Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Creating personal presence; look, talk, think, and act like a leader.

Booher, a speaker, author, and consultant, explains how to create strong personal presence and exhibit leadership qualities in business and other areas of life through specific skills, habits, and traits. She addresses physical aspects like appearance, body language, dress, walk, and surroundings; voice quality, communication, and word choices; thinking, reacting, and expressing emotions; and attitudes, habits, and behaviors that support or diminish presence and credibility. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The end of diversity as we know it; why diversity efforts fail and how leveraging difference can succeed.

If corporate diversity efforts limit their assessments merely to the question of how many people from one group have been hired or fired or how much product is sold to this or that other group of people, they are often missing out on the positive effects of skillfully capitalizing on cultural differences within an organization, argues Davidson (leadership and organizational behavior, Darden School of Business, U. of Virginia) who presents an approach for fully "leveraging difference" in order to foster superior firm performance that draws on examples from the United States and around the world. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Full voice; the art and practice of vocal presence.

McAfee, a singer/songwriter and vocal coach, explains how to use one's voice to become a more effective communicator in all areas of life. She describes the voice's history, function, connection to identity, and possible pitfalls; the basics of vocal production; and how to cultivate a vocal presence using the five elements — earth, fire, water, metal, and air — and their connection to qualities like authority, passion, caring, clarity, and inspiration. For each, she provides examples of the sound, best uses, practices for accessing it, and celebrities with that type. She then details how to integrate new sounds into everyday life through song, poetry, and other practices, with tips on choosing a voice coach. Online practice videos are available. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Good company; business success in the worthiness era.

Good guys don't have to finish last and businesses that consistently prove themselves trustworthy are finding their way to the top. This book shows what the standards are for a company to be considered "good." A company must be good employers, sellers and stewards, going beyond corporate social responsibility and conveying a sense of doing the right thing without being asked. The authors have created a Good Company Index by consolidating ratings of these areas and converting the numbers to grades. It serves as a guide for consumers to determine which companies are worthy of their time, trust and money. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Prosper; create the life you really want; six practices to find lasting money and happiness.

This book identifies six practices individuals interested in personal and career development, entrepreneurship, and personal finance and investing can use to balance financial prosperity with happiness. The authors emphasize transforming habits, attitudes, and responses to change ideas about prosperity and ways to achieve and sustain it, and draw from their coaching and the experiences of students to describe how to locate a point of aspiration or achievement, live at a place where earnings are aligned with it, earn from talents and abilities, find and use hidden assets, commit to a path to prosperity, and take action. Willis, an entrepreneur, and Garn, a networker and entrepreneur, are associated with a company specializing in education and mentoring for entrepreneurship, career development, investing, personal development and finance, and e-commerce. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The secret of teams; what great teams know and do.

The vice-president of training and development at Chick-fil-A tells the story of a fictional team leader who has been tasked with discovering the traits of successful business teams. Visits to other fictional companies demonstrate the importance of finding the right talent, developing team skills, and creating a strong sense of community. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Thom Hartmann reader.

This collection of essays, articles and other writings by progressive media personality and author Thom Hartmann showcases his thoughts on wide variety of topics and problems facing an America in crisis. The texts are organized thematically and cover subjects such as representative democracy, science, progressive leaders, environmentalism, international perspective and corporate influence on politics and society. Each section includes a contextual introduction by Moses, the former editor of AlterNet.org. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Walk out walk on; a learning journey into communities daring to live the future now.

This small volume by former leaders of the Berkana Institute, a non-profit international leadership organization, showcases the stories of communities that have looked outside the traditional answers to complex problems and found innovative ways to address their issues through community development and participation. The volume details projects in Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Greece and the US and provides an immersive narrative for exploring these success stories. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Wired and dangerous; how your customers have changed and what to do about it.

Bell and Paterson, consultants who are experts in customer loyalty, explain that the Internet has changed the balance of power between consumers and companies, making it necessary to adopt new strategies of customer interaction. They suggest ways to form partnerships with customers in order to prevent or mitigate damage inflicted when disgruntled customers harness the power of the Internet. Using recent examples, including United Airlines' 2009 public relations fiasco wherein damage to a musician's guitar and subsequent poor customer service resulted in the singer creating a YouTube video about the incident, the authors discuss how to turn angry customers into allies and keep the customer relationship in balance. A select bibliography is provided. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)