More than 11,000 business books are published every year—an overwhelming choice for busy professionals. Therefore, in partnership with getAbstract, Training brings you December’s top three business books recommended to our readers.
“Servant Leadership in Action. How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results” by Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2018, 288 pages, ISBN: 9781523093960; $26.95)
The beguiling concept of servant leadership has confused people ever since Robert K. Greenleaf first coined the term in his influential 1970 essay, “The Servant as Leader.” Many people mistakenly think that servant leaders are subservient cream puffs. Not true: Servant leaders have to be tough-minded people with impressive discipline, personal strength, and enough backbone to decide to put others first. In their enlightening book, editors Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell showcase insightful and inspirational essays on servant leadership, often with a strong Christian perspective. If you find spiritual approaches to management issues helpful and interesting—and especially if you share the authors’ faith—you’ll find this leadership manual uplifting and useful.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 8
Style: 8
“Blended Learning. What Works in Talent Development Series” by Jennifer Hofmann (ATD Publications, 2018, 208 pages, ISBN: 9781562860981; $34.95)
Traditional corporate learning quickly is evolving into “blended learning” due to developments in digital offerings and the preferences of today’s corporate learners. They don’t want “push training” about doing the same old things in the same old ways. Corporate learners embrace blended learning as a more engaging “pull” strategy that lets them learn on their own terms—however, whenever, and wherever they want. Blended-learning pioneer Jennifer Hofmann explains best practices, offers useful tips, and provides worksheets and tools for planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating blended-learning programs.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 8
Style: 8
“WorkParty: How to Create & Cultivate the Career of Your Dreams” by Jaclyn Johnson (Gallery Books, 2018, 256 pages, ISBN: 9781501190834; $25.99)
Create & Cultivate Founder and CEO Jaclyn Johnson says you can succeed if you combine hard work with your passion. In her terms, that combination is a “WorkParty”—her version of the traditional American dream. Johnson was at the forefront of blogging and social media marketing before hashtags went viral. Already earning six figures in her 20s, Johnson moved to California and saw that many firms weren’t ready for the new media world. Her career crashed in 2008 with the dot-com economy, so she opened her own firm. Her informal, talk-to-a-girlfriend writing style offers hashtags and texting shortcuts galore, but Johnson also includes important basics on the reality of creating a business.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 8
Style: 8
For five-page summaries of these and more than 15,000 other titles, visit http://www.getabstract.com/affiliate/trainingmagazine
