This groundbreaking book takes you far beyond “empowerment” into the much more effective world of powersharing. It takes a fresh look at how power can be used as a means of adding and creating value.

Balance of Power isn’t addressed to your organization; it’s addressed to you. Power doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and its application doesn’t either. Power transactions are occurring in your life and career right now.

If you have any kind of organizational authority, you are trying to cope with questions like these on an almost daily basis:

This mind-opening book will show you how to share power, who to share it with, how much to give away, and how much to keep.

They have power. You have power. Whether your organization becomes a battlefield or a powerhouse is all up to you.

Praise for Balance of Power:

“Balance of Power is an uncommon balance of cutting-edge management strategies and proven, age-old leadership techniques. Author Jim Lucas displays a marvelous ability to blowtorch the ill-conceived, misunderstood, and poorly executed mangement fads of the last decade, while at the same time salvaging the positive elements. Lucas offers creative solutions to satisfy the changing mangement challenges of the millenium.”

John G. Hughes, Jr.
President, Creative Leadership Strategies

“Many consultants subscribe to the Technique-of-the-Month Club. Lucas, on the other hand, has the ability to cut through the hype to identify and explain management and organizational truths. Our age calls for a new style of interdependent leadership that allows companies to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Lucas leads the way in fostering the new type of workplace.”

Andrew D. Lawrence
President, Pinnacle Resources

Why do our best efforts at change always seem to stall? What stops us from moving forward? As individuals and as organizations, we lay the blame on a lack of time, information, money, or motivation. However, our own illusions are usually the true culprit. As this insightful book will quickly convince you, getting real is the only way to really get ahead.

We labor under fatal illusions, says author James R. Lucas, when we base our behavior on what we wish to be true about our business, or about the marketplace, rather than on what is actually true. We treat our symptoms while core problems fester unchecked. The syndrome is all too common, but there is a remedy. Fatal Illusions shows how to dig out the truth and free yourself for positive action.

This book analyzes 12 major illusions with significant power to harm you and your organization. The illusions involve too-comfortable beliefs about mission statements, teamwork, incentives, and other big issues that soak up time and resources — and they may startle you by hitting so close to home. For example:

• “Of course our people understand what’s important.”
• “Everybody knows what quality is.”
• “We don’t need passion if we have a good plan.”
• “Just give people a chance and they’ll work together.”

Throughout the book, self-tests help you pinpoint which fatal illusions are lurking in your organization. Then you’ll learn proven, specific techniques for correcting the misperceptions, one by one. You’ll discover how to uproot the fallacies that prevent successful implementation of benchmarking, employee empowerment, and other management initiatives. Jim Lucas also draws on his extensive background in corporate management and training to help you deal with illusions in your own professional (and even personal) relationships.

Deeper and more far-reaching than virtually any other management book, Fatal Illusions is your guide to becoming “unstuck” in business and in life. By helping you squarely face “the things you know that just ain’t so,” it will propel you from your current plateau to brand-new heights of success.

MISSION
Our critical success factors are truth, practicality, literary merit, and people.

TRUTH

We believe that Truth is the measure by which all of life must be evaluated. We intend

• To publish only books that reveal life and people as they really are, and to address timeless questions and needs in a profound and timely way.
• To select manuscripts on the basis of content and not on the basis of market demands, to be aware of current trends so we can effectively promote books of enduring value, and to market in way that will make people want what they need.
• To entrust the creative process to our editorial team and to rely on the marketing team to present the selected books in a way that reveals their intrinsic value.

PRACTICALITY

We believe that there is no issue that cannot be explored by the light of timeless principles, and that all truth should be applied to life. We intend

• To engage readers in a search for truth, and to equip people to apply that truth wisely and effectively.
• To speak truthfully but graciously to all people, and to offer principled solutions to practical problems.
• To print books of enduring relevance, to dedicate our resources fully to these books, to keep them in print perpetually, and to market all of our books, old and new, with the same zeal.

LITERARY MERIT

We believe that well-crafted words have the power to move people and to alter the course of society. We intend

• To publish books that are innovative in their approach and to shun repetition and tired formulas.
• To select fiction that exhibits understanding of human struggles and triumphs, that tells a good story, that creates a complete and credible world, and that has multi-faceted characters and aesthetic depth.
• To select non-fiction that addresses significant topics in a fresh way, speaks boldly on controversial issues, and demonstrates clarity and accuracy.
• To provide editorial support that polishes books to their highest potential without altering the author’s distinctive craftsmanship.

PEOPLE

We believe that books of quality can be produced only by quality people. We intend

• To recognize and reward only those people who have integrity, initiative, innovativeness, a craving for excellence, and a passion for seeing this vision fulfilled.
• To support authors who write what only they can write.