The More Capable series
Three trade books for early-career managers on the one job AI cannot take: deciding, and standing behind the decision.
Book one · under review
Judgment Call
How great managers decide what AI cannot. Framing, evidence, context, values, and accountability: AI can assist each and own none.
Book two · in draft
Lead What Lasts
Organizational design after generative AI. Every org chart is a theory of what carries load; the AI flattening is demolition without a load test.
Book three · outlined
Unreplaceable
Growing the talent AI can't replace: hire for, assign toward, pay for, and keep what appreciates.
News, excerpts, and the Saturday newsletter: morecapableseries.com.
The DART Diamond series
For founders: the talent operating system, one quadrant at a time.
Book one · in progress
Built for the First Inning
How founders direct, attract, reward, and teach their first team. Strategy first, then the skills for jobs one through ten, then a monthly loop back to the start.
The framework
The DART model
Direct and Deploy, Attract and Assess, Reward and Retain, Teach and Transform. The four multiply rather than add, and it began in a 2007 survey of HR leaders.
The series home, with the books, the Alpha Start workbook, and the podcast: thedartdiamond.com.
Textbooks
Written for faculty preparing the next generation of managers, and current through 2026.
Compensation · 2026
Compensation: Rewarding and Retaining Talent
California Edition. A working reference for the compensation course, with pay-scale disclosure, wage-and-hour rules, and the 2026 exempt salary floor integrated throughout.
Management · 2026
Management: Optimizing Talent for Organizational Effectiveness
A principles-of-management text organized around the DART model, with a generative AI section in every chapter and a full instructor package.
For instructors
Review copies and adoption materials go out the same week you ask. Instructor review copies Full textbook details →
Earlier books
- 2024 The Five Functions of Effective Management, Third Edition, with Donald Baack.
- 2010 Outsourcing Human Resource Activities: Measuring the Hidden Costs and Benefits.