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Recommended Reading
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“How to Change the World”
Social
Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein
 Now published in more than twenty countries, David Bornstein's
How to Change the World has become the bible for social entrepreneurship-in which
men and women around the world are finding innovative solutions to a wide variety
of social and economic problems. Whether delivering solar energy to Brazilian villagers,
expanding work opportunities for disabled people across India, creating a network
of home-care agencies to serve poor people with AIDS in South Africa, or bridging
the college-access gap in the United States, social entrepreneurs are pioneering
problem-solving models that will reshape the 21st century.
How to Change the World provides vivid profiles of many such individuals and what
they have in common. The book is an “In Search of Excellence” for social
initiatives, intertwining personal stories, anecdotes, and analysis. Readers will
discover how one person can make an astonishing difference in the world.
The case studies in the book include Jody Williams, who won the
Nobel Peace Prize for the international campaign against landmines she ran by e-mail
from her Vermont home; Roberto Baggio, a 31-year old Brazilian who has established
eighty computer schools in the slums of Brazil; and Diana Propper, who has used
investment banking techniques to make American corporations responsive to environmental
dangers.
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“Heroic Leadership” Best Practices
from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World by Chris Lowney
 Author
Chris Lowney offers leadership lessons from a 450-year-old company that grappled
successfully with the same challenges that test great companies today: forging seamless
multinational teams, motivating inspired performance, remaining “change ready”
and strategically adaptable. That company? The Jesuits, the religious order founded
by Ignatius of Loyola.
“The very last thing the Jesuits would have considered themselves to be was
leadership pundits,” Lowney says. “Instead of talking about leadership,
they lived it.” Lowney, a former Jesuit seminarian who “morphed into
the corporate man” after leaving seminary for a job at J.P. Morgan, saw that
the Jesuit approach to molding innovative, risk-taking, ambitious, flexible global
thinkers worked—better than many modern corporate efforts do today.
The Jesuits eschewed a “flashy” leadership style in favor of a holistic
approach focusing on four unique values: self-awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism.
Lowney explores the four principles in detail, illustrating each with anecdotes
from Jesuit history. He examines the Jesuit success formula of attacking real-world
opportunities with real-world leadership strategies, showing how their formula can
be used today to practice effective, whole-person leadership.
The Jesuits were launched into a world that had telling analogies
to our own. New world markets were opening; media technology was evolving; and traditional
approaches and belief systems were being questioned. The Jesuit organizational architects
prized the same mindset and behaviors that modern companies value in today’s
complex and constantly changing world, Lowney shows.
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“The Power of Unreasonable People” How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the
World by John Elkington,
Pamela Hartigan
Renowned playwright George
Bernard Shaw once said "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world,
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." By this
definition, some of today's entrepreneurs are decidedly unreasonable--and have
even been dubbed crazy. Yet as John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan argue in The
Power of Unreasonable People, our very future may hinge on their work.
Through vivid stories, the authors identify the highly unconventional
entrepreneurs who are solving some of the world's most pressing economic,
social, and environmental problems. They also show how these pioneers are
disrupting existing industries, value chains, and business models--and in the
process creating fast-growing markets around the world.
By understanding these entrepreneurs' mindsets and strategies, you gain vital
insights into future market opportunities for your own organization. Providing
a first-hand, on-the-ground look at a new breed of entrepreneur, this book
reveals how apparently unreasonable innovators have built their enterprises,
how their work will shape risks and opportunities in the coming years, and what
tomorrow's leaders can learn from them.
Start investing in, partnering with, and learning from these world-shaping
change agents, and you position yourself to not only survive but also thrive in
the new business landscape they're helping to define.
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“Creating the Good Life” Applying Aristotle's Wisdom to Find Meaning and
Happiness by James O'Toole, Walter Isaacson
Professionals and business people in midlife are
increasingly asking themselves "what's next?" in their careers and
personal lives. This book draws on the wisdom of the ages to help contemporary
men and women plan for satisfying, useful, moral, and meaningful second halves
of their lives.
For centuries, the brightest people in Western societies have looked to
Aristotle for guidance on how to lead a good life and how to create a good
society. Now James O'Toole--the Mortimer J. Adler Senior Fellow of the Aspen
Institute--translates that classical philosophical framework into practical,
comprehensible terms to help professionals and business people apply it to
their own lives and work. His book helps thoughtful readers address some of the
profound questions they are currently struggling with in planning their
futures.
Bridging philosophy and self-help, O'Toole's book shows how happiness
ultimately is attainable no matter one's level of income, if one uses Aristotle's
practical exercises to ask the right questions and to discipline oneself to
pursue things that are "good for us." The book is the basis for
O'Toole's new "Good Life" seminar, where thoughtful men and women
gather to create robust and satisfying life plans.
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“Halftime” Moving from
Success to Significance by Bob Buford
 Halftime.
Time to pause, midway in the game of your life, and consider how to make the
transition from professional success to significance. Revised and expanded for
a new generation of leaders, Bob Buford’s bestseller shows how you can make the
second half of your life even more rewarding than the first.
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“Encore”
Finding Work that Matters in
the Second Half of Life by Marc Freedman
 Baby boomers are inventing a new phase of work. It’s one of the most
significant trends of the new century, and the biggest change in the American
workforce since the women’s movement.
In Encore: Work That Matters in the Second Half of
Life, Marc Freedman tells the stories of these encore career pioneers, who are
working not only for continued income, but for the promise of more meaning and
the chance to do work that matters. As their numbers begin to swell, these
individuals hold the potential to transform work in America—and create a
society that works better for everyone.
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“Philanthrocapitalism”
How Giving Can Save the World by Matthew Bishop
From Buffett to Bono, how today’s leading philanthropists
are revolutionizing the field, using new methods to have a vastly greater
impact on the world.
For philanthropists of the past, charity was often a
matter of simply giving money away. For the philanthrocapitalists—the new
generation of billionaires who are reshaping the way they give—it’s like
business. Largely trained in the corporate world, these “social investors” are
using big-business-style strategies and expecting results and accountability to
match. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, is leading the way: he has promised
his entire fortune to finding a cure for the diseases that kill millions of
children in the poorest countries in the world.
In Philanthrocapitalism, Matthew Bishop and
Michael Green examine this new movement and its implications. Proceeding from
interviews with some of the most powerful people on the planet—including Gates,
Bill Clinton, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, and Bono, among others—they show
how a web of wealthy, motivated donors has set out to change the world.
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