The Field Guide to Building a Human-Centered, Tech-Enabled Work Culture in New Book: The Power to Transform

Transforming people processes from clunky human capital management platforms to seamless solutions that leverage artificial intelligence for the betterment of an entire organization can feel impossible.

Larry McAlister, three-time chief human resources officer and notable HR and talent leader, addresses these issues in the newly published book, The Power to Transform: A Field Guide to Building a Human-Centered, Tech-Enabled Work Culture. The book guides leaders through a series of real-world examples of how intelligent data infrastructure company NetApp embraced the future through the understanding of one thing: To transform a business, it had to transform its culture — at the speed of the cloud.

This guidebook incorporates HR best practices and cutting-edge technology — incorporating AI, democratizing the career development process and embracing the direct connection between well-being and the bottom line — to create a 22nd-century template that leaders of all stripes can easily follow.

“I wanted to make this super easy for people by creating a template for any leader from any size company to use successfully,” McAlister said. “Sharing my perspective as a once-was lead chief architect for many Fortune 500 companies, I’ve outlined the basic steps of this ‘inside job’ so others can do the same: lead their own version of a tech-enabled, human-centered business culture transformation.”

Early reviews come from notable industry luminaries Aaron Hurst, founder of Imperative, and Jennifer Dole, director and principal analyst at 3Sixty Insights. 

“I’m in the middle of this great read by Larry McAlister who wrote a book titled The Power to Transform. I had the pleasure of meeting Larry when he ran Global TA [talent acquisition] at NetApp and he is definitely a thought leader, a technologist, and truly embraces Artificial Intelligence and the benefits it can bring to HCM.” 

  • Jason Treftz, vice president at eightfold.ai

The Power to Transform by Larry McAlister – a must for anyone in HR managing organizational change or transformation.”

  • Andy Storch, keynote speaker, trainer, founder and host of the Talent Development Think Tank Podcast, Conference & Community and author of Own Your Career, Own Your Life

The Power to Transform is available for purchase on Amazon. Bulk orders are also available. 

About Larry McAlister

A three-time CHRO, McAlister is distinguished as a career-long innovator and natural-born leader in the HR space. Most recently serving as VP of global talent at NetApp and named a Top 50 Human Resources Professional (OnConferences, 2021), he consistently is sought after to bring transformation and thought leadership, including evolving HR itself, as needed. 

Having led HR and talent at five tech-focused, fast-growing companies, including three Bay Area Fortune 500 companies — each with at least $1B in global revenue and at least 3,000 – 12,000 employees worldwide — his current passion is to bring decades of change management insights to growth-minded business leaders at this pivotal point in career management and leadership development history. 

McAlister currently runs The Corporate Humanist Consultancy (CHC), advising on tech-based products-in-development and helping CHROs and growth-minded leaders build cohesive and transformative talent strategies, coupled with HR technology, to drive transformation. He served as product advisor for three HR tech companies. He lives in Northern California with his wife, and two adult children nearby.

McAlister is a seasoned speaker and notable industry expert. Most recently he delivered the closing keynote at the 2023 HR Technology Conference and Expo, Unleash World 2023 and Silicon Valley TechRecruit Conference 2023. Connect with him on LinkedIn and learn more at larrymcalisterbook.com.

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