Management-Business – Page 13 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

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

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

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…

Economics Management-Business

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

By Scott J. Pearson | January 26, 2022January 26, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Management-Business

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

By Scott J. Pearson | January 19, 2022January 19, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

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,…

Management-Business Presentation

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

By Scott J. Pearson | January 16, 2022January 16, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Biography-Memoir History Leadership Politics

My Life by Bill Clinton

By Scott J. Pearson | January 9, 2022September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Management-Business

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

By Scott J. Pearson | December 27, 2021December 27, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Management-Business Psychology Software-Technology

No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration

By Scott J. Pearson | November 21, 2021November 21, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

I wanted to read this book because I frequently saw it cited in contemporary business and management books. It talks at length about how to foster creative collaboration through the use of technology. It presaged a vision of a workplace with abundant computerized interactions. More impressively, it did so without foreseeing most of the impact of the Internet. Of course, the technologies described in this book are dated. Indeed, most of them are now in…

Management-Business Research-Education Writing-Communication

The Only Grant-Writing Book You’ll Ever Need

By Scott J. Pearson | November 13, 2021November 13, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

Many small businesses, non-profits, individual researchers, and larger institutions depend on grants to fund their activities and livelihoods. Whether from private foundations or governmental entities, these funds are given through a competitive process. Through market forces, this process seeks to align funders’ desires with projects that achieve results. This book seeks to demystify this process and provide readers with a “leg up” to write better grant proposals. Karsh and Fox’s work is primarily geared towards…

Economics Management-Business Religion-Philosophy

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

By Scott J. Pearson | October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Scott J. Pearson

For my job, I work in a technical field with high-level people in medical research who make important decisions that impact many. Thus, though I am not a primary decision-maker, anything I can do to better understand their mindsets and the impact of their decisions benefits my organization and my career. It is with this perspective that I approach this book. In it, Taleb uses a rare philosophical approach to business by addressing how we…

Biography-Memoir History Leadership

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream by Doris Kearns Goodwin

By Scott J. Pearson | September 6, 2021September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Former US President Lyndon Johnson is one of the more difficult to understand presidents. He reached the heights of politics through an assassination. He changed America permanently through the Civil Rights Acts of 1964-5. Pragmatically, he attempted to build a nation based on equal opportunity through the Great Society. He had an unparalleled genius for administrative leadership in the Senate and Oval Office. Yet he led the nation down a horrific course in Vietnam and…