"The popular business press is replete with feature stories describing ethical meltdowns and how those corporate misdeeds have eroded the public trust of business leaders and their organizations. As most of us learned at our parents' knees, trust and reputation are built over many years and take but an instant to be destroyed. So here we stand at a crossroads. Is it going to be business as usual for business? Or are businesspeople going to commit to regaining the trust of our peers, our families, and our fellow citizens? In response to this crisis of trust, universities across the country have designed new courses that incorporate leadership, communication skills, the basics of human resources management, and ethics. That's why we wrote this book; we want to make the study of ethics relevant to real-life work situations. We want to help businesspeople regain the trust that's been squandered in the last few years. This book is different from other business ethics texts in several key ways. First, it was written by an unusual team. Linda Treviäno is Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior and Ethics in the Management and Organization Department of the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University. Her prolific research on the management of ethical conduct in organizations is published in the field's best journals and is internationally known and referenced. She has more than 30 years of experience in teaching students and executives in university and nonuniversity settings, and she also has experience as a corporate consultant and speaker on ethics and management issues. Kate Nelson is a full-time faculty member at the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she teaches management, business ethics, and human resources to undergraduates. Before joining Temple's faculty, Kate worked for more than 30 years in strategic organizational communication and human resources at a variety of companies including Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, and Mercer HR Consulting. She also has worked as a consultant specializing in ethics and strategic employee communications and has designed ethics programs for numerous organizations. We think that bringing together this diverse mix of theory and practice makes the book unique."--
Another extraordinary business fable from the New York Times bestselling author Patrick Lencioni Written in the same dynamic style as his previous bestsellers including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni illustrates the principles of inspiring client loyalty through a fascinating business fable. He explains the theory of vulnerability in depth and presents concrete steps for putting it to work in any organization. The story follows a small consulting firm, Lighthouse Partners, which often beats out big-name competitors for top clients. One such competitor buys out Lighthouse and learns important lessons about what it means to provide value to its clients. * Offers a key resource for gaining competitive advantage in tough times * Shows why the quality of vulnerability is so important in business * Includes ideas for inspiring customer and client loyalty * Written by the highly successful consultant and business writer Patrick Lencioni This new book in the popular Lencioni series shows what it takes to gain a real and lasting competitive edge.