100th Monkey Books

Cooperative & Entrepreneurial Work



Buying a Book?





Business as a Calling: Work & the Examined Life
Michael Novak (1996) 246pages

A career in business is not only a morally serious vocation but a morally noble one. Those who are called to it have reason to take pride in it and to rejoice in it...I want to look at business - at commerce, at industry - to see what ideals are inherent within it. I want to gauge its possibilities, especially in its moral and religious possibilities. I want to see what is possible within it, before attempting to lead it to still higher aims. This is a good practice. The first law of ethical reflection is to listen, and only then to guide. - from the author's Introduction (Free Press)


Calling the Circle: The First and Last Culture
Christina Baldwin (1994/1998) 245pages

The kind of circle this book addresses is a council of ordinary people who convene to create a sacred space and from that space accomplish a specific task, supporting each other in the process. Christina Baldwin, who has been teaching the circle since 1991, presents detailed instructions and suggestions for getting started, setting goals, and solving disagreements. She shares many inspiring stories of group who use the circle to decide key issues in their lives: a women's spirituality group, a father and son in crisis, parents and teachers averting a teacher's strike, a corporate project team. Baldwin show anyone can create the atmosphere of intention, respect, and openness in which a circle can flourish.(Bantam)


Creativity in Business
Michael Ray & Rochelle Myers (1986) 222pages

Probably the most important aspect of our course (for the MBA program at Stanford) and this book is that we go directly to what helps people bring out useful creativity in business. We don't try to solve the basic mystery of the physiological, cognitive, and social processes that underlie a creative act. Instead we simply note with excitement all the validations of the existence of a beneficial creative force coming from the research laboratories; we revel in each insight gained from spiritual works in both the Western and Eastern traditions; and most of all we glory in the steady, dynamic flow of confirmations and breakthroughs that come through our speakers as well as our students. Who knows why our course works? But work it does. We - Myers and Ray - through teaching the course have gained the invaluable conviction that an ever-present creative source (in this book we call it Essence) is available to each one of us, and we have watched our students gain that same conviction as they prove it in their daily business lives. Our wish is that this book brings the same conviction to you.
-from the authors' Introduction (Doubleday)



The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability
Paul Hawken (1993) 250pages

To create an enduring society, we will need a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative. Business will need to integrate economic, biologic, and human systems to create a sustainable method of commerce. As hard as we may try to become sustainable on a company-by-company level, we cannot fully succeed until the institutions surrounding commerce are redesigned. Just as every act in an industrial society leads to environmental degradation, regardless of intention, we must design a system where the opposite is true, where doing good is like falling off a log, where the natural, everyday acts of work and life accumulate into a better world as a matter of course, not as a matter of conscious altruism. That is what this book tries to imagine. - from the author's Preface (HarperBusiness)


The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property
Lewis Hyde (1979) 327pages

The Gift is an inquiry into the place of creativity in our market-oriented society. Starting with the premise that the work of art is a gift and not a commodity. Lewis Hyde's book ranges across anthropology, literature, economics, and psychology to show how the "commerce of the creative spirit" functions in the lives of artists and in the culture as a whole.(Vintage)


Growing a Business
Paul Hawken (1987) 251pages

Seeing the world around you clearly is a critical step in developing an idea for business, carrying out that idea, and then thriving with an ongoing concern...entrepreneurship is a way of seeing before it is a way of acting, and it is a way of acting long before it's a way of doing business...the business you can succeed with is distinctively and utterly you and yours. It is unlike any other business in the world. Being in business is not about making money. It is a way to become who you are. -from the author's first chapter (Simon Schuster)


Mentoring: The TAO of Giving and Receiving Wisdom
Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch (1995) 161pages

Tao mentoring is a two-way circular dance that provides opportunities for us to experience both giving and receiving (wisdom) without limitations and fears...This mentor dance celebrates unusually gratifying unions of kindred spirits in soulful relationships. The Tao mentoring process is that particular crossroads in life where what you have to offer meets the immediate and future needs of another...Tao mentoring offers a new model of giving and receiving that incorporates ancient Taoist wisdom from Chinese classics and new insights that we have gained from our experience as teachers, mentors, and students. - from the author's Preface (Harper SanFrancisco)


The Seven Laws of Money
Michael Phillips (1974) 120pages

The Seven Laws of Money tells how to live with money: how to get it, care for it, and forget about it. An underground classic among corporate executives, accountants, and entrepreneurs since the 1970's, it is rooted in the author's commitment to right livelihood, to learning how the world works, to a willingness to "fail young," and to networking. Phillips shows how to combine these principles with the seven laws to engender a healthy fearless attitude toward money. (Shambhala, 1993)


Work with What You Have: Ways to Creative & Meaningful Livelihood
Deborahann Smith (1999) 198pages

I learned about work at the same time I learned how to drive a car. The time was the summer before I went to college. The workplace was a field behind the American Legion Post in Ithaca, New York. And the car was a ten-year-old pig-colored Rambler, circa 1964. My employer/instructor was my grandfather, who managed the Legion that year. The task he set before me was threefold: to get a sense of having a job, to flatten the weeds, and to learn the way of the road. Of course the field wasn't exactly a road, and the Rambler wasn't your typical workplace, but my grandfather said you had to start somewhere and it may as well be there. So that was what I did... My grandfather had many different kinds of job in his life time and probably as many cars. He had advice about both, which he offered at the end of each day along with a frosty lime and Coke. Watch where you're going. Give your all. It's important to be in the driver's seat as much as possible, but learn to be a good passenger, too. Have self-respect. Unless passing, stay on your side of the road. When he was sure he had my attention, he continued: Maintain your integrity. Be true to yourself, but embrace the wisdom of all those who have come before you. And keep your spirits about you because, although there are always friends and mentors, you are the one who ultimately sees you through. I thought about these words as I gave my all to every job I did at the Legion that summer....A writing teacher once told me, "Write what you know about. Write what you can find out about. This will take you everywhere." I have since extended this wisdom to work in general: work with what you have. Work with what you can learn. Meet as many people in your field -and other fields-as you possibly can. Whatever your livelihood, this can take you to places beyond your wildest imagination...My wish is that this book will be a road map for your workable travels, as the experiences that led to it have been mine. Remember to keep your eyes open for the myriad possibilities. May you be in the driver's seat, rambling all the way. - from the author's Introduction (Shambhala)


Browse Selected Books: 100th MONKEY Stable
Go Back to Table of Contents: 100th MONKEY OASIS