ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been many years in the making. In the long and winding journey to its completion, we have benefited from many acts of kindness, generosity, and goodwill from people who believed in the book’s message (even before we were able to articulate it with any coherence).

We are indebted to the many writers, thinkers, and doers around the globe who share our vision that the world can and will be made a better place through the decisions and choices that are made every day in work and commerce. These leaders—and they exist at every level in organizations around the globe—have served as our inspiration and teachers.

We gratefully acknowledge the insights that we gained from over 200 people interviewed in the years leading up to this book—people ranging from front-line employees to CEOs and academics. And we would especially like to thank Accenture, Aflac, American Express, Bechtel, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Camden Property Trust, Caterpillar, ConAgra Foods, the Container Store, EMC Corporation, FedEx, HCL Technologies, Herman Miller, Infosys Technologies, Intel, Lockheed Martin, McCain Foods, NetApp, PepsiCo, Principal Financial Group, Ritz Carlton, Rollins Corporation, Scotia Bank, Seventh Generation, Sherwin Williams, SRA International, Symphony Services, Ultimate Software, Umpqua Holdings, Unilever, Valero Energy Company, WOW!, Zappos.com, and Zillow.com for participating in the interview process.

A handful of colleagues deserve our special thanks. Throughout much of this long process, Rick Frazier provided us with encouragement as well as access to his considerable network and knowledge base. Gary Williams was extremely generous in sharing wRatings’s customer ratings for the Fortune 100. And the great work that Rich Barton, Robert Hohman, and their colleagues are doing at Glassdoor.com provided us with an unmatched capability to see inside of organizations. In addition, numerous friends and colleagues read and provided helpful comments on chapter drafts and title ideas.

We also thank Rob Carpenter, Meghan Healy, Mike Powers, Michael Roberts, and Deborah Sanders, who served as research assistants in this work.

We are indebted to the wonderful Berrett-Koehler publishing community, which contributed in so many ways to the creation of this book, and most especially to Neal Maillet and Jeevan Sivasubramaniam for their expert guidance, enthusiastic support, and encouragement.

We reserve our final thanks for our families, who listened patiently to our endless musings, endured our late nights and weekend absences, contributed their insights, and believed in the worthiness of what we were doing.