Rebels at Work - by Lois Kelly & Carmen Medina (Paperback)

About the Book

Struggling to make changes at work or convince management to take action? Ready to challenge conventional thinking or introduce a new idea, but worried about being viewed as a troublemaker or getting in way over your head? Rebels At Work provides concrete ideas, techniques and advice on how to refine your thinking, improve your approach to work, and manage yourself so you can achieve more and stay sane and optimistic in the process. Authors Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina -- successful and occasionally wildly unsuccessful rebels themselves, Lois at marketing agencies, Carmen at the CIA -- reveal ways to navigate corporate politics, frame and communicate ideas, deal with controversy, avoid common mistakes, and manage yourself so you know when and how to keep pushing and when to quit.

Book Synopsis

Ready to stand up and create positive change at work, but reluctant to speak up? True leadership doesn't always come from a position of power or authority. By teaching you skills and providing practical advice, this handbook shows you how to engage your coworkers and bosses and bring your ideas forward so that they are heard, considered, and acted upon.

Authors Carmen Medina and Lois Kelly--once rebels themselves--reveal ways to navigate your workplace, avoid common mistakes and traps, and overcome the fears that may be holding you back. You can achieve more success and less frustration, help your organization do better work, and--most important--find more meaning and joy in what you do.

About the Author

Lois Kelly, an author and marketing strategist, counsels executives in large corporations like FedEx, SAP, HP, Fidelity Investments, Dunkin' Donuts, TJ Maxx, SAS Institute, University of Massachusetts, The Conference Board, USAA, Sapient, Communispace, and many more. They hire Lois presumably for help on communicating change and mobilizing word of mouth marketing. The unstated, real reason they hire her is that they are rebels at work, looking for a rebel emeritus who can guide them in successfully shepherding their change agendas inside large, complex organizations - and outside to customers. Being a rebel can be dangerous, and they recognize the value of having an experienced guide.

Carmen worked at the Central Intelligence Agency for 32 years, rising to become one of the highest-ranking women at the Agency.

During her career at CIA she achieved positions of apparent importance, such as the Deputy Director for Intelligence and the Director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI.) But she thinks her greatest achievement is that most people who worked for her are still her friends. She had many ideas about how the CIA could do its job better--not all were welcomed. Being true to yourself, being a rebel at work, Carmen learned, means you will often feel uncomfortable and not welcomed at work.

Since her retirement from the CIA in 2010, Carmen has led two new careers. One with Deloitte Consulting and the other as a curator, connector, and synthesizer on social networks. At Deloitte, she continues to support the Intelligence Community on issues such as social networking and future trends, and mentors Deloitte's consultants about how to become innovative and independent thinkers. (She prefers to think of it as being their Yoda).

She tweets regularly under the handle @milouness (She started on Twitter while still at CIA so chose an obscure user name; she has 2,504 followers.) She also writes regularly both on her own blog, recoveringfed.com, and on the joint website with Lois Kelly, rebelsatwork.com.

Debra Cameron is president of Cameron Consulting. In addition to her love for Emacs, Deb researches and writes about emerging technologies and their applications. Her latest book, Optical Networking: A Wiley Tech Brief, published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, covers the practical applications of optical networking and was written in the hope that true broadband will be more widely deployed. Deb also edits OReilly titles, including DNS and Bind, DNS on Windows 2000, TCP/IP Network Administration, HTML and XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Java Security, Java Swing, Learning Java, and Java Performance Tuning. She has presented numerous videos for WatchIT.com, covering security and networking as well as e-business topics. She has moderated roundtables on PlanetIT on advanced networking and intranet design. Deb resides in Gaithersburg, Maryland with her husband Jim and their three children, Meg, David, and Bethany.