Zilch

April 19, 2010
Lublin, CEO of the youth volunteering organization Do Something and founder of Dress for Success, shows organizations how to get more done with less of everything, especially money and personnel, while keeping innovation, passion, and creativity high. Sharing insightful stories and strategies from her own experiences and from stars in the not-for-profit world such as Billy Shore from Share Our Strength, Wendy Kopp from Teach for America, and John Lilly from Mozilla, she debunks the most prevalent myth in business today—that salary drives great performance and stellar productivity. She proposes that companies broaden their rewards and their understanding of compensation so that people become deeply motivated to excel and offers techniques for extracting the best from people including creating a stimulating workplace, offering skill development, and doling out titles liberally. She also shares advice on branding, doing more for customers, stretching finances, and more. Concluding each chapter with 11 questions to prompt creativity in specific areas, she propels readers on the road to positive change. Inspiring, wise, and eminently practical, this book distills the best practices that any company—private or public—can adopt, and that no leader should be without.

May 15, 2010
CEO of Do Something, Inc., and founder of the not-for-profit Dress for Success, Lublin outlines strategies from various not-for-profits. Chapters focus on doing more with fewer resources, as well as on matters relating to staff, board, customers, and innovation, all littered with specific examples from not-for-profits of all sizes, e.g., requiring board members to put in time at various jobs within the organization. Lublin's claim that these ideas can translate to for-profits seems dubious, and there's a tone of not-for-profit smugness. Organizers of small or medium not-for-profits should find ideas worth exploring here, but most would do better to start with Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant's "Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits", a more thorough exploration of not-for-profit best practices, which does more with less.

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