Books to Gift this Holiday Season

​Reboot: The Art of Growing Up (Harper Business, 2019)

You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life (Gallery Books, 2019)

​Why Are We Yelling? The Art of Productive Disagreement (Portfolio, 2019)

Despite the title, this isn’t a spot-on description of that last family reunion, but instead a thoughtful and empowering guide to understanding our own biases and how conflict can actually be a source of introspection, growth and joy. In Why Are We Yelling?, Buster Benson, an expert in facilitating challenging conversations in demanding environments, explains how arguments happen, how to handle them and how to resolve them. Try as we might, no one can completely avoid conflict, but anyone can learn how to argue better and more productively. Benson also reveals the psychological underpinnings of awkward, unproductive conflict and the critical habits anyone can learn to avoid it. Provocative as it is enlightening, and backed by brain science, Why Are We Yelling? offers fresh approaches to conflict and connection. 

​What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture (Harper Business, 2019)

Workplace thought leader Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Here, Ben Horowitz, best-selling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Harper Business, 2014), suggests that it’s the assumptions organizations use to make decisions that truly drive culture. Horowitz brings this to life by highlighting four formidable models of leadership and culture building—including the leader of the only successful slave revolt, the Samurai, who shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, whose reputation precedes him; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who transformed prison culture. Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case studies and offers guidance to help any enterprise build and sustain a successful culture, even amid the most daunting conditions.

​The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life (Harper Business, 2019)

As the title suggests, author Todd Herman shows readers how to create an alter ego character to maximize their potential. It’s a deceptively simple concept at first blush, but this isn’t a book about how to “fake it till you make it.” Instead, Herman implores us to find our inner superhero, an alter ego who can accomplish the seemingly impossible. He shows us how to find the very best version of ourselves at the most important moments of impact and equips us with the tools to show up as that person over and over until it becomes, well, you! The Alter Ego Effect presents a practical, relatable, simple but not simplistic, and most of all easy-to-implement methodology for channeling your inner superhero.

​Connect First: 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning and Joy at Work (McGraw-Hill Education, 2019)

Dr. Melanie Katzman’s book contends that durable relationships are the bedrock of enduring success, meaning and joy at work, and in Connect First, she generously offers readers research-based, relatable and reliable approaches (52 to be exact) to connect to yourself, your organization and the world around you and to develop the bonds that make a real difference. These are the same potent techniques she has used with leaders and employees as a clinical psychologist and corporate consultant at the world’s top companies. With compassion and clarity, Katzman delivers a book with a treasure trove of tools for “igniting success, meaning and joy at work.”

​Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count (Gallery Books, 2018)

A longtime Silicon Valley communicator, collaborator and connector, author Karen Wickre reflects on her lifelong interest in making meaningful connections and building a “brain trust” for life. A self-proclaimed introvert, Wickre writes not just for introverts, but for anyone who finds the work of networking to be awkward and off-putting. This book shows readers how to embrace their quiet nature and “make genuine connections that last and that we can nurture across the world for all kinds of purposes.” A delight to read cover to cover, Taking the Work Out of Networking is a practical guide to developing a lifelong habit of establishing and, most importantly, maintaining connections based on generosity and thoughtfulness.

​Extinguish Burnout: A Practical Guide to Prevention and Recovery (SHRM, 2019)

Who hasn’t suffered at one time or another from exhaustion, cynicism and a lack of effectiveness? But combine them over time and you’re flirting with a disaster of catastrophic magnitude: burnout. Defined as the depletion of personal agency (the apparatus driving our ability to initiate and execute actions), burnout effectively wipes out our ability to be effective, much less engaged. And the cost of burnout is astronomical in all its forms and phases, including the profound and lasting effects it has on employees and workplace cultures. Through extensive research and real-world stories and examples, workplace culture experts Rob and Terri Bogue take a deep dive into the signs, sources and solutions of burnout and deliver an essential resource that will help anyone identify, prevent and recover from it.

Solve Employee Problems Before They Start: Resolving Conflict in the Real World (SHRM, 2019)

With compassion, clarity and conviction (and a dash of comedy for good measure) popular speaker and employment law attorney Scott Warrick distills conflict resolution to three simple moves: Empathic Listening, Parroting and Rewards (EPR). Because no one can use their EPR skills unless they can control themselves, he also shows readers how to become an Emotionally Intelligent communicator, because mental toughness is a critical component in resolving conflict. The formula is simple: If you can control yourself, you can learn and master EPR skills to resolve any conflict in any situation, and build durable trust with others in your personal life and throughout your organization.