Business & Economics

Who is your workforce? This was a simple question when most organizations focused on hiring full- and part-time employees, but now organizations engage with both internal and external collaborators including subcontractors, freelancers, app developers, marketplace sellers, and others. As technology enables new, more efficient forms of working, and roles become more project- and outcomes-based, workforces are evolving into workforce ecosystems requiring updated strategies, leadership, and management practices.

Workforce Ecosystems by Elizabeth J. Altman, David Kiron, Jeff Schwartz, and Robin Jones is an essential research-driven framework for leading these complex, interconnected workforces. Drawing on case studies, worldwide surveys, and extensive interviews with C-suite executives and senior leaders from Amazon, IBM, Mayo Clinic, NASA, Nike, Roche, Unilever, the US Army, Walmart, and others, the authors explore what workforce ecosystems are and how to navigate their unique challenges and opportunities.

Practical and field-tested, Workforce Ecosystems will prepare leaders to identify distinguishing characteristics of workforce ecosystems; take advantage of their increasing relevance as the world becomes more interconnected and technology-enabled; refine business strategies to incorporate them; focus leadership, management practices, and technologies to leverage them; and traverse the ethical, societal, and public policy considerations of workforce ecosystems.

The Song of Significance is a rousing contemplation on work: why it is the way it is, why it’s gotten so bad, what all of us–especially leaders–can do to make it better.

Economic instability and the rise of remote work have left us disconnected and disengaged. Alarmed managers are responding with harsh top-down edicts, layoffs, surveillance and mandatory meetings. Workers are responding by quiet quitting and working their wage. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Through 144 provocative stanzas, legendary business author Seth Godin gets to the heart of what ails us; he shows what’s really at the root of these trends, and challenges us to do better in ways that matter.

The choice is simple. We can endure the hangover of industrial capitalism, keep treating people as disposable, and join in the AI-fueled race to the bottom. Or we come together to build a significant organization that enrolls, empowers, and trusts everyone to deliver their best work, no matter where they are.

This is a book to share with bosses and co-workers, to discuss and put to action. No matter what our role, it’s within our power to change. Because, as Godin writes, “Humans aren’t a resource. They are the point.”

Seeing the How invites you to reimagine your brand, company, or idea through the lens of consumer experience. It gives today’s disruptors a path to offering consumers a new and better way to do what they do, clearly demonstrating how to see opportunities, and how to seize them to great advantage.

Two years ago, Zoom was unknown to most, six years ago, Netflix was a DVD delivery service. We ride in Ubers and stay with our families in Airbnb homes. We share Spotify playlists, refresh our closets with Bonobos, and pamper our pets with Chewy. We set up meetings with Calendly and pay bills with Venmo. The speed with which these disruptions to how we do things, and the enormous profits that come with changing daily routines, is breakneck and only point the way for other industries to carve out market dominance.

Seeing the How brings together data-driven research on consumer behavior, behavioral psychology, marketing analysis, and storytelling to provide a framework to help identify the methods by which business leaders can make these experience disruptions possible. Allen P. Adamson, an expert in branding, experience creation, and innovation strategy offers businesses a step-by-step guide to breaking into the market based on the tactics of the biggest experience disruptors out there, including Netflix, Apple, Warby Parker, and Stitch Fix.

These businesses speak to market segments and consumers that are diverse and far-flung. What they share is the extent to which they are experience disruptors. Their successes derive from their ability to make the stuff of daily life different, better, and easier.

Successful experience disruption is the de facto new competitive advantage across all categories. With Seeing the How you’ll have the strategy necessary to bring your disruption to life, command market segments, and cultivate consumer loyalty.