Books – Page 20 – Practical Inspiration Publishing

Hope is a Strategy

Business Book Awards 2026 Shortlisted in Leadership category

There’s a global hope crisis. Here’s how to fix it.

Some people say that hope isn’t a strategy: Ian Pettigrew strongly believes that it is.

Hopelessness keeps people stuck where they are. Hope is a powerful motivator that helps you focus on what you want and do everything in your power to achieve it. It also helps you navigate the inevitable bumps in the road on the journey. Hope is active, and has nothing to do with naive optimism, wishful thinking or toxic positivity.

This book is for leaders who want to build hope in themselves, their teams, and their organizations, so that they can succeed whilst being happy, engaged, and resilient. Full of evidence-based approaches, interwoven with both extraordinary and everyday stories of hope, it explores what hope really is, and the damage caused by getting it wrong.

Hope changes lives: in this book Ian Pettigrew, strengths coach and one of HR’s most influential thinkers, provides a blueprint for leaders to discover it for themselves and to help others find it too.

The Guts to Grow

Turning your potential into meaningful progress in a world that wants everything: it takes guts.

The working world is changing every day and the demands on leaders, experienced and aspiring, can be confusing and sometimes extreme. You know you’re capable of more, but you also know there must be a better way than constantly teetering on the edge of burnout, or pretending to be something you’re not.

The Guts to Grow will help you discover more about yourself, what might be holding you back and what you’re uniquely capable of.

You’ll need to do some deep self-search, explore vulnerabilities and take risks. This book supports you to find that edge in a sustainable way, with practical advice backed up by real-life stories from inspirational leaders in business and professional sport and practical reflection tools in every chapter.

You’ll emerge eyes open and empowered, with a way of leading yourself and others that adapts but doesn’t compromise who you are, and which has the potential to renew your purpose and transform your performance.

The HERO Transformation Playbook

Most transformations and large-scale change programs fail, but in a rapidly changing world change is becoming more and more critical for survival.

The HERO Transformation Playbook is your step-by-step playbook of EXACTLY how to deliver successful transformations and large-scale change programs with the best chance of success using the HERO Transformation Framework: a clear method to help you design transformation for maximum enterprise value creation and then deliver the outcome in a repeatable fashion.

We built our framework through trial and error, learning from our mistakes and successes and solving common issues we came across and pitfalls that we have seen time and again. We then spent many years honing the framework, removing the fluff, distilling the concepts until it contained everything you need to succeed in the challenging world of change.

In this book we teach you everything we’ve learned – including all of the roles, processes, meetings, governance, and templates for you to follow and apply to your transformation today – so that you can crack the code of change and lead successful transformations on your own. The more successful transformations that are delivered, the better the world will be for everyone!

***BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2021 SHORTLISTED TITLE***
Most transformations fail. Don’t let yours be one of them.
“…a compelling methodology to transform for the digital age, and not to succumb to it.” – Gianvito Lanzolla, Professor of Strategy at Cass Business School

“… the book on transformation we’ve been waiting for…” – Kevin Cunnington, Digital Envoy and Transformation Lead for UK Government

Most transformations and large-scale change programs fail, but in a rapidly changing world change is becoming more and more critical for survival.

The Transformation Playbook is your step-by-step playbook of EXACTLY how to deliver successful transformations and large-scale change programs with the best chance of success.

Based on 20 years of work with clients on large scale transformation efforts, the HERO™ Transformation Framework was developed based on enterprise transformations that really work.

Learn the code to transformation successThe book details the HERO™ Transformation Framework: a clear and structured method to help you design and deliver transformations for maximum value.

It includes all of the roles, processes, meetings, governance, and templates for you to follow and apply to your transformation today.

It’s time to crack the code of change and take the lead toward predictable success!

Guardrails

Neither hope nor denial are strategies for managing AI risk.

AI adoption is accelerating faster than any previous technological shift. The opportunities for creating competitive advantage are huge – but so are the risks of new, faster routes to reputational damage.

GuardrAIls bridges the gap between innovation and reputation management by providing actionable, non-negotiable guardrails for ethical AI together with a framework for managing the Seven Pillars of AI Reputational Risk. With incisive case studies from companies such as Air Canada, Coca-Cola and Google Photos, together with concrete decision frameworks, crisis playbooks and a pragmatic 90-day action plan, it enables leaders to adopt AI aggressively but responsibly, and turn potential crises into competitive advantage.

Discover how to put in place effective AI governance, not as a technical or legal exercise but as a critical marketing and brand-protection discipline, so that you can actively maintain brand authenticity and stakeholder trust as you chart the path into the future.

The Great Leadership Disconnect

Ask a business leader about their HR partners and you’ll hear, “They don’t understand us.” Ask an HR leader about their business partners, and you’ll hear, “They don’t listen to us.”

This disconnect is not just a communication breakdown – it’s a systemic dysfunction that keeps the greatest engine of a company (its people) sputtering.

The Great Leadership Disconnect reveals that transforming HR from a perceived support act into an indispensable commercial force is the responsibility of both business and HR leaders. It diagnoses the dysfunctions that keep HR and business leadership disconnected and challenges conventional thinking with commercial, clear and grounded solutions drawn from behavioral science and real-life leadership dilemmas.

The old model of HR as a siloed support function is no longer relevant. HR can be – must be – a leadership amplifier and a business driver, focusing on commercial impact, employee value and the space where impact, performance and people meet.

Serkan Deveci is a senior leader at Google with a rare blend of leadership experience in global Sales and strategic HR. Having operated on both sides of the executive table, he offers a unique perspective on aligning talent with business outcomes. A recognized keynote speaker, his work is grounded in his PhD research.

Growing the Elephant

** Business Book Awards 2023 Finalist **

‘Amazing book: Clever, insightful, relevant, and actionable.’ Dave Ulrich

If you find discussions of inequality painful, aggravating, exhausting, or even scary, it’s time to explore the elephant.

Growing the Elephant is the story of Advantage – Earned and Unearned. Earned Advantage is the part of the Elephant we know. Work hard – get rewarded; form relationships – get opportunities. But while anyone can earn Advantage, some have more opportunity than others. That’s the story of Unearned Advantage.

Unearned Advantage is the part of the Elephant we avoid. It is so hard to talk or even think about that those with it ignore or deny it while those without it are exhausted or incensed by it.

Growing the Elephant is for anyone working to increase innovation, performance, and inclusion by building practices and mindset to meet and stay with what’s difficult. It is for leaders and contributors at any level and those who help them build and sustain diversity, equity and inclusion.

A seasoned human resources executive, CHRIS ALTIZER, MBA, MA consults and coaches executives and lectures on business, management. and inclusive leadership. He has led teams and worked with senior leaders across industries around the globe. His research and work have been published in journals and covered by Forbes Magazine. Chris practices and teaches mindfulness, yoga, and martial arts.
GLORIA JOHNSON-CUSACK, MPA, is a servant leader and changemaker who consults to leadership teams and boards of public and private foundations committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in education, financial security, and health. She lectures at Columbia University and serves as Board Chair of the Firelight Foundation supporting communities in Africa. She holds degrees from American University and Columbia University.

Grow Your Product Business

There’s never been a better time to run a product business. With accessible selling technology and billions of people shopping online, reaching your ideal customer is easier than ever before. But making it work financially? That’s not so easy.

Making sales isn’t enough: you need to be making profits. Big retailers have spent decades developing ways to monitor profit margins, forecast and grow sales and manage stock to maximize their bottom line. And in this little book, small-business retail expert Catherine Erdly shows you how to apply those big business tools to YOUR business – in just 6 minutes!

A Groundhog Career

Business Book Awards 2026 Shortlisted in Work and Life category

We all play the professional game, but how far should we take it?

From our first job, we’re taught to compete for promotions, pay raises, and recognition. But in chasing success, many of us lose sight of something essential: meaning and fulfillment. A Groundhog Career: A Tale of Career Traps and How to Escape Them explores why so many professionals feel stuck, disillusioned, or trapped and how to break free.

Through the witty, relatable fable of Shey Sinope, and a deeply insightful analysis by Dr. Helmut Schuster and Dr. David Oxley, this book reveals how an individual’s shortcuts, hacks, and compromises can erode authenticity and purpose. The authors challenge you to redefine success, escape career burnout, and rediscover professional joy in a world dominated by organizational systems.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

● Escape career traps that lead to stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction

● Find purpose and fulfillment at work, not just advancement

● Reinvent your career with authenticity and courage

● Identify and overcome professional conditioning that keeps you stuck

● Transform your mindset from survival to significance

● Balance ambition with alignment, ensuring success doesn’t cost you your soul

Blending engaging storytelling with psychological insight, A Groundhog Career is a guide for anyone who wants to futureproof their career, rediscover motivation, and thrive both professionally and personally.

If you’re ready to escape the endless loop of job dissatisfaction and live your career on your own terms, start your reinvention journey today.

Finalist in the International Book Awards for Careers and Best Cover Design

Endorsed by Sir Ian Davis (former Managing Director of McKinsey & Co.) and Trisha Conley (Global HR Executive)

The Great Revitalization

Life and work continue to evolve, and so must your leadership. Thriving in today’s business environment requires conscious, inspirational leadership, a fresh understanding of the world we find ourselves in, and a whole new playbook anchored in meaning and purpose. You need a set of strategies and applications that enable you to create an experience in your organization where your people give their best, feel fulfilled in their work and relationships, can work toward realizing their potential, and will persevere alongside you in service of the company’s mission.

Not only will you and your team be completely rejuvenated and elevated by exercising this kind of agency, but your business will be transformed to perform at much higher levels of productivity, creativity, and results. Meaning and purpose are essential ingredients to unleash the potential of everyone in your stakeholder community, powerfully uniting them, to increase your organizational impact and relevance. Here is your opportunity to transform the Great Resignation into your Great Revitalization.

DR ALISE CORTEZ is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an organizational logotherapist, the host of Working on Purpose radio and Chief Purpose Officer at Dr Alise Cortez and Associates. She works with forward-reaching organizations to develop conscious, inspirational leaders and enable them to transform their organizations into high functioning, profitable enterprises by activating meaning and purpose.