Consulting Editorial Work
We live at a moment when society is rethinking ideas about what people are worth, and why we do what we do. I write about these issues and their ramifications, and as an editor I help others d the same.
My current book is The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology, coauthored with Juliette Powell. Our firm Kleiner Powell International conducts advisory work on responsible technology, creative strategy, and more.
My previous book, The Wise Advocate, is coauthored with Jeffrey Schwartz, MD and Josie Thomson. We offer a 5-day course on neuroscience and strategic leadership, showing you how to find your inner voice as a strategic leader.
On this site, you'll see a page for my books and for my new Editorial Consulting offering.
The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology
Named by Nature as one of the 5 best science book picks of 2023.
Juliette Powell and I wrote this book to explore the human consequences of AI systems. Generative content creators. Self-driving vehicles. Predictive analytics. Data collections. In the right hands, they’re beneficial to all. In the wrong hands, they amplify human bias and harm vulnerable people.
It covers bias, explainability, accountability, data privacy and ownership, and creative friction -- with a wealth of real-life examples, including emerging regulations like Europe’s AI Act.
“ You will not find wiser, more careful, more caring guides to this brave new world than the two authors of The AI Dilemma.” – Amy Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School; author, The Fearless Organization
“Powell and Kleiner have created a must-read for all living in this disruptive moment.” – Ron Dembo, author, Risk Thinking; CEO, RiskThinking.AI
"This thought-provoking book shows what it takes to restore trust in our institutions and digital infrastructures." - Dorie Clark, author, The Long Game; faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business
“With the benefit of Powell and Kleiner's clear-eyed explanations, we may yet avoid the mistakes we made with the Internet and pretty much every technology before it.” -- Douglas Rushkoff, author, Survival of the Richest
“I am learning so much, and it is challenging some of my preconceived notions.” -- Om Malik, writer & partner emeritus, True Ventures
Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Privilege and Success
The customer comes first. Employees are our greatest asset. We exist to return investment to shareholders. These are the three great lies of the modern corporation. All organizations have one primary purpose: To fulfill the needs and priorities of some core group within the company. If you want to succeed in an organization, you have to figure out who the core group is, why others care about them, and what people think they want.
Whether you're a member of the Core Group—or want to be—this deft, engaging blend of argument and observation, anecdotes and advice, is the one guide you'll need to achieve your career goals and aspirations by navigating the hidden pathways in any organization, large or small.
"Art Kleiner has uncovered a central truth about the way organizations work. His concept of the Core Group clarifies one key reason why rational people often act in seemingly irrational ways within the confines of an institution. Like any deep insight, it makes explicable what had previously been mysterious."
—Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and coauthor of Built to Last
The Wise Advocate: The Neuroscience of Strategic Leadership
With renowned neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Schwartz, and award-winning executive coach Josie Thomson, I coauthored this guide to the "high ground" within our minds and brains and how to reach it.
Organizational leaders can play the role of wise advocates: taking on an influencer role because they have cultivated reflective habits. The Wise Advocate is written for managers and aspiring leaders aiming to make the best―and hardest―choices.
Praise from early readers:
The authors provide a practical guide to decision making through a combination of neuroscience concepts, a process of self-reflection, and consideration of the greatest good for the people one must lead. -- Marshall Goldsmith, author of Triggers, MOJO, and What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
When an organization commits to meaningful change, its leaders face very challenging choices every day. The Wise Advocate is about what happens in those moments and how the best leaders help move their cultures forward. -- Jon R. Katzenbach, coauthor of The Wisdom of Teams and The Critical Few
This book is timely. By emphasizing the topics of wisdom, the high vs. low roads, and ethics, the authors make a unique contribution. -- James O'Toole, Daniels Distinguished Professor of Business Ethics, University of Denver - Daniels College of Business
The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook
Peter Senge's national bestseller, The Fifth Discipline, revolutionized the practice of management by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Peter and I, along with three coauthors, went on to codify practice: How do you manage teams and organizations with empathy and heart, starting Monday morning? We invented a new format for this: short pieces that you could put to work immediately, with a high level of personality in every piece. (Rick Ross, Charlotte Roberts, Bryan Smith and Peter Senge are all vibrant people, and it comes across.) Topics include: Balancing inquiry and advocacy, Being loyal to the truth, Building a shared vision, Organizations as communities, and Designing an organization's governing ideas. 30 years later, this book is still a best-selling, vibrant, and much-used source of insight for people.
The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management
Heretics in our time are people trying to change large corporations from within. They don't always keep their jobs; but the best management thinking is based on their ideas. This book tells that story, from Kurt Lewin and Margaret Mead in the 1930s through W. Edwards Deming and Tom Peters in the 1990s. A Warren Bennis imprint, it covers the origins of organizational development and diversity and inclusion practices; Saul Alinsky versus Eastman Kodak; scenario planning at Royal Dutch/Shell; and the hidden influence of psychedelics and G.I. Gurdjieff in modern management thinking. This is about the people who shaped the thinking that now drives many companies - and the ongoing battles between the numbers culture and common sense. I modeled the book after William Manchester's style, so it focuses on the people and the movements of the time. People working in companies find themselves in this book.
"A remarkable job of showing how revolutionary change in management originated. These are no mere 'currents of change,' but rather a thundering waterfall of intellectual and moral forces reshaping business." - Peter Senge, author, The Fifth Discipline
"Any twenty-first-century leader interested in creating the organizations of the future will find this book compelling. Art Kleiner lays out the evolution of the most significant management tools, theories, and concepts in a very accessible manner." - Ram Charan, advisor to CEOs and author
"Art Kleiner has uncovered a kind of secret history that links the medieval monastic orders, the counterculture of the sixties, and the key agents of corporate change in the modern world." -Howard Rheingold, author, Virtual Reality, Virtual Communities, and Tools for Thought
"Corporate change continues to accelerate these days unaware of its own history. Art Kleiner's lucid account shows how the revolution began in the ideas and passions of a handful of revolutionaries." - Stewart Brand, founder, Whole Earth Catalog and Long Now Foundation
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