Leadership Management-Business

The Socially Intelligent Project Manager: Soft Skills that Prevent Hard Days

Many technical people speak negatively about soft skills as if hard skills are the only things required for professional success. However, especially in the realm of management, people skills can make or break projects. Keeping people happy means making lives function. How can we leverage making people naturally cheery towards the productive growth of projects? Wasson directly addresses these questions in this business book. So-called “emotional intelligence” came into vogue through Daniel Goleman’s book in…

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Management-Business

The #PACE Process for Early Career Success 

An individual’s early career often sets the trajectory for future success, for better or for worse. Yet during this time, the path to success is almost universally less clear, and obstacles abound. Young professionals need mentoring and solid advice to advance, but hard-to-access options to get aid can conflict with each other. Now, a post-pandemic climate leaves remote and hybrid work environments where interpersonal interactions are less frequent. In this book, Zides tries to coach…

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Management-Business Software-Technology

Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Personal Life & Unlock Your Creative Potential

In the last few decades, computers and the Internet have provided humans with new access to untold masses of information. Humans are just now catching up on how to use this information for our own good. The technology needs to make our lives easier and more productive, not less so. Fortunately, first-time author Tiago Forte points the way to use these tools to aid creativity. In book form, he teaches a method that he’s shared…

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Management-Business Presentation

The Public Relations Handbook

I do not work in the field of public relations but rather work with others that do. Thus, I have a vested interest in learning about their work without going through educational certifications. Further, I’m always eyeing ways to spotlight the positives of my work in an open and tactful manner to interested audiences. This compilation of articles by leading figures addresses a variety of core issues in PR and shows where the field has…

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Leadership Management-Business Society

All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion that Delivers Results

Historically, diverse workplaces – for various reasons – have out-competed workplaces with less complex cultures. Especially after the social movements surrounding the untimely death of George Floyd in 2020, American employees have increasingly demanded their employers to take diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) into its management practices. As the American workforce becomes more diverse, it’s hard not to believe that these trends represent the future. However, many business attempts to address these issues only…

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Economics Management-Business

The Innovator’s Hypothesis: How Cheap Experiments are Worth More than Good Ideas

Empiricism and the scientific method have had some positive impact on the practice of business. Most people recognize the market as a great external object of study, yet scientific impact on innovation is usually limited and relegated to the domain of hunches by analytic experts. For their part, business schools tend to crank out expert planners and analysts, but do not expressly delve into experimentation. Schrage thinks that is a mistake and writes this book…

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Management-Business

Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive.

Workers commonly judge their professional selves by their job title, salary, or position on the organization’s hierarchy. Unfortunately, only so many people can receive promotions. Thus, managers cannot reward everyone on the team with success. How should they manage and develop careers then when not everyone is immediately moving towards high placement? Winkle Giulioni suggests a paradigm shift in management thinking towards alternative dimensions of career development, something she calls the “seven C’s.” Contribution, competence,…

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Management-Business Presentation

Pitch Like Hollywood: What You Can Learn From the High-Stakes Film Industry

Pitching, a core business practice, involves marketing an idea to a potential collaborator. Because thousands or millions of dollars can depend on a ten-minute presentation – or less – mastering every element of this type of presentation significantly benefits those who sell their ideas for a living. Desberg and Davis use their experiences coaching people in the film industry in Hollywood, an especially demanding domain, to bring these pitches to life. First, the good. The…

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Biography-Memoir History Leadership Politics

My Life by Bill Clinton

The name Bill Clinton evokes several reactions among people, each with its own emotional subtext: economic prosperity, partisan conflict, sexual misconduct, and international peacemaking. In a long history of American presidential memoirs, Clinton adds his to the list in this book. It is lengthy, thoughtful, and carefully crafted. He attempts to provide insight into himself and his leadership while advocating for the policies his administration enacted during his presidency. I was a Republican teenager from…

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Management-Business

Influence & Impact: Discover & Excel at What Your Organization Needs From You the Most

Happiness at one’s job is certainly one of the most important aspects of life. Indeed, well-being alone can be a gateway to fantastic success, and lack thereof, a recipe for disaster. In this book, job coaches Berman and Bradt analyze how to find the right interface between you and your job – and if necessary, to change jobs in the process. Many people look to a job description as the way to find out what…

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