Sylver Consulting founder Brianna Sylver focuses her debut on helping leaders navigate times of change with grace and resolve.

“Everybody always wants transformation, but no one actually wants to do the work of change,” she writes. And she should know: Sylver has worked through times of change both within her consultancy and alongside the organizations she advises. These efforts are included as case studies.

Change is inevitable, she notes, as is the ensuing messiness; dealing with human beings and their emotions always raises complications and sometimes challenges. Her approach involves leading with kindness: She views herself as a “Care Bear of love,” operating from a place of compassion and belief in the basic goodness of those with whom she works.

Much of the book centers on shifting mindsets for success, both the readers’ minds and their teams or clients. Sylver particularly shines in her cheery, encouraging tone, and in her pithy, memorable phrasing: “Take the posture of a question-asker rather than that of an order-taker” she advises readers when faced with hard questions and clients who are sure they already know the answer. “When you lean in with curiosity and probe with a healthy dose of skepticism, you walk away with a full understanding of what the team wants to accomplish.”

Her chapters have peppy titles like “Slay Energy Vampires” and “Tame the Skeptics,” keeping readers engaged. Highly logistical and process-driven (e.g., managing timeline change requests; how to assess changes to a project’s “ecosystem” after a leadership shift, etc.), this will be a helpful guide for people who find themselves in hot water or in a time of scary change and need a kind, clear path forward.

The title is a bit misleading; the book focuses more on managing change than it does times of crisis. As long as the right readers find the book, they will find it a useful guide in navigating the challenging waters of change.