Build capacity,
not dependency.
Most leadership development is fast food. Quick, predictable, and it leaves your people undernourished. This book is about something slower and more alive, developing the capabilities, culture, and consciousness that make your teams, and you, non-displaceable.
What leaders and the field are saying.
Voices from the regenerative and ontological traditions the book draws on, and the leaders putting it to work.
Janet is one of the few people who can tie together cutting-edge methods and make them so practical.
I came to Janet Macaluso’s book expecting a familiar view and found instead that her perspective sharpened something in my own thinking I hadn’t quite seen that clearly before. Her book is an unusually accessible entry point into regenerative leadership, one that opens the door Carol Sanford built and invites you through it. What lives on the other side is not a framework to master but a way of evolving, and that work is longer, stranger, and more rewarding than any book can hold.
About halfway through this book, Janet shares a line from Buckminster Fuller I’ve kept on my desk for years: “build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” For leaders tired of business as usual and initiatives that quietly revert to the old way, her work is a breath of fresh air and a practical way forward. These practices help me as I lead the Conscious Leadership Guild, and I believe they can create durable shifts in how we lead and develop.
For nearly three decades I’ve held that real change in leaders happens in the integration of language, emotion, and body, and that surface change can’t last without a shift in the deeper Way of Being that sources it. Janet understands this in her bones. The Self AND Systems approach she names is the kind of integrated thinking the field has long needed.
There are few books that take seriously what coaches in the ontological tradition have long known: that the way a leader is Being determines everything else. Janet writes about this for leaders themselves, with care, humanity and wisdom. Beyond Business As Usual is a careful bridge between developmental scholarship and the lived practice of leading.
One of the joys of being a professor is to witness the arc of their students’ development. It was a great pleasure to read how Janet Macaluso has deftly integrated her education and experience in Beyond Business As Usual. It brings to leadership what organization development has long argued: the individual and the system are not separate issues but a powerful and integrated force. The leadership challenges of this era cannot be answered by refining what we have already been doing. They require a regenerative move — toward developing leaders and the systems they shape as one dynamic process.
I’ve spent tens of thousands on training programs for myself and my employees over the years. But your regenerative approach made the most lasting impact.
Working with Janet was a game-changer. Her unique approach stood out above other coaches.
Janet elevates your leadership game.
Testimonials were received via text, email, video submission, or social media. They are individual experiences and may not be typical, and your results may vary.
We’ve been feeding leaders Happy Meals.
You’ve worked harder, invested more, run the retreats, and rolled out the new initiatives. A lot of it still feels stuck in business as usual. That isn’t a motivation problem or a skills gap. It’s the predictable result of five leadership myths so internalized they no longer feel like beliefs.
Quick fixes give the illusion of progress, the way fast food fills an empty stomach. Your people end up upgrading their tools and rarely upgrading their consciousness, learning to cope with broken systems instead of changing them.
Five myths that keep good leaders stuck.
Each one sounds sensible. Each one quietly holds your organization in place. The book takes them apart, one chapter at a time.
Information is transformationKnowing more rarely changes how anyone leads.
Change behavior, change outcomeBehavior is the surface. The system underneath writes the script.
Whack-a-mole problem solvingTreat symptoms and another problem always pops up.
Standardization across the boardSameness feels efficient and slowly kills what keeps you alive.
Training is developmentYou can teach a skill in an afternoon. Development is another order of work.
From self-development to a Self AND System mind.
Real transformation can’t be bottled, branded, or reduced to a checklist. It’s a regenerative, living process. Not a recipe you follow, but a practice you inhabit. I call it DevelopmentALL Leadership™, and it develops the self and the system at once.
A way of working with life, not another trend.
Every chapter names a familiar pitfall, then shows you how to un-learn business as usual. Between the chapters are Intermezzos, short practices that let you feel your own development. You’ll be tempted to skip them. Don’t.
Why it doesn’t stick
Why information, training, and even well-designed development fail to last.The paradigm underneath
How the worldview sourcing your decisions shapes every outcome before you choose.The limits of problem-solving
Why even skilled problem-solving can keep you from a living system’s potential.Leading from essence
What opens up when leaders stop performing a role and lead from their core.Development for everyone
How to build organizations where growth happens continuously, in the flow of work.
For people responsible for other people’s growth.
If you want a weekend shortcut or a plug-and-play module, this isn’t that, and I’d rather tell you now. Standing apart from the quick-fix culture takes patience and a little courage.
- Senior change leaders in healthcare and technology
- HR, OD, and L&D professionals who sense the old playbook has run out
- Coaches and consultants who want to build capacity, not dependency
- Managers tired of upgrading tools while nothing underneath changes
Janet Macaluso
I’m a leadership strategist. For 27 years I worked inside global organizations in HR, organizational development, learning, and talent before going independent. I studied for nearly a decade inside Carol Sanford’s regenerative community, alongside the living-systems thinkers who shaped this work.
My work exposes the myths that keep organizations stuck in old modes of thinking, and helps leaders build a regenerative paradigm fit for the 21st century. I’d rather help you build something that holds after I’m gone, in your people and your systems both.
Two ways to begin.
Kindle
Read it now on any device, or free on Kindle Unlimited.
- Instant download
- Free to read on Kindle Unlimited
- Plus four Self and Systems tools, yours after you buy
Paperback
The physical book, for marking up and keeping close.
- Ships from Amazon
- Free delivery with Prime
- Plus four Self and Systems tools, yours after you buy
Questions you might be holding.
How is this different from the leadership books on my shelf?+
Most work on the individual leader and leave the system alone. This develops the self and the system together, which is why the change tends to hold instead of fading after the workshop.
Do I need to read it in order?+
You can move around, though the Intermezzos build on each other. They’re the practices between chapters, and the part that turns reading into development.
Can I use this with my team?+
Yes, and it’s built for that. The team option includes bulk copies and a guide for running the practices with a group.
What formats is it available in?+
Paperback and Kindle ebook. The Kindle edition is free to read on Kindle Unlimited.
One question to carry in.
Don’t take this as another spike of insight from an expert. Take the question I put to the leaders I work with, and sit with it.
“Am I consuming, or am I creating something new.”
Get the book →