Best Selling, Multi-Award Winning Author of

Indirect Work (2022)

The Regenerative Business (2016)

No More Feedback (2020)

Most Change Theory and Practices are based on false, error filled, and unproven premises.

“Start with the right mind, which means starting with the right paradigm or reality base.”

– Carol Sanford | Indirect Work

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Thank you for letting me be part of a great and fun discovery. This book is designed to disrupt you and give you a way to engage in deep reflection. If all goes well, you will start to question a few things.

“The intention of NMGS, which I love, is nothing short of re-alignment of the heavens. Virtually a new and liberating way of looking at civilization.”

Carol Sanford’s No More Gold Stars has turned me upside down! I came out of it 100 percent sold. Carol has been developing, testing, and expanding her approach for decades, and along the way, she has implemented it brilliantly in many places. Now she wants nothing less than to turn the whole world upside down, to change the way we teach, learn, manage people, and even govern ourselves by unleashing the unimaginable potential that each of us has within us. I dearly hope and even pray that this book will change the world. Big words, yes, but then, this is a big book. Bravo and bless you, Carol. What a job. Whoopee!

– Tom Peters, coauthor of In Search of Excellence, our greatest People First! proponent, and number one bestselling business books author for more than 25 years

Praise for Indirect Work and Carol’s Work

If you want to make a difference in or change the world, you have to be much more focused on ‘deeper’, rather than just the (easier) solutions at hand. Go deep, very deep into your core assumptions and beliefs and challenge yourself all the time. Why do you believe what you believe and what would be different if you looked at the same challenges through many different lenses and from different angles? In todays’ fast paced, complex and at times polarized world, investing in the capacity for critical thinking (capability, consciousness and culture, is necessary. Carol’s work will help grow your capacity to do that. “

– Michiel Bakker, VP Global Workplace Programs, Google

“…choose to step into the hard but rewarding work. If we make ourselves aware of what is happening inside and outside of us, learn to make sense of it, and figure out ways to alter it, then we cannot help but learn to trust ourselves. Our capacity to understand the world is innate, and with even the minimum of useful education, we can develop it ourselves. And I believe that if we are to mobilize the collective intelligence and will of our peoples to address the critical problems we face as a species, nurturing this inner work must become a primary focus of all our social institutions. “

– Carol Sanford | No More Gold Stars

FOREWORD BY Tom Peters | Author, In search of excellece

Susan Cain wrote a superb book titled Quiet. When I met her in person, the first words out of my mouth were, “Ms. Cain, you called me an idiot.” She was startled, but then I explained what I meant. “Susan, you told me that I had effectively been ignoring almost half the population—the under-attended, even scorned, introverts.”

Well, it’s happened again, “Carol Sanford, you have called me an idiot.” By which I mean, as you’ll see, that my precious insistence on people first is too limited and, at times, even counterproductive.

But let’s step back. I am 80, and I have been studying organizational effectiveness since 1970—that’s 53 years. I wrote a book called In Search of Excellence in 1982. It sold a lot of copies and became my I.D. (“the excellence guy”); subsequently I wrote 19 more books. In every one of these books my clarion call has been “people first, people first, people first.” I have said that “I don’t get it” when leaders don’t get it. An organization is its people. They are the only asset of consequence. Research says that only about 20 percent of people worldwide are engaged by their work. That is a tragedy and it’s criminal, because people who are engaged not only do better work and support their peers more effectively, they are also less likely to be raw meat for those selling radical ideas.

Well, fine and dandy, but Carol Sanford‘s new book has turned me upside down—and that is no exaggeration. I have always wanted people to be well trained. I wanted leaders to care about their teams. I wanted teammates to care about one another. For Carol, these might be good by-products, but they miss the key point.

Carol wants nothing less than to turn the world upside down, to change the way we teach, learn, manage people, even govern ourselves. She argues that for 100 years our organizing models, presumably including my own, have de facto or de jure been top down and expert driven. In other words, we’ve designed our systems so that someone further up the ladder of seniority or expertise is doing our thinking for us, and that is not good for our ability to think for ourselves. While some at the top may be more enlightened than others, in the end, de facto or de jure, it’s still top down. In creating such organizations, Carol suggests [insists!] that by failing to develop people’s ability to think for themselves, we are missing 90 percent of their potential, severely limiting their growth, and diminishing the quality of the work they individually and collectively do. We don’t need to empower people (in spite of what Tom has always insisted); we need to create the conditions for them to be learning, creating, surprising us every day. We need them, based on their own intelligence and agency, to take each task and redefine it in such a way that it becomes more valuable for the company and the people it serves, so that what results is a world-beater, a game changer.

Well, I came out of this incredible book one-hundred percent sold. It is a magnificent summa; Carol has been developing, testing, and expanding her approach for decades. Along the way, she has tested and implemented it brilliantly in many places—including a beautiful, inspiring example and case study from South Africa right after the end of apartheid that you will find described in these pages.

Yes, I’m 80, but I’m excited and overwhelmed. I’ve never read a book quite like Carol’s. My mother made me a reader by the age of five, and I’ve been reading madly ever since. For decades I have consumed vast quantities of non-fiction related to my own work. I know it may sound over-the-moon to say that Carol Sanford‘s book is changing my life—even though there’s not all that much of it left. It is dramatically changing my perspective on what I have been doing for well over the last half century: Just say no to “people first” as a way to up the engagement number well above today’s 20 percent. Instead say yes to unleashing the unimaginable magic that each of us has within us, but which has been suppressed, or at least wildly constrained, by organizational models including “enlightened” ones like my own.

Carol says 100 years of mechanical, top-down conditioning is enough. Let’s make the organizational future all about the development of human capacity. I’m not leading a fully-staffed company anymore, but by God I wish I were. I would love to turn my company upside down following Carol’s mantras. I’m not giving that many speeches anymore either, and I have vociferously asserted that my most recent book, my 20th, is my last. But I am doing scores of podcasts (and literally thousands of tweets) and chatting up professionals here and there. Carol, I promise that never again will “people first” be the emphasis of my mutterings. I will only be talking about, well, magic—tapping into and encouraging the quite extraordinary but underdeveloped potential that exists inside each and every one of us. I want to see these capacities for independent and creative thought being brought to bear on whatever is the task at hand, so that it can be re-invented in ways that will shock and make me smile.

I dearly hope and even pray that this book will change the world. Big words, yes, but, then this is a big book. Bravo and bless you Carol. What a job. Whoopee …

Tom Peters
South Dartmouth MA
12 January 2023

FOREWORD BY Tyson Yunkaporta | Author of sand talk

As a mongrel Indigene and hedge scholar from an antipodean backwater, I came late to the regenerative systems party, just before Covid broke. All the Buckminster Fullers and Gregory Batesons had already left, and no one was dancing anymore because everybody was either waiting for their turn to be the DJ or trying to buy edibles with obscure crypto currencies. Carol Sanford was still up and boogying though, and she yanked me onto the reclaimed timber dance floor with a slightly trembling but wickedly strong hand, then spun me round a few times under an upcycled disco ball.

I felt like I was trying to catch up with everyone else, learn ‘proper’ systems theory, since I’d written a book about my people’s Indigenous knowledge systems applied to contemporary contexts, and I was suddenly supposed to be an expert in all things complex and metamodern and emergent. Carol reminded me of my own contention that it was the party itself that was late—centuries late for a regenerative life embedded in land and good relation.

I noted that her many books were nudging people towards this story of the world, making meaning alongside the best people working in the worst institutions and economies. I saw a rare beast in Carol – a high-functioning contrarian with a good mind and survivable ontology. She made me laugh and I called her Aunty, because she was clearly an elder in the community I was trying to enter.

We connected very quickly and intensely, sharing a wicked sense of humor along with an understanding that respect and deference are two very different things, and that hierarchies are built for small and insecure men. Our mutual aversion to coercive psychologies was, is, and always will be the foundation of our connection.

I sometimes call her Aunty Anti-Ayn, because a) we have joked in the past that she’s the anti-Ayn Rand, although she laments that she never got the chance to write a steamy work of fiction; and b) it’s my trickster way of conferring a triple-A rating on her glorious mind. One day I’d like to feed all her books and talks to a robot and ask it to write her unborn novel. I can think of worse ghosts to let loose on the machine.

I don’t regret that Aunty began dying shortly after our relationship began, and neither does she. As The Bard says, ALS well that ends well. The act of passing between this world and ancestral ones is never an end or an absence, and spirit keeps moving and doing its work despite the mundane timelines imposed on it by church bells and spreadsheets. Entropy is a thing, but it’s not the only thing.

There are indeed more things in heaven and earth, and quite a few of them are dreamt of in my philosophy. However, just in case that’s not reality, and the universe is in fact a totally mechanical and secular space devoid of distributed intelligence and autopoiesis, Aunty Anti-Ayn has fired this Parthian shot, this last book, out into our world so she can keep speaking for a while after her mouth stops working.

It annoys me when people say ‘parting shot’, so I insist on saying Parthian. ‘Parting’ denies attribution to an ancient people who deserve to be recognized. I’ve tried throwing a spear backwards off a galloping horse, and I can tell you that’s not an easy thing to do. The Parthians also would not just depart after firing missiles behind them, but usually circled back around to repeat the action over and over until the Romans gave up and went home. The Parthian shot is a metaphor I prefer to deploy when I think of Aunty’s book and its metaphysical and ideological contexts. It comforts me to think of it as the sharp and pointy gift that keeps on giving.

The Parthians were also kind of bastards though, as people must be if they’re stupid enough to start up an empire of command and control. This is a poor long-term health choice for a culture; it results in a limited lifespan of 500 years or so. So, things are complicated when it comes to the world and the attractive but pathological ideologies that are killing it, and we need elder authority and elder discernment if we seek to make sense of it.

That’s why Aunty is here with this analysis, this call to retire the originally well-meaning discipline of behaviorism, the psychologies and methodologies of coercion and control. We all suffer under the weight of it.

She says we’re not alone.

If you can see what I see, you can see that there’s a way out.

I don’t care if that sounds exactly like what an unscrupulous guru would say, because I know Carol doesn’t have enough time left to brainwash me, rip me off, and make me do god-knows-what for her. There’s nothing in it for her now in terms of financial or ego gain, and she’s still saying the same things she’s always said. That’s how I’m certain she’s for real. Jeez, you have to die before a fella will trust you around here…

She is full of generous praise for my work and encourages me to beware of the colonizers and grifters and bullshitters. She tells me to step up into a greater role in the global regenerative community. I don’t feel like I’m ready, but she’s very supportive and persistent.

Seeking to avoid intimacy, duty, and hope (which are so much harder than self-reliance, escape, and cynicism), I deflect by making jokes about Val Kilmer, an actor who is going through the same process that she is at this time. He’s appearing in his final few films, including a sequel to Top Gun, just as Aunty is finishing her final book.

Aunty isn’t familiar with his early work in Tombstone, but she is familiar with the historical character of Doc Holliday that he plays in that film. Doc is dying of consumption but rises from his death bed to stand with his friend Wyatt Earp in a final showdown against an authoritarian mob of coercive cowboys. She’s happy to identify with Doc in this story, but more for the strong relationships throughout than the final blaze of glory in the climax of the narrative. Even though she hasn’t seen the movie, I like to imagine her quoting some of Val’s lines to me.

I’m your huckleberry.

or

You’re a daisy if you do!

She’s worried about me. She’s concerned about bad-faith scam artists taking my people’s knowledge and misrepresenting it as paleo-developmental woo, diverting millions of potential change-makers to cognitive and spiritual bypass via misplaced ancient wisdom. I assure her that’s why I always throw in a bunch of silly movie references. It’s hard to repackage something as ‘ancient and traditional’ in a new-wage workshop when it’s full of Al Pacino impressions and second-hand fart jokes. Hoo haa! She’s not convinced this is the healthiest path for me to take in my engagement with regenerative economies and cultures, but she has a nice way of telling me that. Nice, but urgent.

Sometimes our own thoughts defeat us, Tyson.

Bless her. Her words will get me in the end – they always do. They’ll get you too. She’s our huckleberry.

Not Huckleberry Finn though, because that’s racist as hell. See what I mean about the world being too complicated to navigate without leaning on the discernment of elders?

So, please outsource your discernment to my triple-A rated Aunty Carol for a while and read this book, which I see as a pretty good state of the union address for a world that seems intent on making the book of Revelations come true.

You’re a daisy if you do.

“Once you are grounded in a self-determining worldview, you make different choices, not only about how you learn, but also how you see what is possible and your own potential”

– Carol Sanford | Indirect Work

Pre-readers of No More Gold Stars had this to say.

No More Gold Stars has given me a framework to better understand the sources of my thinking so that I can move beyond my conditioning and embody my full potential. “

– Jendi Courtney, Founder/CEO of Coursey Communications 

“No More Gold Stars holds up commonly held behaviorist and humanist perspectives to clear scrutiny and offers a way to deepen consciousness around a more ancient and affirming living systems paradigm. It provides a practical and enlivening base for developing ourselves and our lifework in service to evolving the systems we care deeply about over the long time it will take to actualize them. ​”

-Harkiran Narulla, Senior Strategist, The Sunrise Project; climate lawyer, economist, and policy designer, Sydney, Australia

“Rarely have I experienced in book form anything so whole, completely encompassing, or holistic as my experience of my own First Nations cultural lived experiences. Until now, I had never experienced in English anything that effects a cosmological freedom of expression with such depth, wisdom, and discovery. No More Gold Stars offers something like my Ancestors’ celestial navigation practices—an offer of ever-new horizons unfolding.​”

– Sēini “SistaNative” Taumoepeau, Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia

“No More Gold Stars changed the way I engage with new ideas and my own learning process. I have leveled up my capacity to level up. “

– Tom Palmer, Founder, The Continuous Learning Company 

“Carol Sanford’s long-thought life’s work coalesces brilliantly in No More Gold Stars, a well-constructed, plain-language book. The intermezzo approach entices readers to become active participants and beneficiaries of the its experiences, frameworks and premises. ​”

– F. Joshua Millman, AIA, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, South Carolina

“In No More Gold Stars, the latest contribution to her invaluable body of work, Carol Sanford reveals the hidden worldview that degenerated modern society’s ability to solve our most complex and pressing existential problems. She also offers the essential antidote. If you believe that business has a critical role to play in creating a flourishing future, if you feel called to play a bigger role in the health of our social and planetary systems, and, especially, if you believe that you are already an enlightened leader, you must read this book.​”

– Lara Lee, independent director (WD-40, The Sill, Inc.), former officer (Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s), and value-adding governance and regenerative leadership advisor.

“I had to stop reading No More Gold Stars! Why? I needed to pause and reflect…a book not for absorbing ideas but for discovering ways to learn from life-long questions! A powerful instrument for shaking off mechanicalness and bringing up energy to engage in self-determining and self-managing processes as a way to lead change from a wholly different worldview! ​”

– Sidney Cano, Founding CIO, DUIT Corporation, Mexico

“No More Gold Stars is a must read for anyone who is on a mission to make our world a better place. Reading it will save you from burn out and frustration, following decades of hard work that doesn’t evolve systems in the way you hope it will. By deeply engaging in the process of self-inquiry that Sanford invites, you’ll be able to evolve past the behaviorist paradigm which is degenerating our culture, environment, democracy, and society. “

– Lauren Tucker, Lead, reNourish Studio, White Buffalo Land Trust

“No More Gold Stars is awakening so much in me. It feels very important to the world for it to be coming to the fore now. It also, no surprise, is helping me see new ways to evolve my current work. ​”

– Lauren Yarmuth, Project Lead, The Togetherness Practice, Ashoka; Executive Director, Volgenau Climate Initiative

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