When the Canary Stops Singing: Women's Perspectives on Transforming Business [Unknown Binding]

Pat Barrentine (Editor), John Naisbitt (Foreword), Patricia Aburdene (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1994

Early in the century, miners would take canaries below ground with them. When the canary stopped singing, they knew the air was too toxic to breathe. Like the canaries, women who work in today's corporate marketplace are serving as an early warning system to alert us that the business environment is becoming unhealthy and we must make far-reaching changes. The authors of these essays go beyond sounding a warning to serve as harbingers of essential business transformation. They are entrepreneurs, consultants, corporate executives, and thinkers of all stripes. While big companies conduct "business as usual, " these women are pioneering innovation. In fifteen provocative, practical, and insightful essays, they share painful struggles, striking new metaphors, stories and legends, and fresh analogies - the corporate mythology of tomorrow, the raw, vital stuff of transformation. As varied as their backgrounds and perspectives may be, these women see a common need and share a common goal - to create more humane and nurturing workplaces. Truth and a willingness to risk are benchmarks of the essays, as is the search for personal and spiritual freedom. The authors speak of personal responsibility and a balance among all the areas of one's life. Work becomes an arena for self-discovery, explained through metaphors that are organic, contrasting with traditional male metaphors taken from sports and the military. The controlling "power over" becomes life-nurturing "power to, " and steps for creating a full and productive partnership between men and women are defined. In proposing new and more effective ways to succeed in business, When the Canary Stops Singing explodes the myth that feminine andmasculine perspectives can't interact in harmony. Its examples testify to the importance of moving beyond the masculine status quo to achieve a balance in the workplace that will ultimately benefit everyone.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

Be prepared to be shocked, excited, pleased, uplifted, and led to a realization about what needs to be done and how to do it.

From The New Yorker

It's a life-changer! ...the best business book to appear in the '90s.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 277 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1st edition (January 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881052419
• ISBN-13: 978-1881052418
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,453,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Riane Eisler is internationally known for her bestseller The Chalice and The Blade, now in 25 foreign editions, as well as Sacred Pleasure, The Power of Partnership, and Tomorrow's Children. Her newest book, The Real Wealth of Nations -- hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as "a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking" and by Gloria Steinem as "revolutionary" - proposes a new approach to economics that gives visibility and value to the most essential human work: the work of caring for people and for our natural environment.

She is president of the Center for Partnership Studies and keynotes conferences worldwide, with venues including invitations by Rita Suessmuth, President of the German Parliament, and by Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic.

Dr. Eisler is a leader for peace, environmental sustainability, economic equity, and human rights - pioneering the extension of human rights protection to "women's rights" and "children's rights." With Nobel Peace laureate Betty Williams, she co-founded the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV), www.saiv.net. She is president of the Center for Partnership Studies, www.partnershipway.org,, has received many honors, including honorary Ph.D. degrees, the Alice Paul ERA Education Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's 2009 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.

She can be contacted at [e-mail].
Her websites are http://www.partnershipway.org and http://www.rianeeisler.com