“I’ve never come across a clearer, calmer, wiser or more powerful model than this for guiding us through the complexities of life and work: Olivier and Hillman’s approach is simply a revelation. After reading it, I took a big box of leadership, management and personal development books to the charity shop: thanks to Archetypes at Work, I just don’t need them anymore. This is my one guide for the next 10 years.”

“In our company, understanding archetypes and their implications has become an integral part of our thinking regarding all team-based work and a fundamental component of our leadership development. By giving us a common language to discuss our business needs, and a framework to implement strategies to enhance our strengths and address our deficiencies, we have seen improvement in both team performance outcomes as well as team dynamics.”

“As we confront the challenge and opportunity of change in the world around us, this powerful and engaging book will help all of us to craft an exciting journey that will help to draw out much more of our potential and increase our impact. You can’t afford to miss this one!”

“It is rare that one finds a book that breaks new ground with such brilliance and relevance. Hillman and Olivier show us how, as major organs of the psyche of both self and world, archetypes give us our essential connections, and without them we would lose the gossamer bridge that joins spirit with nature, mind with body, and self with the metabody of the universe. Archetypes are organs of Essence, the cosmic blueprints of How It All Works. The dialectic inherent in the blueprint gives us the opportunity of finding our own path through the highs and lows of the 10 principal archetypes and their astrological equivalents. The authors themselves are sons of fathers who became archetypal through their celebrated lives in theatre and psychology. Thus, so wisely informed, and ingenious in their own studies and experience, they offer reflections and activating processes to manage the dilemmas of we who have grown up ignorant of the Timeless Beings who inform our lives and actions. With the help of this deeply original work, we discover that we are characters in the drama of the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World. In this discovery we push the boundaries of our own human story and gain the courage to live mythically ourselves with the character and passion to help heal our world.”

“Understanding archetypes and how they manifest in our collaborations is a window into the powerful unconscious dynamics of our organizations. Richard and Laurence have lighted a path to greater clarity on how people work together, and why we fail.”

“We are involved as part of this Earth in an evolution that is very likely unprecedented, certainly unknown in our conscious memory. To survive, simply to stay afloat with love and joy for each other, we must anchor ourselves to, or discover the flowing currents of, realities deep beneath most conscious attachments of the body and mind and heart. The ancient archetypal currents described here so playfully and usefully by Richard and Laurence are like life-saving charts to help us navigate these flooding times. We have a lot of creative positive imagining to do. We have to change ourselves, like actors in a new play. This book, this work of acting in an eternal frame, is invaluable for us all.”

“Richard’s work on archetypes has played a powerful role on the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme. Leaders come from all over the world for a week to explore the opportunity of their leadership. With Richard, they are able to reflect on their habitual strengths as well as the shadows these can cast; the archetypal approach also enables them to examine those ‘characters’ within themselves that they avoid or turn away from. The programme gives them room to rehearse a fresh archetypal repertoire to the benefit of their leadership and the future of their organizations.”

“As an executive working on a global scale, I constantly look for ways to exercise leadership with deeper awareness and greater skill. Laurence Hillman’s work has proven invaluable to me. By focusing my attention on the myriad of archetypal energies that form my internal landscape, I have become much more successful in aligning my internal resources to external reality; making me a much more mindful leader and skilful manager.”

“This is an extraordinary new way of looking at leadership – practical and powerful. For me personally and for my entire leadership team, this work has been transformational in growing a complex organization. This is the best new leadership book to come out in a very long time. If you are a leader, read it!”

“We spend the lion’s share of our productive lives at work, but so often life goes out of our work. This soul-stirring book reveals the secret of re-enlivening our thinking, leading and working by sourcing the deepest channels and patterns of intelligent life made visible as leadership capability.”