Holly hates being at home; mainly because of her older sister, who torments her on a daily basis. Holly's only source of peace is her reading spot under a great oak tree. What Holly doesn't realise is that it isn't just an ordinary tree; it's a Faery Tree. And it's listening to her every word.
India's emerging LGBTQ community depicted in a groundbreaking series of gorgeous, full-colour photographs, in affordable and stylish paperback. Delhi offers a stunning series of more than 150 full-color documentary photographs and companion first-person texts, which together offer an unprecedented portrait of LGBTQ people's lives in India today. Focusing on Delhi, noted photographers Sunil Gupta and Charan Singh chronicle the halting emergence of networks of men and women living under the shadow of stigma and criminalized behavior.
In the heart of the Texas Hill Country lies an astonishing place called the Westcave Outdoor Discovery Center, a 76-acre nature preserve and environmental education facility in western Travis County, near Austin, that provides a sanctuary for the fl ora and fauna of surprisingly diverse ecosystems.Westcave has been connecting children and families to nature since 1976, when the nonprofit Westcave Preserve Corporation was established to restore and protect a popular but rapidly deteriorating picnic spot that encompassed a fern-covered grotto, an ancient rock shelter, and a spectacular forty-foot waterfall.In Discovering Westcave, Chris Caran and Elaine Davenport take readers on a walk through the beautiful preserve, which includes a 3,000-square-foot learning center, unveiling the evolutionary past of its stunning natural features and acknowledging the many people who have been a part of Westcave’s long history. The aim of this guidebook is not only to share the natural and human history of this refuge, soon to be surrounded by one of the fastest growing urban areas in the country, but also to inspire through environmental learning a continued respect and appreciation for the natural world.
Learn why bad decisions happen to good managers—and how to make better ones. If you read nothing else on decision making, read these 10 articles. We’ve combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps. Leading experts such as Ram Charan, Michael Mankins, and Thomas Davenport provide the insights and advice you need to: Make bold decisions that challenge the status quoSupport your decisions with diverse dataEvaluate risks and benefits with equal rigorCheck for faulty cause-and-effect reasoningTest your decisions with experimentsFoster and address constructive criticismDefeat indecisiveness with clear accountability
Long-term value creation—the board's new agenda.A big shift in public ownership has created a new set of challenges for boards. Index funds managed by firms like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street represent an emerging class of permanent institutional investors who are focused on creating and preserving long-term corporate value. These investors are stating in no uncertain terms that simply managing for short-term shareholder profit is not acceptable.Bill McNabb, Ram Charan, and Dennis Carey have been on the front lines of these changes with the investment community, corporate boards, and top-level management teams. Since TSR (total shareholder return) cannot keep the short and long term in balance, the authors argue, boards should focus on a different kind of TSR—talent, strategy, and risk—because decisions and actions around these factors, more than any others, determine whether or not a company creates long-term value. This book redefines the board's agenda and explains how to:Build and incentivize the right leadership teamHelp leaders take a longer view and communicate it to investorsRefresh board composition and create diversity to meet the new challengesKeep major risks, such as cyberattacks and sexual harassment allegations, front and centerAnalyze the business through the eyes of a shareholder activistWith the new realities of corporate ownership, boards need to lead for the long term. This authoritative book shows them how.
Invest in your most valuable resource: your people.Top talent is hard to come by. And seeing your stars walk out the door is painful—and expensive. You need to take steps to ensure that you attract, develop, and retain your best people.If you read nothing else on managing talent in your organization, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you boost the engagement, skills, and commitment of your highest performers.This book will inspire you to:Build a winning talent strategyRecruit and hire the best candidatesIdentify and develop high-potential employeesFoster a just and inclusive workplaceOvercome the challenges of hybrid workPrepare your workforce for the futureThis collection of articles includes "Building a Game-Changing Talent Strategy," by Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill, and Robert J. Thomas; "Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong," by Peter Cappelli; "'A Players’ or 'A Positions'?: The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management,” by Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and Brian E. Becker; "Turning Potential into Success: The Missing Link in Leadership Development," by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, Andrew Roscoe, and Kentaro Aramaki; "Making Business Personal," by Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Andy Fleming, and Matthew Miller; "The Power of Hidden Teams," by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall; "The Performance Management Revolution," by Peter Cappelli and Anna Tavis; "People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO," by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey; "Toward a Racially Just Workplace," by Lauren Morgan Roberts and Anthony J. Mayo; "How to Do Hybrid Right," by Lynda Gratton; and "Your Workforce Is More Adaptable Than You Think," by Joseph Fuller, Judith K. Wallenstein, Manjari Raman, and Alice de Chalendar.HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.
The Parish as Oasis is a practical and accessible introduction to how local churches can contribute to the healing the environmental crisis. A notable feature of this book is that it does not engage with that crisis. “Climate change” can be a contentious cultural issue. And “climate despair” can be a pressing pastoral issue. By focusing on practical and accessible “experiments” that any parish can explore according to their own context and capacities, this book seeks to equip people with a hands-on understanding of the ideas unpacked in Laudato Si’. It is a book that aspires to inspire congregations to get their hands dirty, but it also plants those initiatives within a coherent eco-theology and re-locates how we think about faith and the role of church to the margins, serving as an oasis in those parts of our society that are parched and denuded. It consists of three parts: an introductory essay that situates the theological vision of the book, a practical array of experiments that congregations can undertake to care for our common home, and a conclusion pointing people to further resources. While being intellectually rigorous, it is written in an accessible, non-technical fashion. The practical experiments draw on real-world examples, including interviews, to give each of these sections an easy magazine-like feel.
The Talent Masters itself stems from a unique marriage of talents. Bill Conaty, in the course of a 40-year career at General Electric, worked closely with CEOs Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt to build the company's internationally renowned talent machine. Ram Charan is the legendary advisor to companies around the world. Here they combine their unparalleled experience and insight to create a blueprint for talent development, and to show how critical it is to the continuing and future success of every business. The essential skill that lasts. Why talent management guarantees future results in a way that short-term financial success and market share cannot.Secrets of the masters. How world-class companies achieve their stellar performance decade after decade by finding and nurturing leadership talent. The importance of knowledge. Why knowing and understanding your talent and reviewing it systematically is the foundation for creating a steady, self-renewing stream of leaders for all levels of your organization - from first-line supervisors to the CEO.The Talent Masters tool kit. Specific guidelines that will help you assess and improve your company's talent mastery capabilities.
FOREWORD BY DON TAPSCOTT CEO of the Tapscott Group, executive chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, and world-leading authority on the impact of technology on business and society. The Internet is now, but the future is the metaverse. The metaverse is a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and others. The prediction is that the next ten years will be the golden era of the metaverse, and everyone's life, entertainment, social interaction, and work will increasingly take place in the metaverse world. This book outlines six important trends in the era of the metaverse, that will see dramatic changes in technology and the bringing together of digital and physical worlds. People will experience a great migration of their social life and economic activities into the metaverse. Furthermore, the authors argue that, in the metaverse, we can get rid of many of the constraints of the physical world, achieve a better self in the new digital space, and truly maximize our own value as human beings. This book sets out how you can seize the opportunity of the metaverse era.
