We at Nash Consulting are committed to applying research and the brilliance of great thinkers to our work as much as possible – it’s a tall order. Below is a bibliography of many of the sources from where we’ve gleaned concepts, research and skills that are the foundation of much of our work with organizations and leaders.

General Organizational Theory

Thin Book Publishing Thin Book Publishing Co. was founded in 1997 to create "just in time" cutting-edge knowledge for organizational clients. Useful information on how to do things differently and for the better.

Rotman Magazine A fount of information on organizational development, business acumen, and the latest research in applied behavioral sciences.

Harvard Business Review A subscription-based online magazine for businesses, leaders, and enquiring minds.

The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. From the founder and director of the Society for Organizational Learning, learn to master disciplines that will help reignite the spark of learning, bridge teamwork into macro-creativity, free you from confining assumptions and mindsets, learn to see the forest and the trees, end the struggle between work and family time, and much more.

Leadership, Culture, & Group Development

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink. A New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation. Hint: it’s not what you think.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, renowned leadership authority, organizational consultant, and author of several international bestsellers. For nearly three decades, this book has transformed the lives of millions of people of all ages and occupations. It just might transform yours as well.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team: a Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. Lencioni uses storytelling to go to the heart of why teams often struggle and includes actionable steps to overcome hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently from Gallup. This revolutionary and insightful book details the findings of its massive in-depth study of more than 80,000 managers of all levels and industries.

Managing at the Speed of Change by Daryl R. Conner. From a leading expert on change management, this once groundbreaking, now time-honored, book explores not what to change, but how, and has helped countless leaders orchestrate transitions vital to their organization’s success.

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni. A cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides, what organizational health looks like, and an approachable model for achieving it.

Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock. Want to build a better company from within rather than from above? Here’s your go-to reference book.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. 28 million folks can’t be wrong. Simon’s TED Talk, based on this book, is the third most popular TED video of all time. Watch the video. Read the book.

Legacy, What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life by James Kerr. A global bestseller, Legacy delves into the heart of the New Zealand All Blacks team to discover what it takes to bounce back from adversity. A life-defining read, Kerr addresses the big questions that help to build the foundation for resilience, excellence, and sustained success.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle. Named one of the best books of the year by Bloomberg and Library Journal, The Culture Code goes inside some of the world’s most successful organizations and reveals what makes them tick, identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation.

The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations by Ronald E. Riggio, et al. Drawing from various disciplines and with contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, this book explores the contributions followers make to groups, organizations, societies, and leaders, including insights and perspectives on the future of leader-follower relationships.

The Thin Book of Smart People Skills: 8 Tools for the Savvy Leader by Katina Cremona. A coach with over 23 years of experience, Katina Cremona reveals eight tools that address the most common areas in which savvy leaders excel.

Managing Transitions, Making the Most of Change by William Bridges. Organizational transitions affect people. This bestseller is directed at managers on all rungs of the corporate ladder providing practical, step-by-step strategies for minimizing disruptions and navigating uncertainty.

A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman. Friedman was the first to tell us that all organizations have personalities, like families, and to apply the insights of family therapy to religious, business, and political institutions alike.

Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald Heifetz. For leaders in every arena, with and without authority, and for those who look to them for answers, this book boasts concrete help for almost any situation, offering a practical approach to leadership.

An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskowlahey. Deliberately Developmental Organizations, DDOs, are organized around the simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive: personal growth. Dive deep into how companies create culture that supports employee development and personal growth on every level, every day.

The Thin Book of Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success by Andrea Mayfield & Sue Annnis Hammond. Want to know how great companies encourage and listen to input from all levels of the organization? Read this book.

Managing the Non-profit Organization: Principles and Practices by Peter F. Drucker. Management legend Drucker provides excellent examples and explanations of mission, leadership, resources, marketing, goals, and much more.

The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block. A new approach to management, empowering all employees at all levels, culminating in better business outcomes for the whole organization.

Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner. This third edition fully updates a volume already embraced by business and community leaders and consulting professionals around the world, adding insights, skills, and tools for well-facilitated meetings that can stretch and develop individual perspectives and build the strength and capacity of the group as a whole.

Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick Lencioni. Acclaimed management expert, Lencioni, addresses the costly and maddening issue of silos, the barriers that create organizational politics, devastate organizations, kill productivity, and push people out the door.

Emotional Intelligence & Social Neuroscience

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett. Entertaining insight in to the revolution of the science of emotion and its real-world consequences and implications.

Leading Well From Within by Daniel Friedland, MD. Subtitled “A Neuroscience and Mindfulness-Based Framework for Conscious Leadership,” this book is a guide to increasing your awareness and inner resources to achieve the outcomes that matter most.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman. Self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy add up to a different way of being smart…and are more likely indicators of success. This tenth anniversary edition offers significant updating from the original groundbreaking release.

Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, et al. This is the book that established “emotional intelligence” in the business lexicon- and made it a necessary skill for leaders.

The Neuroscience Institute and David Rock (website) With books like Your Brain at Work and Quiet Leadership, founder of the SCARF acronym, David Rock, offers engaging and understandable insight into brain science and so much more.

Everything Disc (website) A personal development learning experience and contributor to the backbone of our popular Behavior Styles workshop.

Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life) by Thomas Erikson. Also foundational to our popular Behavior Styles workshop, Surrounded by Idiots is full of practical information for interacting with people based on their “color” or behavior style.

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis. Three psychiatrists delve into the latest scientific research to discover how relationships function, how parents shape their child’s development, and much more.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina. Molecular biologist John Medina reveals brain rules- what scientists know for sure about how our brains work- and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. Medina utilizes fascinating stories and an engaging sense of humor to keep brain science understandable and even fun.

Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything by Daneen Skube. Syndicated columnist, sought-after executive coach, and innovative therapist, Skube gives us a practical and humorous handbook that provides simple tools for gaining respect, obtaining immediate results and turning the “lemons” of life into opportunities.

In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, & Entrepreneurs by Pat Heim & Susan Murphy. Inspiring, surprising, real, and illuminating collection of life-earned wisdom and practical advice.

Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte. For anyone who wants to deepen their connection to their life’s work or find out what their life’s work is.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Another New York Times bestseller, Oluo offers an honest, in-depth, hard-hitting and user-friendly look at race in America.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time) by Claude M. Steele. An engaging look into the research of acclaimed social psychologist Claude M. Steele, shedding new light on racial and gender stereotypes and how they shape identity.

Supporting women in Business (website) This resource page from Teach.com offers stats, current events, and a multitude of articles and other resources designed to empower and support women in a variety of occupations.

Conflict Resolution & Coaching

Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust by Adam Kahane. A man with experience and expertise, Kahane offers a new approach to collaboration, one that embraces discord, experimentation, and genuine cocreation over harmony and happy faces.

The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work by Charles Feltman. A small book about a big topic- how trusting relationships lead to successful companies. Feltman discusses how to build and maintain strong trusting relationships and how to repair broken trust.

Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities by Mark Gerzon. A world-renowned mediation expert, Gerzon offers absorbing examples drawn from decades of work with organizational, political, and global conflicts of all kinds.

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott. A master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Scott gives us seven effective principles for getting the message across.

Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart by Mary Beth O’Neill. Here’s your chance to become a more effective leader and change agent.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman & Nan Silver. This may sound like a strange title to find here, but Gottman’s revolutionary work around trust, conflict, and mindfulness in relationships can be applied to any organization.

Mindfulness

10% Happier by Dan Harris. Subtitled “How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works- A True Story.” Who doesn’t want to be 10% happier?

Meditation For Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris. Science suggests that meditation can lower your blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain. What are you waiting for?

Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation by Sharon Salzberg. A complete guide to starting and maintaining a meditation practice from a world-renowned and down-to-earth teacher and pioneer in the field.

The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by Kristin Neff & Christopher Germer. This science-based workbook is a Nash team favorite and is based on the authors’ groundbreaking eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion program.