The Journey of Not Knowing: How 21st Century Leaders Can Chart a Course Where There Is None

The Journey of Not Knowing offers a fast paced, entertaining read that gets to the heart of a critical state in today's business climate and society overall: the constantly changing, ambiguous 21st Century and the uncharted waters ahead. This book will inspire leaders of any size organization to come to grips with the scariness of the unknown. It advances a new approach to leadership that leverages the discomfort of the new as a source of inspiration rather than a deterrent to building a better future. It received a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Silver Medal for Business & Economics and an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal.

Written by former Amazon executive, coach and lawyer Julie Benezet, the book combines storytelling, business experience and human psychology to create a roadmap through the ambiguity of building something better in the context of the realities of humans in organizational life.

The book tells a story of a day in the life at Arrow, Inc., a fictional company. It follows the defended behaviors throughout that day of its eight very recognizable leadership team members as they work first to avoid and then finally to solve the mystery of why a client fired them. The reward of the discovery is a critical piece of new business and substantial personal growth. To get there, each of team members must face their past, present and future. The memorable characters in the book are persons with whom the readers may cringingly identify. The book creates a framework them to confront their own resistance to change, and tools to start them on their way toward pursuing new possibilities for their lives once they can confront and embrace the scariness of the unknown.

The author opens the book with a description of how her experience as an early Amazon executive led to her beliefs about leadership and the unknown. It ends with a primer on the Journey of Not Knowing leadership model, using the Arrow story to illustrate its principles.

Author: Julie Benezet
Publisher: Morton Hill Press
Published: 10/11/2016
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.59d
ISBN: 9780997813906
Award: Benjamin Franklin Award - Gold Medal Winner

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/02/2017
Foreword 04/02/2018

About the Author
Benezet, Julie: - Pursuing dreams has molded Julie Benezet's life. As a self-described hard wired entrepreneur she spent 25 years in law and business navigating the unknown to put into place the dreams of others as well as her own. Julie has devoted her professional life to building companies, real estate and careers. She currently works as an executive coach, author and leader of The Journey of Not Knowing leadership program (www.journeyofnotknowing.com). Julie earned her greatest stripes for navigating the unknown when she spent four years as Amazon's first real estate executive through the company's early steep ramp up phase to its emergence as an established business. Before joining Amazon.com, Julie poured her energy into growing management and real estate consulting companies whose clients ranged from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups and working as a finance lawyer in New York and Seattle. Julie led for 10 years the "Challenges of Leadership" program for executives at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She speaks on the challenges of building companies in the 21st Century, and has appeared in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Office & Industrial Properties and Corporate Real Estate Strategies. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her husband, garden, jazz albums and two orange cats.Gail Kearns: - Gail Kearns began her career in publishing in 1995 after working over 20 years in the motion picture industry as a Production Coordinator and Development Executive. For the next years Gail helped dozens of authors shape their books for publication. Currently, she is president of To Press and Beyond, a full-service book shepherding agency that guides projects from inception to completion providing a wide range of services including ghostwriting, copywriting, writing for the web, and crafting marketing. Books of all genres shepherded by To Press & Beyond have garnered such awards as the prestigious IPPY, the Benjamin Franklin Award, Foreword's BOTYA, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, USA Best Book Awards, Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, and Moonbeam Children's Book Awards. Gail is a longtime member of IBPA and APSS. Her publishing consulting has taken her throughout the U.S. and abroad.