Management-Business – Page 10 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

By Scott J. Pearson | December 13, 2022December 13, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Today’s world is an increasingly complex place. Many of us feel like we live disintegrated lives and are pulled in many directions. Yet people who have the highest societal impact tend to have the ability to focus, and throughout the centuries, writers like Henry David Thoreau have reminded us to simplify instead of complicate. In this book, McKeown seeks to convey these timeless philosophical lessons in a more contemporary format, geared around modern business lives…

HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need

By Scott J. Pearson | December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Education invests over a decade into teaching youth about life and their speciality, but the need to learn does not stop with graduation. In some ways, it’s just starting. The wise learn how to learn in their organization and community. This allows them to adapt and advance over time. This collection of essays, written by business leaders and compiled by the Harvard Business Review, initiates and inspires learners in their quest to benefit from those…

Management-Business

The Six Secrets of Raising Capital: An Insider’s Guide for Entrepreneurs

By Scott J. Pearson | November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

A certain mystique accompanies being the leader and founder of a company. That aura can help the leader maintain her/his position, but being new to a job can also become intimidating. Not everyone has a mentor to assist either. Add in the problem of recruiting investors, and a business leader can easily become overwhelmed. In this book, Fisher seeks to address and help that very audience so that their businesses can succeed over the long…

Management-Business Writing-Communication

The Business of Being a Writer

By Scott J. Pearson | November 27, 2022November 27, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Many people instinctively relate writing with a life of poverty. The impression is that majoring in English literature instead of, say, engineering will forecast a worse economic existence down the road. The “starving artist” stereotype thus comes into play. In this book, Friedman disagrees with this simplistic approach. She shows the many career paths that writing can take, including some more lucrative ones. She thus empowers readers (who are writers!) to make informed decisions about…

Biography-Memoir Management-Business

The Snowball: Warren Buffett & the Business of Life

By Scott J. Pearson | November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Warren Buffett and his investment corporation Berkshire Hathaway are the stuff of legends. He grew an investment portfolio from just over $100,000 into a $100+ billion enterprise over several decades. He invested primarily in businesses that were undervalued when he bought them but rose in value in the years after he bought them. His investments routinely outperformed the market, often by double-digit percentages. He lived in a humble house in Omaha, Nebraska, and eschewed many…

Management-Business Mentoring

Mid-Career Crisis: Why Some Sail Through While Others Don’t

By Scott J. Pearson | November 12, 2022November 12, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Early career development gets the bulk of social attention, and rightly so because starting a career takes work. Failure to do so can lead to vast social and economic consequences. But the middle of a career also deserves some attention, as Basu points out in this book. It has its own host of crises. Successful resolution of these can lead to even greater career fulfillment in later days; failure to resolve these, however, can lead…

Management-Business Mentoring

The Mentor’s Toolkit for Career Conversations

By Scott J. Pearson | October 10, 2022October 10, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Many students and people in their early careers need to learn how to think and act about careers. To them, learning this understanding can be an “elephant in the room” holding them back from achieving their goals – and personal happiness. Mentoring is one way to help these people get their lives on track. This tool is especially used in educational settings. However, mentoring is harder than it first appears. To help mentee-mentor relationships get…

Fiction-Stories Management-Business

Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (& Their Employees)

By Scott J. Pearson | October 5, 2022October 5, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Most people fear having a miserable job, and some are stuck in this predicament. Even jobs with nice enticements like fame and money can leave employees feeling unfulfilled by meaninglessness. One person has a disproportionately large impact on this situation: the manager. She/he can help employees find meaning in their work. In this book, Lencioni describes how managers can gift this to their employees… and achieve better results along the way. Lencioni has written another…

Leadership Management-Business

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster & Smarter

By Scott J. Pearson | September 29, 2022September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Starting any new job is tough, and the pressure cooker is even hotter if the job involves leadership of some sort. There’s simply so much history and dynamics that the new leader is unaware of and so many new difficulties that have not been surmounted. Yet leaders are responsible for lots, and their actions can impact how hundreds of thousands of dollars – if not millions – are spent. How can we improve the chances…

Management-Business Mentoring

How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up

By Scott J. Pearson | September 3, 2022September 3, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Modern culture sometimes has hard-to-shake core beliefs. The social mores tend to suggest that workers specialize (or sub-specialize) in one thing. We expect people to define themselves by their work, and their work must consist of one main task or calling. That’s easy for people who are good at only one thing or favor/enjoy only one thing. However, some of us have trouble fitting into that mold. We do multiple things well and enjoy the…