Design a simple but powerful cover for a provocative business book

Title: "Unlearning Hierarchy" Subtitle: "Wie wir über unser Bild von Organisationen hinauswachsen")

Lennart Keil & Daniel Vonier

The authors are leaders at SAP, Germany's most valuable company and one of the world's largest enterprise software providers. They represent a generation that is not afraid to challenge proven assumptions and dispel established myths. Daniel Vonier leads SAP's global human resources, leadership and organizational development team. He drives the transformation of SAP's culture and shapes global talent processes with his team. Through his roles at Siemens, Deutsche Telekom and currently SAP, he brings a wealth of experience as a leader and culture expert from three of the largest and most crucial DAX-listed corporations. Lennart Keil is an organizational developer at SAP. In creative ways he helps executives, teams and organizations to break new ground. He combines his deep expertise in organizational psychology with broad practical experience as a leadership coach and HR professional. He started a grass roots initiative under the title of Unlearning Hierarchy at SAP, which has now thousands of supporters and has become part of SAP's corporate strategy.

Should we unlearn hierarchies? And is that even possible? Even before we start our first jobs, we know the basics of how organizations are supposed to work. We expect a system that functions like a machine, with leaders as heroes and humans as resources. This image of organizations is holding us back. We need to change the way we we look at organizations in order to be successful in today's interconnected, complex world. Under the provocative title "Unlearning Hierarchy", Lennart Keil and Daniel Vonier explore this learning process, the limits of rigid hierarchies, and the possibilities of more trust and self-organization. The authors do not describe a magic bullet. They see the limits of self-organization and speak authentically about their own setbacks. Especially in large organizations, it takes courage and persistence to swim against the tide. But this much is certain: once you have started down this path, you will not want to turn back.

This book is for everyone who has the feeling that the way today's organization work is outdated. And it is for those who have realized this for a long time and are pushing for change, but ask themselves why it is so hard. The books is relevant for leaders, executives, consultants, coaches human resource experts, change managers, coaches, Agile coaches and Scrum masters. Especially, we want to inspire those who work in or with organizations of more than 150 employees, as they are more complex. Since the book is in German, it is targeted at German speaking professionals. There is a huge interest in this topic in Germany with many successful books related to agility and self-organization. The book fills a gap in this existing literature. Other books describe examples of small organizations that are working in a more self-organized way, or focus on which organizational model to implement or which methodologies to use. But these books leave out the daily reality of organizations, the underlying psychology, and the challenge of changing the fundamental assumptions of thousands of people.

Paperback

The title is strong and provocative, so it should be at the center of the design. We are thinking of a simple, abstract design. Nothing too loud or photo-realistic to keep the attention with the title. Since the title is a provocation, the visual could be more subtle (see our examples in the files). Fonts rather sans-serif, modern, or a mix to show the tension and change. What are related feelings: i feel a sense of release, I overcome a barrier, I unleash my potential, I see an evolution, I learn something, I let something go Colors we envision are a bright background, white, a light color or off-white, the text in clear contrast to the background, with a few accents of color soft and warm, not too aggressive. Green, teal, light orange, rather than a dominant red. We have three rough ideas for the design: 1. The cover could be a simple cover mostly about the title, focusing on the typography. This could include a small visual embedded or connected to the title. 2. The cover could illustrate the process of dissolving, removing or breaking up a traditional organization. This process could be for example a dissolving organizational chart, or a rigid structure that becomes more open and fluid (see examples in our files). 3. The cover could illustrate the process of learning, of changing my mind, of changing my perspective, of looking at things differently. Here, we might use the visual

Anything too loud or aggressive or "in your face". The title is provocative and engaging already. If you use an organizational chart or network visual, it should have show some kind of movement or transformation. Please avoid a design that uses stairs as a visual, as this is over-used to illustrate hierarchies.