Acclaimed author Fran Liebowitz recommended that you “think before you speak” and “read before you think.” Here’s what we’re reading right now and why we think it matters.
Leading with Dignity by Donna Hicks, Ph.D.
Dr. Hicks shares her knowledge and experience gained from an illustrious career studying, teaching, and facilitating conflict resolution in Colombia, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and the corporate world. Her groundbreaking discovery explains how “dignity violations”—interactions where negotiating parties or co-workers fail to treat each other with basic respect—are the root cause of many of the irreconcilable differences and the reason why many businesses fail. Check out our recent interview with Donna here.
Y-Size Your Business by Jason Dorsey
Millennials and Gen Zs bring a lot of value to a business through unique approaches and a next-level technological savviness that stem from being raised entirely in the digital era. In this humorous volume, Dorsey explains how employers can make the most of the younger members of the workforce and effectively integrate them into their companies. After all, “the generation gap is bigger than our baggy pants.” The big takeaway that employers who want to connect with their younger employees must take steps to satisfy their fundamental values had us nodding in agreement the entire time.
Through a witty, entertaining, and easily readable collection of personal anecdotes and pop-cultural references, Heinrichs teaches a master class on rhetoric and argumentation. A deft combination of discussions of different devices, fallacies, and strategies with familiar examples and the author’s own notes and annotations brings the oft-forgotten 3,000-year-old art form to life. As people who work to communicate as effectively as possible, we welcomed the chance to take an inventory and add some new tools to our toolbox.
Leadership Isn’t for Cowards by Mike Staver
Staver approaches leadership from a novel perspective, using a trademark combination of satirical humor, questioning and cajoling to get his points across. Humorous chapter titles, like “How much of an impact are you really having?” and “Do you really know what you’re doing?” introduce the practical wisdom gained from his long career filled with leadership roles. Staver brilliantly accomplishes his goal of teaching his readers to be bona fide leaders, while also modeling the type of creative messaging that deeply connects with audiences.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
In Sapiens, Harari undertakes the spectacular challenge of condensing the entire history of humankind into one book. The understanding that we lived a tribal, hunter-gatherer lifestyle for the majority of our evolutionary history—and are still hardwired that way—allows for a new understanding of human psychology. Building from there, Harari explains how some of the quirks of our species came to be. On top of that, Sapiens provides an example of a fascinating investigative design. By casting his net as wide as he possibly can in his exploration of the human species, Harari arrives at a novel conclusion and expands his reader’s worldview along the way.