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 Unsafe Thinking: How to Be Nimble and Bold When You Need It Most, What’s Your Digital Business Model?, Life of the Party: The Remarkable Story of How Brownie Wise Built, and Lost, a Tupperware Party Empire, and Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—And What We Can Do About It,
From Michael McKinney: Unsafe Thinking: How to Get Out of Your Rut
“In Unsafe Thinking: How to Be Nimble and Bold When You Need It Most, Jonah Sachs walks us through six key components of unsafe thinking and practices that will help us to overcome our reluctance to use them.”
From Wharton: How to Make Disruption Work
“Playing it safe no longer gets results in the business world, especially with so many startups seeking to disrupt the status quo. But innovative thinking can be tough for those unaccustomed to stepping outside their comfort zones. Jonah Sachs, founder and CEO of Free Range Studios, has assembled an instructive collection of stories about trailblazers who took it to the next level and found success.”
From Skip Prichard: What’s Your Digital Business Model?
“Peter Weill and Stephanie L. Woerner’s new book, What’s Your Digital Business Model?, provides a strategic framework for thinking about these issues. Peter is a Senior Research Scientist and Chair of the Center for Information Systems Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Stephanie is also Research Scientist at the same institution with a specialty focusing on how companies manage organizational change caused by digital disruption.”
From Kevin Eikenberry: Life of the Party
“I am guessing you have used or at least seen a piece of Tupperware. Chances are you don’t know much about the creation of the product or its creator, Earl Tupper. It is even less likely you know anything about Brownie Wise, the builder the Tupperware Party process; the process that made Tupperware a household name. This book is the biography of Brownie Wise, a divorced mother who helped create the Tupperware empire, and then lost it all.”
From the Economist: The stress that kills American workers
“WORK can make you sick and shorten your life. That is the argument of a hard-hitting book* by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In an obvious way, that claim is outdated. Health-and-safety rules help explain why deaths from accidents in American workplaces fell by 65% between 1970 and 2015. But one problem has not gone away: stress. As many as 80% of American workers suffer from high levels of stress in their job, according to a survey entitled “\’Attitudes in the American Workplace’. Nearly half say it is so debilitating that they need help”
And, from Michael McKinney: First Look: Leadership Books for September 2018.
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.