Velimir Srica is a member of The Club of Rome and an honorary member of the Croatian Helsinki Committee. He is a Fulbright scholar and Eisenhower Fellow and was elected President of Zagreb’s city assembly, and is a World Bank expert on Change Management.

Having earned a PhD in IT management and an MBA from Columbia University, Dr. Srica is professor of management at Zagreb University and a visiting professor at UCLA. He has also been a visiting professor at Renmin University in China and various universities in Hungary, Slovenia, Montenegro, Dubai, and Austria. He is also a program director of DELFIN (Developing Effective Leadership for Innovation), a private executive development and consulting firm. Prof. Srica has published more than 68 books and 400 articles.

In easily-digested "lessons" Prof. Srica gives fifty-two examples explaining in detail how each of us can develop internal harmony, and how to build and develop harmonious teams and organizations. Questioning the existing value system, the author...

In easily-digested "lessons" Prof. Srica gives fifty-two examples explaining in detail how each of us can develop internal harmony, and how to build and develop harmonious teams and organizations. Questioning the existing value system, the author offers a new, harmonious leadership model for managers in government, politics, and both profit-based and non-profit organizations, but also for common people who want to lead a better life.�  By integrating knowledge, skills and values of harmonious leadership, the model provides a fresh look at the leadership challenge, encouraging people to grow themselves and everybody with whom they connect through behaviors which radiate positivism and create harmony. The model is based on author's leadership experience, and on a variety of practices and cases he has witnessed as a politician and consultant. The model is genuinely multicultural and draws from the views from Far and Middle East, mixes them with Zen wisdom and integrates them with Western management trends, as well as with troublesome experiences from the transitional Central and Eastern Europe.

Preface This book owes its existence to a few proverbs. The first says that mistakes are the doorways to discovery. I have done many different things in life and managed to learn a lot by trial and error. You may think OK, wise men learn from others' mistakes; the fools from their own; but that's just another proverb. My trials, errors and successes have been painful and rewarding, foolish and clever, sour and sweet, and, above all, enlightening; enough to encourage me to write this book. My CV might give the impression of a Jack of all trades, master of none. Or, if you are a kind person, you might prefer the more, the merrier. I have been fortunate enough to live, lead, consult, engage in politics, learn and teach in the exciting environments of the developed West, the emerging East and the transitional Central Europe. This has enabled me to fully enjoy a variety of challenges, positions, responsibilities and areas of work, providing me with a rather unique insight, and it is all reflected in this book. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is an unusual book because, like my biography, it tries to build bridges and discover synergies among different topics and approaches. It deals with philosophy, sociology, futurology, the economy, politics, and technology at the same time. It draws on management consulting, civil service, political practice, scientific research, teaching, novel writing and journalism. However, there is a common denominator. According to Abraham Maslow, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. I guess my hammers are leadership and organizational culture, and to me everything looks like an opportunity to 'hammer out'� a solution aiming for harmony. As a teenager, I played in a rock band and music is still my favorite hobby. According to dictionaries, harmony is such state of a system in which all the components are pleasingly, or appropriately, combined in agreement or accord. Or, simply stated, it all sounds right. In this sense, the book is dedicated to the search for harmony in a disharmonious world. If you want me to push the musical analogy further, leadership is the key, the leader is the player, values are the score, and the whole globe and all its organizational units are the instruments. Along this line, the book is meant to lift us above the noise and teach us how to replace the growing cacophony with sounds of music which please the ear and the soul. Finally, it is a book intended to build your appetite for change and provide you with a few ideas where to start. If you are satisfied with your life, your job and the world as is, don't waste your time on this text; buy a musical instrument, a novel or a book of poetry instead. But if you are a change agent, a dreamer, or a dormant revolutionary, join me and, maybe together we can, at least a little, improve the world's harmony. However, if we want our dream come true, we must learn to be leaders. If we don't, those who foster disharmony will lead us into a nightmare!