-Paulus M. Verschuren, Senior Director, Global Health Partnerships, Unilever
"As leaders in the private, public, and social sectors, we all struggle to navigate tensions. Adam Kahane points out that the polarity of power versus love underpins them all. As long as we approach this polarity with an 'either-or' filter, we will remain stuck; only when we embrace it as an 'and' can we breathe life into change. Kahane shows us how to embody this 'and' and so to lead effectively and gracefully."
-Zafer Achi, Managing Director, Middle East, McKinsey & Company
"International conflict is commonly understood by governments through the lens of realpolitik. The limitations of such a strategic analysis of power is that it does not recognize the power of human motivation. Adam Kahane's wise and insightful book addresses this by integrating the concepts of love and power."
-Gabrielle Rifkind, Director, Human Security in the Middle East Programme, Oxford Research Group
"Kahane addresses the often-neglected need to create alternative social structures in situations where power, competition, and self-interest continue even after deeply entrenched disputes have been 'settled' through conflict resolution and negotiation. Reflective and practical: a must-read."
-Charles Villa-Vicencio, former National Research Director, South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
"This is not a book about simple solutions to complex problems; it is the tale of a twenty-year pilgrimage, one man's courageous journey into the unknown, a willingness to take on some of the world's most complex and seemingly intractable problems, at the same time working on one's own intractability. Power and Love is the antidote to resignation; it is about the hope and possibility that comes from committing oneself to making a difference in the world."
-Barry Oshry, author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems
"In the four decades since Martin Luther King's death, change agents across the world have sought to ground themselves in his powerful and loving practice. Adam Kahane's book is a journey and a road map to that practice."
-Michel Gelobter, CEO, Cooler, and former President, Redefining Progress
"Adam's courageous exploration of his struggle with the paradoxes of power and love invites us into our own exploration of this crucial tension. Our capacity to deal with our toughest social challenges-even our survival as a species-depends on our learning to work skillfully with these two fundamental drives."
-Phil Cass, CEO, Columbus Medical Association
"Based on his firsthand experiences working with leaders-from across sectors, organizations, and communities, around the world-who are dealing with tough problems, Kahane's beautifully written book offers a jewel of wisdom to those who want to effect profound social change: learn to speak both the language of power and the language of love."
-Elena Díez Pinto, Executive Director, Soros Foundation-Guatemala, and former Executive Director, Visión Guatemala
"This thought-provoking book will help leaders of social change efforts undertake their challenging work more positively and powerfully."
-Bob Head, CEO, Skandia
"Power and Love expands and refines the analysis of Solving Tough Problems. A renowned practitioner of the delicate art of convening diverse and often warring stakeholders to solve intractable problems together, Kahane has a genius for extracting fundamental insights and principles from complex experiences. This small book will stimulate fresh thinking by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers everywhere who are concerned with catalyzing sustainable social change."
-L. David Brown, Senior Research Fellow, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University
"Power pushes, love pulls. Adam Kahane understands these two fundamental forces like few hands-on practitioners of conflict resolution. Power and Love is that rare jewel-a manual and a sonnet."
-Robert Fuller, author of Dignity for All, All Rise, and Somebodies and Nobodies
"Power and Love outlines Adam's unique approach to solving problems, which enables people to make sense of their world-past, present, and future-so that they can make it better."
-Paul Hanratty, CEO, Long-Term Savings, Old Mutual plc
"Adam Kahane takes systems thinking over into systems doing. He tells us stories of how separated parts are brought-lovingly-into serving the purposes of the whole of the social order. Kahane walks his talk. He is a principled pragmatist."
-Bo Ekman, Founder and Chairman, T?llberg Foundation
"Power without love cannot sustain the long-term, coordinated effort necessary to achieve social change; love without power cannot overcome entrenched interests. Kahane's stories and his wise counsel show how we can work with these apparent opposites to create new worlds."
-Betty Sue Flowers, coauthor of Presence and former Director, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
"Adam's book is an important contribution to our understanding of how to co-create new social realities."
-Otto Scharmer, Chair of the Presencing Institute and author of Theory U
Praise for Solving Tough Problems
"This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created."
-Nelson Mandela
"A seminal book. Exciting, vital, essential reading."
-Edgar H. Schein, Professor of Management Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, and author of Process Consultation and Helping
"Our societies face really hard problems-poverty, injustice, sustainability, corruption-that are insoluble by conventional means. Conflicts of interest and profound uncertainties about the future are producing paralysis and inaction. Adam Kahane has, more than anyone, developed and successfully employed tools that enable us to create futures of shared progress and profit."
-Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network, and author of The Art of the Long View
"Highly relevant to the global challenges we face today."
-Debra Dunn, Senior Vice President, Hewlett-Packard
"This book should be read by everyone who is concerned with the quality of decision making in our democracies."
-Elena Martinez, Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations