When the Canary Stops Singing: Women's Perspectives on Transforming Business (AGENCY/DISTRIBUTED) - Hardcover

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.