About the Book
THINKERS50 BEST MANAGEMENT BOOKS FOR 2024
GOLD MEDAL WINNER – 2024 AXIOM BUSINESS BOOKS AWARD – LEADERSHIP CATEGORY
"Work-life balance" isn't making anyone happy.
In fact, our relentless attempts to achieve this goal have created workplaces full of stress, discontent, and burnout.
While this workplace disillusionment has been brewing for years, the pandemic helped catalyze a cultural shift of workers redefining themselves beyond what they do for a living. Now, it's time for you to rethink your role as a leader in the nexus of work and life.
In Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, award-winning author Dan Pontefract contends that a thriving workplace isn't about employee engagement levels, nor is it predicated on your team members bringing their "best selves" to work. Instead, it requires you to support the people you manage so they can be their best in work and life.
Just as a flower needs the right mix of sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow, your people need the right mix of work-life factors to create a fulfilling and harmonious existence. Pontefract introduces a new leadership paradigm focused on twelve key work-life factors that determine whether your team members' gardens are able to grow.
Drawing upon primary global research, interviews, and personal experiences, Pontefract delivers a timely blueprint for leaders to cultivate work-life ecosystems where individuals don't just survive—they bloom.
Table of Contents:
Chapter I: Garden Box
Work-Life Garden Box
Work-Life Balance and Best Self? Balderdash.
Work-Life Framework
Hello, Bloom
Liftoff to Work-Life Bloom
Chapter II: Bloom or Bust
Are We Blooming at Work? Kinda.
Are We Blooming in Life? Kinda.
Reflections
About Those Bosses
Basics of the Work-Life Bloom Model
Survey Says…
Working Together in Work and Life
Chapter III: Work Factors
Work-Factor No. 1: Trust
Work-Factor No. 2: Belonging
Work-Factor No. 3: Valued
Work-Factor No. 4: Purpose
Work-Factor No. 5: Strategy
Work-Factor No. 6: Norms
In the Greenhouse: Work-Factors
Chapter IV: Life Factors
Life-Factor No. 1: Relationships
Life-Factor No. 2: Skills
Life-Factor No. 3: Well-Being
Life-Factor No. 4: Meaning
Life-Factor No. 5: Agency
Life-Factor No. 6: Respect
In The Greenhouse: Life-Factors
Chapter V: In Bloom
Soil Test
Water Test
Coda
Acknowledgments
Other Blooming Books
Index
Notes
Other Books by Dan Pontefract
About the Author
About the Author :
Dan Pontefract is a renowned, award-winning leadership strategist with four books, four TED Talks, and four hundred thousand touchpoints over his career. If you’re thinking about leadership and organizational culture and how they can become a competitive advantage, Dan can help.
Between 1998 and 2018 Dan held senior executive roles at firms including SAP, TELUS, and Business Objects, leading corporate culture change, leadership development, employee experience and overall performance improvement. Ever since, he has worked with organizations around the world including the likes of Salesforce, Amgen, State of Tennessee, Canada Post, Autodesk, Government of Indonesia, Manulife, Nutrien, City of Toronto, among many others. He has on-the-ground experience of what it takes to turn leaders—and by extension your entire corporate culture—into a competitive advantage.
His four award-winning and best-selling leadership / management books include Lead. Care. Win., Open to Think, The Purpose Effect, and Flat Army.
Dan is honoured to be on the Thinkers50 Radar list. HR Weekly listed him as one of its 100 Most Influential People in HR. PeopleHum listed Dan on the Top 200 Thought Leaders to Follow and Inc. Magazine listed him as one of the top 100 leadership speakers. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business and has garnered more than 25 industry, individual, and book awards over his career.
He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Review :
"In this timely and compelling book, Dan Pontefract uproots outdated ideas about work and tosses them in the compost heap. Then, with a graceful mix of advice and analysis, he shows leaders at every level how to plant new seeds of possibility for themselves and their teams."
–Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Power of Regret, When, and Drive
"In Work-Life Bloom, Dan Pontefract showcases an insightful and nuanced perspective on work and life. This book is a compass for leaders who aspire to nurture a fulfilling and flourishing professional setting with their teams."
–Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Business School Professor and author of Deep Purpose
"With Work-Life Bloom, Dan Pontefract offers us the seeds to grow not just better workplaces but better lives. A must-read for leaders navigating the modern world."
–Erica Dhawan, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Digital Body Language
"Work-Life Bloom challenges the status quo. It's an essential read for anyone committed to building an amazing workplace and a great employee experience."
–Alex Osterwalder, CEO of Strategyzer & IMD Visiting Professor
"A must-read! Dan Pontefract challenges the concept of work-life balance by introducing Work-Life Bloom. Highly recommended."
–Martin Lindstrom, New York Times best-selling author of Buyology and Small Data
"Dan Pontefract's Work-Life Bloom turns the conventional wisdom about work and life on its head. If you truly want your teams to thrive, read this refreshing, indispensable guide now."
–Dorie Clark, best-selling author of The Long Game and Entrepreneurial You
"Dan Pontefract's Work-Life Bloom recognizes how my 'Working Together' leadership, management system, and its connected culture of love by design contributes to one's integrated life and life's work of service, which is one's love made visible. Great job, Dan!"
–Alan Mulally, former CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the Ford Motor Company
"We all need help in our lives to realize our true potential. This amazing book is the help you have been looking for! It will guide you to a life that blooms and blossoms in all the right ways. Don't miss the chance to understand what it really means to flourish!"
–Chester Elton, best-selling author of The Carrot Principle and Leading with Gratitude
"Work-life balance? We’ve been labouring to achieve it for the last two decades. Clearly, we need a new approach and a new metaphor. So, we should all be grateful to Dan Pontefract for providing it with Work-Life Bloom. Dan offers not just sound principles but actions we can take to bloom together—testing our soil, remembering to water. Helpful, inspiring, and fresh.”
–Sally Helgesen, author of Rising Together, How Women Rise, and The Female Advantage
"When people bloom at work and in life, they flourish, and your organization does too. This book offers both soil and seeds—frameworks and tactics—that you can use to help unlock the greatness of your people and teams."
–Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and How to Work with (Almost) Anyone
"The best leaders not only enable people to do great work; they help people live a great life. This book will give you the tools to both grow your talent and help everyone on your team."
–Liz Wiseman, New York Times best-selling author of Multipliers and Impact Players
"[Work-Life Bloom] is more multifaceted than most team-building business titles, offering solutions and observations that stem from acknowledging the interconnected opportunities and pitfalls that lie between individual members, leaders, and group efforts."
–Midwest Book Review
"Work-Life-Bloom is a refreshing take on realizing one's full potential not only in the workplace but outside as well."
–Chief Talent Officer
