Shifting Gears: Success and Leadership Strategies for Today’s Challenging Times

by Susan Ford Collins

Less than a generation ago, typical American workers put their fates in the hands of big organizations and essentially set their careers on autopilot. The employer did the rest. It told them when to come to work and when to go home, what to do and how to do it, when they would be promoted and when they would have to wait for advancement, how to dress and how to behave in the workplace. This was, for many employees, a predictable and relatively stress-free work life.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century, forever altering the lives and expectations of American workers. Data from a workforce study commissioned by Spherion® and conducted by Harris Interactive, revealed the emergence of a new 'breed' of employees, the Emergent Workforce, who are distinguished by a set of workplace values and expectations that vary drastically from what managers have traditionally encountered.
In Shifting Gears, authors Susan Ford Collins and Richard Israel look at the change we're confronting from another angle—an angle which not only spells out the challenge but also the solution. They show us that success and leadership have three essential gears. Like skillful drivers, we must be able to use all three gears at the right time, to not just reach the destinations other people have in mind for us, but also to reach the destinations we have in mind for ourselves.
Emergent workers are beginning to operate in the three success and leadership gears defined in this book. And the workplace they will want, and demand, will need to have leaders and structures that will meet their needs in these three gears. They will choose organizations in which their gears and their employers’ will mesh...

• When they shift into 1st Gear to learn and relearn
• When they shift into 2nd Gear to produce and compete
• When they shift into 3rd Gear to create and innovate.

American workers are emerging quickly, but American companies are not. The majority of corporations, even new ones, are still operating in traditional ways. Here is the Will the workforce be able to find organizations where they can succeed, lead and be led in all three gears? Will they be able to get the support and collaboration they will need to invent the next product or technology, the next method or system that will be needed and wanted in the workplace and world?
Those answers can be found here in this book. Shifting Gears shows corporations a way to meet the needs and expectations of the new American workforce. And it shows Americans how to prepare themselves to land satisfying, fulfilling jobs.
Robert Morgan
President, Spherion Employment Solutions


“Stephen Covey, Tom Peters--now Susan Ford Collins and Richard Israel take leadership to the next level.”
Blas Garcia Moros
Microsoft Corporation

"Finally, Susan Ford Collins and Richard Israel have put together a book all present and future business executives should make required reading for all their department heads. Hats off to the writers of a very timely introspective book."
George A. Naddaff
Founder, Boston Market

“Three-Gear Leadership is the jet fuel that can propel an organization to the next level of sustainable growth.”
Anita Brick, Director MBA Career Advancement Programs
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

“After all else is stripped away, the difference between a follower and a leader is the follower lets his future be planned by others while the leader forges his own way. Susan Ford Collins and Richard Israel have written the definitive leadership manual for managing your path to success and knowing just how—and when—to change it for the optimal results.

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2010

About the author

What happens when you cross a top executive trainer and success coach with a bestselling rabbi who lost 100 pounds... and kept it off?

A miracle?
Yes, The Miracle Diet!

When Susan met Rabbi Celso Cukierkorn in a hot yoga class, little did she know that the 10 Success Skills she had been teaching in top corporations would find a new focus... weight loss! In their new book, The Miracle Diet: Lose Weight and Gain Health... 10 Diet Skills, her techniques which have been so profoundly effective in business are proving to be even more profoundly effective at achieving results in health!

Where did Susan's success journey begin?

When Susan was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, she proposed studying healthy, contributing members of society instead of ill and dysfunctional ones. And her colleagues all laughed. Committed to finding answers, she asked herself, what are Highly Success People (HSPs) doing that other people aren't? Susan shadowed outstanding individuals and teams for months at a time and discovered they were using 10 skills consistently... but unconsciously. In 1985, Collins started teaching The Technology of Success in major businesses and organizations.

"Susan spent two decades studying successful people. Now she shares with others what she has learned about leadership and management."
--- CNN, Lou Dobbs

"I learned more in a matter of hours than from all the management, leadership and team-building trainings I've taken in 18 years. And it works in my personal life too."-Carl J. Flood, VP Worldwide Management, American Express

"Susan Ford Collins is a consultant to the titans of industry."
--- Kerry Brock, Freedom Speaks,The Freedom Foundation

"One of the most enthusiastic people I've ever interviewed. I had to hold back from laughing and crying on camera. And our 5-tape video series won a Telly Award."
--- Julia Bengis, producer, Educational Management Group, Simon & Schuster