The Fall of the Alphas: The New Beta Way to Connect, Collaborate, Influence---And Lead

The Fall of the Alphas explores the sweeping changes taking place in the corporate and social cultures of today's most successful organizations. Utilizing years of advising companies of all sizes, hypergrowth startups to Fortune 500 company management teams, Dana Ardi identifies a pivotal evolutionary moment: the decline of the traditional Alpha-model (the top-down, male-dominated, authoritarian, corner-office hierarchy that has ruled organizational landscapes for so long), as it is replaced by collaboration, connectivity, and the sharing of power. As Ardi persuasively demonstrates, in the new Beta organization, it is the team players, the sage advisors, the network experts, the trusted assistants, and the communications facilitators who are coming to the fore, as savvy managers learn to lead through influence and collaboration rather than authority and competition. From technology behemoths to small and medium-sized businesses, Beta has become the new paradigm for success in today's challenging market.

With insight and practical guidance, Dana Ardi shows how any business organization or team can re-organize from Alpha to Beta—and be more effective, flexible, and profitable

"'The future belongs to the Betas, not the Alphas,' according to consultant and 'corporate anthropologist' Ardi. The centralized and hierarchical alpha model used to dominate because it worked. But beta companies — smaller, decentralized, and inclusive — are taking over. Citing successful beta companies such as JetBlue and Zappos, where the idea is to mold employees not into juniors CEO's but into passionate brand advocates, Ardi argues that the increasing importance of free data flow makes alphas obsolete. The beta leader sees each employee as an essential resource and organizes the group accordingly. Ardi discusses historical alphas and betas, the rise of alpha females, and the widespread perception that being an alpha is the only way to be an effective leader, helping readers envision a Millennial-run corporate universe in which employees were once kids raised to believe that gender roles are anachronistic, and everyone, not just the quarterback, should get a trophy. Despite the book's solid thesis, the text meanders, and though she notes the dearth of a road map for creating a successful beta organization, Ardi makes no effort to present one, either." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.