Stephen King says that if you want to be a writer, there are two things you must do: read a lot and write a lot. This is about the “read a lot” part. I include reading lists and book reviews that will help you do business more effectively and write better for business.
In this post, I point you to reviews of The Expertise Economy: How the Smartest Companies Use Learning to Engage, Compete, and Succeed, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That Is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World, and Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Plus a reading list of the books Ken Downer shares with friends.
From Skip Prichard: The Expertise Economy: How It Will Change the Way We Work
“The world of work is going through a fundamental transition. In the age of digitization, automation, and acceleration, companies have a new imperative: to build workplaces in which employees are encouraged and given the opportunity to learn new skills as a regular part of their work lives. Workers of the future must be quick to evolve, constantly developing new skills. This is what Kelly Palmer and David Blake, two top officials at Degreed, argue in The Expertise Economy: How the Smartest Companies Use Learning to Engage, Compete, and Succeed.”
From Michael McKinney: Turning Observation into Innovation
“Corporate anthropologists, like traditional anthropologists, explains Andi Simon in On the Brink, look ‘at a company as a new and unfamiliar culture’ to arrive at fresh insights.”
From Bob Morris: Bring Your Human to Work: A book review
“It is no coincidence that most of the companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and best to work for are also annually ranked among those that are most profitable and have the greatest cap value in their business segment. However different these companies may be in most respects, all of them have a workplace culture within which personal growth and professional development are most likely to thrive.”
From Wharton: ‘Winners Take All’: Can Elites Really Change the World for the Better?
“Peter Vanham, U.S. media lead for the World Economic Forum, critiques the condemnation leveled at some prominent mainstream economic ideas on how to overcome income inequality — and their supporters — in this review of the new book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by author and former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas.”
From Ken Downer: Good Books: Leadership in Action
“These are the books that I recommend to close friends. I hope you find them as helpful as I did. The books in this selection put you up close and personal with some leadership greats and let you watch over their shoulders as they show us what outstanding leadership looks like.”
Reading recommendations are a regular feature of this blog. Want more recommendations about what to read? Check out my Three Star Leadership blog, Michael McKinney’s LeadingBlog, and Skip Prichard’s Leadership Insights.