Adaptive Organization (AO / "Betty")

• Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro - Buy
• Wikinomics by Don Tapscott - Buy
• The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson - Buy
• The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton - Buy
• Somebodies and Nobodies by Rober Fuller - Buy
• Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure And Drive Organizational Success by Dean Spitzer - Buy
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell - Buy
• Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation by Frans Johansson - Buy
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki - Buy
• Webmetrics by Jim Sterne - Buy
• The only Sustainable Edge by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown - Buy
• The Future of Knowledge by Verna Allee - Buy
  Through extensive reserach and experience with knowledge management practices in major corporations Verna Allee has developed a rich insight to knowledge and how it works in organizations. Her conclusions align with the concepts and fundamentals of the Betty Model (aka the Adaptive Organization). Verna has developed a "value network" mapping methodology that helps bring reality to the concept of knowedge enabled networks, which we have talked about in the Betty team. An excellent book - highly recommended reading.
• The Support Economy: Why corporations are failing individuals and the next episode of capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff - Buy
  Shoshana is a Harvard Business School professor and she has done extensive research in the dysfunction of our current business model. She describes why we need a new approach and why that approach should be a network (aka Betty). Great research, great insight and great support for the Adaptive Organization model that we are working on.
• One More Time - How Do You Motivate Employees? by Frederick Herzberg - Buy
• Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute (Editor), The Arbinger Institute - Buy
• Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion by Marshall B. Rosenberg - Buy
• The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle - Buy
• The Balanced Scorecard by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton - Buy
• The Dance of Change by Peter M. Senge - Buy
• Loyalty Rules by Frederick F Reichheld - Buy
  We have commented in the Betty discussions that customer satisfaction surveys are of questionable value (if not totally useless) when it comes to assessing customer loyalty. Frederick Reichheld has researched this issue (it is his life's work) and pulled together some great evidence that loyalty is an important differentiator and that most companies don't understand it. He also supports a number of the Betty principles and practices in his description of loyalty and how to develop it and measure it as a business asset.
• Leading the Revolution by Gray Hamel - Buy
• The Divine Right of Capital by Marjorie Kelly - Buy
• The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters - Buy
• The Customer Revolution by Patricia Seybold, Ronni T. Marshak (contributor) and Jeffery M. Lewis (contributor)
• In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work by Don Cohen and Laurence Prusak
  
  Book Description
  Knowledge has always resided in organizations-but it wasn't until the Information Age put a premium on ideas that intellectual capital was recognized as a critical resource. Now, forces like technology, globalization, and the rise of free agency and virtual workplaces are bringing another form of "hidden" capital to the forefront.
  
  In Good Company is the first book to examine the role that social capital-a company's "stock" of human connections such as trust, personal networks, and a sense of community-plays in thriving organizations. Written by leading knowledge management experts Don Cohen and Laurence Prusak, this groundbreaking book argues that social capital is so integral to business life that without it, cooperative action-and consequently productive work-isn't possible. The authors help today's leaders understand the nature and value of social capital, suggest ways they can encourage and enhance it, and explore how they can protect this vital but increasingly vulnerable resource in a volatile, virtual world.
  
  Drawing on major social and economic theories, and the experiences of organizations including the World Bank, Aventis Pharma, Alcoa, Russell Reynolds, and UPS, In Good Company identifies the social elements that contribute to knowledge sharing, innovation, and high productivity. The authors convincingly show how almost every managerial decision-from hiring, firing, and promotion to implementing new technologies to designing office space-is an opportunity for social capital investment or loss. They also reveal the benefits that derive from investments in social capital, such as greater commitment and cooperation, increased talent retention, and more intelligent responses to customer needs.
  
  "Relationships between supervisor and worker are important, but so are the relationships between other kinds of colleagues. For example, UPS workers frequently get together on a lunch break, not simply to eat but to exchange information or to divide up the workload more fairly. Prusak (executive director of the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management) and Cohen (editor of Knowledge Directions) provide insight into the causality between a company's social atmosphere and its success."
  — Publishers Weekly
  
  "The book's novelty and appeal lie in the . . . attention to the power of commonplace conversations. . ."
  — New York Times, February 25, 2001
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam
• Value Based Management: The Corporate Response to the Shareholder Revolution by John D. Martin, J. William Petty, and William J. Petty