It is impossible to thank individually the huge number of people who have contributed to the creation of this book. All I can do is to signal here a few who have been particularly helpful.

This book draws on the massive literature of management and leadership. I have done my best to indicate in the text itself the sources of my thinking so that readers can immerse themselves more deeply in these vast streams of thought and practice.

I am indebted to the hundreds of people who shared their experiences of the workplace with me, including Alex Adamopoulos, Igor Altman, Sam Bayer, Lyn Dowling, Stig Efsen, Jora Gill, Christophe Gissinger, Björn Granvik, Mikkel Harbo, Matt Hlavin, Luke Hohmann, Michael Holm, Carsten Jakobsen, Joe Kinsella, Ken Krivanec, Scott Maxwell, John Ozier, Jeff Patton, Laurence Prusak, Fred Reichheld, Don Roedner, Ed Scanlan, Guido Schoonheim, John Scumniotales, and Arline Sutherland. I also received many helpful suggestions from readers of my newsletter and participants at the many workshops that I have held.

I am grateful to Hans Samios for encouraging me to look more deeply into the arcane world of software development. I am deeply grateful for the conversations with some of the leaders of the Agile/Scrum movements and of lean thinking, including Joseph Little, Matthew May, Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck, and Jeff Sutherland. I have also learned much from the books and videos of Kent Beck, Mike Cohn, Mark Graban, Craig Larman, Ken Schwaber, and Bas Vodde.

I would like to acknowledge the help of my colleagues at the World Bank, who have continued to energize and inspire me, including Seth Kahan, Lesley Shneier, Roberto Chavez, Adnan Hassan, Peter Midgley, Carol Evangelista, and Michel Pommier. I am indebted to John Blaxall for his recollections about Robert McNamara.

The global community of organization storytelling continues to inspire me toward greater authenticity in communications. I am particularly grateful to Madelyn Blair, Denise Lee, and Paul Costello, among many others.

I was fortunate to have many wonderful suggestions from several online review groups. I particularly appreciated the contributions of Dawn Anderson, Steve Barnett, Alan Bentley, Anne Bentley, Antonina Bivona, Lisa Bloom, Garry Booker, Mary Brady, Michelle Bryne, Fiona Chamberlain, Greg Cohen, John Cotter, Richard Cummins, Charles Dhewa, D. Andre Dhondt, Anthony DiMaio, Marc Dimmick, Leigh Dryden, Kathryn Dunn, Sebasten Durand, Tony Elmore, Svend-Erich Engh, Larry Forster, Matt Gelbwaks, Mark Gould, Djebar Hammouche, Petri Heiramo, Thomas Juli, Curtis Krauskopf, Theo Kukard, Nicolas Marescaux, Richard Merrick, Deborah Mills-Scofield, Bryan Murphy, Vijay Nathani, Bruce Nix, Holly Paige, Lucas Persona, Greg Petit, Christiane L. Roehler, Maurice le Rutte, Agam Sinha, Tamsin Slyce, Bruce Smith, James A. Stahley, Kathi Treiber, Nerio Vakil, Stephane Veillard, Germain Verbeemen, Cornelis Vonk, Douglas Weidner, Vic Williams, and Stanislas Yanakiev. Peter Young was always ready to help with editing suggestions and repeatedly pushed me toward greater authenticity.

Helpful editing suggestions were also received from Bruce Ross-Larsen, Amy Halladay, and Robert Randall.

Barbara Henricks was an invaluable sounding board as the book took shape.

I appreciated help from Carol Pearson in sponsoring my role as a Senior Scholar at the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland from 2006 to 2009.

I am especially grateful to All Souls College, Oxford University, for the Visiting Fellowship that I enjoyed in 2009. The environment was intellectually stimulating and provided an invaluable source of ideas and insights. Conversations with Jim Adams, Vincent Crawford, Christopher Hood, Noel Malcolm, Angela McLean, George Molyneux, Avner Offer, Hew Strachan, Keith Thomas, and Benjamin Wardhaugh were particularly helpful.

I also received great help and support from Kathe Sweeney, whose courage and vision over a number of years enabled this book to happen. Other staff at Jossey-Bass/Wiley have also been very helpful, including Amy Blanchard, Rob Brandt, Mary Garrett, Adrian Morgan, Erin Moy, Amy Packard, Dani Scoville, Liane Shayer, and Erik Thrasher.

Amid all this help, the most pointed and useful management lessons have come from my own family, Irene and Stephanie, and I am deeply grateful for their support.