RESET: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval

BY SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) PRESIDENT and CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER JOHNNY C. TAYLOR, JR., SHRM-SCP

HR Professionals Magazine introduces its new series from SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) President and Chief Executive Officer Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, featuring his book, RESET: A Leader's Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval. Under Taylor's leadership, SHRM has spurred innovative thought on how HR can empower business to meet the relevant challenges of social upheaval and global crisis.

RESET, grounded in the latest SHRM research, helps professionals reset operations to create a more daring, resilient, and sustainable workplace. Taylor showcases how to craft an innovative and productive company culture, while revolutionizing how leaders find, train, and engage top talent through data-driven insights and decisive experience of the world's largest HR professional organization.

"As a CEO, this is the time to be 'extra.' This is the time to recognize the extraordinary circumstances we're living in and seize the un-normal," writes Taylor. "This is your reset, your moment in history to define yourself and your organization."

As a sought-after expert on workplace topics, Taylor is known for charting the way forward through both crisis and uncertainty. RESET envisions how to reshape the world of work and unleash untapped potential to strengthen the workforce and accelerate performance.

In RESET, Taylor expounds, "'Make constant reset your friend.' Upheaval brings about opportunities to rethink, reset, and restructure your organization."

"Johnny Taylor has written a truly valuable book," says Gail J. McGovern, CEO of the American Red Cross. "His insights shine a light on the need for resetting an organization's culture and talent during turbulent times."

RESET is now available in hardcover, e-book or audio via major book retailers. All author proceeds benefit the SHRM Foundation—committed to empowering HR as a social force for change.

HR Professional Magazine will feature a monthly summary of each chapter, providing practical applications that help businesses thrive now and in the future.

FOREWORD

An Introduction to RESET: A Leader's Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval Greetings. It is my great pleasure to introduce you to Reset. It is inspiring, provocative, and full of wisdom based on lessons of life. I’ve known Johnny for many years. He delivers his speeches with such passion and principle. His articles produce something of real use to the reader. You can expect the same from this book.

Simply put, Reset is the most effective guide to reimagining your organization at a time when we need it most.

So what does “reset” mean?

The true intent of this book in the world of work turned upside down is to place people with care and with deliberate purpose.

“Reset” means developing truly inclusive organizations that leverage differences for growth and innovation.

It means reexamining antiquated paradigms and developing policies that support your unique company culture.

It means tapping into the hidden superpowers of nontraditional talent pools. It means deepening and diversifying your talent pools and building skills with remote education and distance learning.

It means that people matter more than ever.

It means leaders must face the hard truth that their biggest challenge isn’t technology, innovation, or even leading—it’s finding, developing, and engaging the right talent to thrive now and in the future.

We live in a world of constant upheaval—a concept generally understood as “a period of great change and disorder,” sometimes used in reference to the earth’s crust. But instead of geological shifts creating heretofore nonexistent islands and lakes, Reset details in plain language the tectonic changes underway for work, workers, and workplaces—for all things work—and delivers data-driven practical guidance and solutions.

Johnny has a gift for understanding what matters most in the world of work, what levers to pull and how hard, but he is also a gifted storyteller, and perhaps Reset shines brightest in the many captivating stories that bring to life the insights and guidance of the book.

In Reset, Johnny challenges, enlightens, and delights, and more than a few times on the same page!

Predicated on the hard truth that if leaders don’t get culture right now, they won’t survive the war for talent, much less thrive in the future of work, Reset: • shows executives how to lead through difficult, extraordinary times;

• gives HR professionals a deeper understanding of the urgency to cultivate culture and the agency of HR to implement real change;

• emboldens leaders and senior managers to harness the power of people for those not formally in HR but charged with the success and growth of employees; and

• offers People Managers “big picture” insights and data-driven organizing principles for improving day-to-day management and achieving long-term goals.

If you’re a leader, active, aspiring, or otherwise, this is not just the right book at the right time—it is essential reading for building better workplaces and a better world.