What is our role in creating healthy organizations and a healthy world? Creative Social Change fosters a unique dialogue on the interconnections between leadership, sustainability, the long-term viability of the planet, and organizational development. Brought together, these arenas of research and action can influence events globally and contribute to creating a healthy society. The book builds on interviews with five eminent social scientists, thought leaders for many decades on the nature of organizational and societal development: Robert Quinn, Otto Scharmer, Edgar Schein, Peter Senge, and Margaret Wheatley. It includes contributions on what is needed for change from longstanding creative scholar-practitioners such as Riane Eisler and Karl-Henrik Robert, as well as new voices, and concludes with a variety of concrete case studies from around the world about efforts in this direction. Embracing all levels of thinking, from the conceptual to the concrete, the book generates a foundation for scholarly research and proposes practical questions that can be used for dialogue and action among leaders, policy makers, and organizational consultants.

Blending personal insights from twenty-five years of hospice volunteering with contemplative social science research, this thoughtful and engaging book offers practical lessons about the transformative possibilities of compassionate end-of-life caregiving.

After author John Baugher's mother was murdered in 1987, he felt that he was fated to join her killer in life imprisonment--not behind bars, but behind psychological walls of unresolved grief and anger. Baugher turned to hospice volunteering as a way to channel his experience, marking the beginning of a twenty-five year journey of exploration--in both public hospices and prison hospice programs--and the possibility of discovering compassion and even humor in the face of death. In this beautifully written book, Baugher weaves together insights from his experience with those gleaned from interviews with dozens of hospice volunteers from widely varying backgrounds. "Caring for others at the end of life has shown me that affirming the humanity of others is crucial to my own joy and sense of vibrancy," writes Baugher. Contemplative caregiving can be a spiritual practice in its own right--a practice that parallels the benefits of mindfulness while extending them beyond the personal level to inspire compassionate shifts in families, hospitals, and broader spheres of society.