More than 12,000 business books are published every year—an overwhelming choice for busy professionals. Therefore, in partnership with getAbstract, Training brings you May’s top three business books recommended to our readers.
“The Loop Approach. How to Transform Your Organization from the Inside Out” by Sebastian Klein and Ben Hughes (Campus Verlag, 2019, 231 pages; ISBN: 9783593511207. $54.54)
How do organizations manage continuous disruptions and changes? Blinkist’s Sebastien Klein and Ben Hughes provide a toolkit to help organizations transform from within. They present three modules—clarity, results and evolution—that use purpose to facilitate better self-management. This approach helps resolve conflicts, makes meetings more constructive, and provides crucial feedback. The authors reassure you that not knowing where you might end up is part of the process.
Rating (out of 10): 8
“The Advice Trap. Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever” by Michael Bungay Stanier (Page Two, 2020, 264 pages, ISBN: 9781989025758; $10.32)
Everyone hates to receive advice, but everyone loves to give it. Unfortunately, most advice is useless. To stop giving other people a piece of your mind, Michael Bungay Stanier—author of the best-selling “The Coaching Habit”—urges you to corral your “Advice Monster.” Stanier’s guidebook, which he describes as “a manual, a playbook, a studio, a dojo,” tells you how to make the transition from gratuitous meddler to helpful coach.
Rating (out of 10): 9
“Flat Army. Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization” by Dan Pontefract (Figure 1 Publishing, 2018, 344 pages, ISBN: 9781773270593; $22.16)
The old command-and-control management style still prevails, but it is as relevant to contemporary business as horse-drawn carriages are to transportation. Engage and empower will be the preferred management method in the future, as Learning professional Dan Pontefract explains. His title uses “flat” to mean equal and “army” to suggest ships moving in unison like an armada—thus envisioning people of equal status working collaboratively. While Pontefract can be obtuse (“Think of being continuous as defining your level of leadership cadence”) or even nonsensical (“I want Flat Army to become a disease within the organization”), most of his 90,000 words make solid sense, and he writes with a refreshing, straight-from-the-shoulder style.
Rating (out of 10): 7
For five-page summaries of these and more than 15,000 other titles, visit http://www.getabstract.com/affiliate/trainingmagazine
