Ideas and Writings

Books by Saj-nicole Joni

Inspired by her work as a CEO adviser, Saj-nicole has written two books — The Right Fight: How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive Performance, Innovation, and Value (co-authored with Damon Beyer; HarperBusiness) and The Third Opinion: How Successful Leaders Use Outside Insight to Create Superior Results. Saj-nicole shares wisdom gleaned from her long-established ‘third opinion’ practice.

The Right Fight

The Right Fight, the new management guide from noted business strategists Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, turns management thinking on its head and shows why, in the fast-moving, hyper-competitive marketplaces of the 21st century, leaders need to both foster alignment and orchestrate thoughtful controversy in their organizations to get the best out of them. The authors’ groundbreaking research—including examples as diverse as Unilever, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Dell, the Clinton Administration, and the Houston Independent School System—shows that happy workers can become bored or complacent and thus less productive than workers who are subjected to a little properly managed tension. Readers of Good to Great and Winning, as well as the Harvard Business Review and Strategy + Business, will find much to ponder in The Right Fight.

Quick Links

Jack’s Right Fight

Strategy + Business | February 2010 | Download PDF

How to Pick a Good Fight by Saj-nicole A. Joni and Damon Beyer

Harvard Business Review | November 2009 | Download PDF

The Third Opinion

No matter where you stand on the corporate ladder, being a leader in today’s business world is a tough, sometimes even isolating experience. Of course, there are many people you can turn to for advice. First, youíll certainly get an opinion from your closest co-workers. You may then turn to colleagues (inside or outside the company) for a second opinion. But there is another opinion—the third opinion—that most people never ask for, and it is the most important one of all. In The Third Opinion, Saj-nicole Joni explains how everyone from CEOs and senior executives to department heads and managers can create a loyal and diverse inner circle of advisers, experts, mentors, confidants, and thinking partners, all eager to offer their unvarnished insight at a moment’s notice. What can your inner circle offer that other networks can’t? Outside insight—the most trustworthy, loyal, unbiased perspective that exists. You can’t create the undivided loyalty of outside insight solely within the confines of your organization, and it cannot be bought. Rather, it’s a result of developing powerful reciprocal relationships. The Third Opinion is the first book to examine how anyone can develop this vital but often overlooked key to reaching and sustaining peak performance.

Quick Links

The Geography of Trust

Harvard Business Review | March 2004

Get a Third Opinion

American Way Magazine | May 2005 | Download PDF