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The Hope Advantage

How Leaders Build Belief That Makes Change Possible

9781960259790
172 pages
Bookpress Publishing
Overview

In 2007, as the first iPhone launched, I was a young retail leader on the front lines of what would become one of the most transformative technological revolutions in history. Customers waited for hours to secure their new device only to return days later furious that networks had failed under unprecedented demand. Inside stores, no answers were quick or easy. There was pressure, confusion, and a leadership playbook that no longer seemed to work.

It was an inflection point not just for technology, but for leadership.

The Hope Advantage begins in this moment and expands to confront the reality every leader now faces. No longer is change episodic; it is constant, exponential, and it impacts every area of life. The conditions once described as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous are no longer exceptions to the rule; they are the operating environment. But the change itself is not the problem. We've lost the belief in our ability to shape what comes next. When you believe a better future is possible, that you have the power to help create it, and that you don't need a perfect plan to start, this is hope—a practical leadership framework built on the three interconnected disciplines of Direction, Ownership, and Movement.

Blending behavioral science, leadership philosophy, and lived executive experience, The Hope Advantage introduces a distinct and timely thesis that belief, not strategy, is the primary hurdle to change. It offers leaders not just a new way to think, but a practical framework immediately applicable to the transformations they're already implementing.

Author Bio
Jen Asplund spent twenty years within Fortune 200 companies leading the work most leaders try to avoid: turnarounds, shutdowns, billion-dollar overhauls, and the human reality of moving thousands of people in a new direction. She spent most of her time at AT&T and RTX, leading teams as small as two and as large as 12,000 through large-scale change. The work taught her that strategy is easy; real change is more complicated. Jen left her corporate career in 2025 to build Asplund Leadership Consulting, where she coaches C-suite and senior executives on the ways change moves through a system. The Hope Advantage is the book she wishes she'd had when she was managing those transformations.Jen holds an MBA from DePaul University and is an ICF-credentialed coach. She lives in Iowa with her husband Aric, their two children, and their Goldendoodle, Dash. Her faith has shaped both her leadership and her life—she’s not fearless, she’s faithful, and through cultivating hope in others, she has discovered that not only is a better future possible, but you have the power to create it.