel less threatening, to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.

Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).

In most organizations nearly everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for--namely, covering their weaknesses, trying to look their best, and managing other people's impressions of them. There may be no greater waste of a company's resources. The ultimate cost: neither the organization nor its people are able to realize their full potential.

What if a company did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone--not just select high potentials--could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth?

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (and their collaborators) have found and studied such companies--Deliberately Developmental Organizations. A DDO is organized around the simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people's strongest motive, which is to grow. This means going beyond consigning people development to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites. It means fashioning an organizational culture in which support of people's development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and the company's regular operations, daily routines, and conversations.

An Everyone Culture dives deep into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach. It reveals the design principles, concrete practices, and underlying science at the heart of DDOs--from their disciplined approach to giving feedback, to how they use meetings, to the distinctive way that managers and leaders define their roles. The authors then show readers how to build this developmental culture in their own organizations.

This book demonstrates a whole new way of being at work. It suggests that the culture you create is your strategy--and that the key to success is developing everyone.

We don't have to conform to traditional ways of working. Uncover how to build a successful career on your own terms and develop the skills you need for the future with Design Your Life.

Why settle with a conventional career path when you can build a future on your own terms? With innovations such as side gigs and personal branding, you can craft your own, authentic future. Design Your Life uncovers the key skills and strategies that will allow you to build a successful career as a young professional.

In this book, Gen Z business leader and expert Erifili Gounari draws upon original research and first-hand interviews to uncover how you can thrive and find success in this new world of work, creating a career with flexibility and ownership.

In the pursuit of performance and reputation, it's easy to overlook the actual health of your organizational culture. Before long, however, ominous symptoms often emerge--division, disengagement, silence, dysfunction, and destructive behavioral patterns--hindering you from delivering on your mission and strategy and eroding trust with your clients, team, and other crucial stakeholders.

To make things worse, many leaders are perplexed by culture, and typical change efforts are unsustainable and ineffective, with a staggering 85 percent failure rate. But there is a better way.

Having personally endured the devastating effects of growing up in a toxic cult, Tobias Sturesson committed his career to helping large purpose-driven organizations overcome their most daunting culture challenges. On his quest, he made a crucial discovery: that, just like our physical health, achieving a thriving culture requires a change of habits. A minor change to what you repeatedly do can have a significant impact on your team and organization.

Drawing from his extensive experience and in-depth interviews with many renowned experts, researchers, and executives from well-known organizations, Tobias has identified the four most crucial and timeless culture-building leadership habits.

You Can Culture is your meticulously researched guide to these habits, laid out in twelve actionable practices. Each practice is an invitation to growth and introspection, offering reflection questions, practical tools, and leadership actions. Suitable for managers and executives alike, You Can Culture empowers you to strengthen trust, transform your culture, be a values-based leader, and leave a lasting legacy of positive change.

Overt discrimination is relatively easy to spot. But the less obvious but more common actions that make people feel left out or stigmatized in our workplaces, commonly called microaggressions, can be hard to identify and even harder to deal with.

The author use a clearer, more accurate term: subtle acts of exclusion (SAE). After all, people generally aren't trying to be aggressive--usually they're trying to say something nice, learn more about a person, or be funny. Bring accused of aggression shuts the conversation down, when you want to open it up.

This book features examples, tools, sample scripts, and action plans to help readers prevent subtle acts of aggression from happening, or deal with them when they do. Updated throughout, this second edition features:

• A greatly expanded chapter on intentional acts of inclusion--actions for creating a sense of belonging.
• A discussion and activity guide ideal for book clubs and training sessions
• A new concluding chapter, Hope for Humanity

Reinvent your organization for the hybrid age.

Hybrid work is here to stay--but what will it look like at your company? If your organization is holding on to inflexible, pre-pandemic policies about where--and when--your people work, it may be risking a mass exodus of talent. Designing a hybrid workplace that furthers your business goals while staying true to your culture requires balancing experimentation with rigorous planning.

Hybrid Workplace: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you adopt the best technological, cultural, and new management practices to seize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of the hybrid age.

Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?

Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.

You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.