Management-Business – Page 15 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

By Scott J. Pearson | December 26, 2020September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

In this work, Goodwin charts the lives of four influential US Presidents – Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Having written leading biographies previously of each of these, she combines her insights to profile the character of leadership, at least in an American form. She distills prior deep study of these presidents into an interwoven narrative that highlights how their personal narratives enabled them to meet the challenges of their times…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Guide to Software Projects for Business People

By Scott J. Pearson | November 14, 2020November 14, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

The business of making software is fairly unique. Software does not follow a traditional assembly-line process, but still borrows from many sources of theory to guide its production. Some projects follow a “waterfall” plan, and others follow an “agile” methodology; a wide array of differently named tests populates discussions. Crosby seeks to unify disparate voices such as these in one place and so to inform us of the business-side of software development. The author is…

Management-Business Science

Diversity in the Workplace: Eye-Opening Interviews to Jumpstart Conversations about Identity, Privilege, and Bias

By Scott J. Pearson | September 30, 2020September 30, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Issues exposing unconscious bias have gripped my home country, the United States of America. Books like this help us address these issues in quiet pages before they escalate onto the street. Williams collects interviews from a diverse group of people in the workplace. Together, these can serve as ways for workers to understand their colleagues nearby. She groups these interviews into five parts: Race, women, LGBTQ+, age and ability, and religion and culture. The latter…

Biography-Memoir History Leadership

His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope

By Scott J. Pearson | September 6, 2020September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The recently deceased congressman John Lewis has been a public light to the United States for over fifty years. Nicknamed “the conscience of Congress,” he courageously campaigned for civil rights since a college student in Nashville. The author Jon Meacham, surely one of America’s greatest biographers, writes this history of Lewis’ doings in the 1960s. With extreme acuity, gravity, and imagery, he captures what the civil rights movement resembled on the inside. In so doing,…

Management-Business Research-Education

Managing the Research University by Dean O. Smith

By Scott J. Pearson | July 23, 2020July 23, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

In traditional Oxford University Press fashion, this book communicates an “all you need to know” about being a Chief Research Officer at a research university. It attempts to catalogue the disparate parts of administering research. Much of the knowledge and wisdom in this field is broken up into different segments – like legal, administrative/management, marketing, and laboratory. This book attempts to bring all of this information into one place based off of sweat-earned experience. Research…

Cybersecurity Management-Business Software-Technology

Cybersecurity: Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

By Scott J. Pearson | July 16, 2020November 23, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

As an IT professional, I do not reside in the intended audience of this book. It is geared towards business leaders, not software developers. It provides a high-level and non-technical overview of the field of cybersecurity. Through several authors, it makes the case that cybersecurity cannot be overlooked by all C-suite executives, even in non-technology-based companies. That case is underscored by the direct impact cybersecurity has on a business’ bottom line. Having in-depth technical experience…

Management-Business Writing-Communication

Blog for Bucks: How to Create, Promote, and Profit from Your Blog

By Scott J. Pearson | June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

The author Bodnar is a professional blogger and freelance writer. She maintains several blogs and operates in several roles – like a ghostwriter for blogs and for books, an author of books, and a maintainer of for-profit blogs. She distills wisdom from her experiences as she teaches how to blog. She covers everything from the basics of blogging to writing effective copy, from earning money from your blog to garnering a readership. She also includes…

Biography-Memoir History Leadership Society

Grant by Ron Chernow

By Scott J. Pearson | May 25, 2020September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

This Memorial Day is appropriate to celebrate one of our nation’s forgotten saviors. Although Lincoln is often credited with guiding the nation’s rebirth by preserving the Union, none of this would have happened without Ulysses S. Grant’s leadership. Still, Grant is often denigrated as an inept drunk and a butcher of soldiers. This view simply was not shared among his contemporaries who viewed his grace in Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse as foundational in national…

Management-Business Psychology

StrengthsFinder 2.0: Discover Your CliftonStrengths

By Scott J. Pearson | April 30, 2020May 1, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

I picked up this book because a group at work was discussing their strengths, and I wanted to take the survey to devote some thought to how I might work with them better. Don Clifton, a workplace psychologist, identified these 34 atomized strengths and developed a questionnaire to help individuals find their personal preferred strengths. Among the 34 are themes like Belief, Communication, Significance, Responsibility, Woo, and Context. First, some important financial advice. If you…

Management-Business

Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable

By Scott J. Pearson | April 16, 2020April 16, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This book, almost 35 years old, still distills how to manage a crisis better than any other book known to me. It covers basics like damage control and crisis communication. More importantly, by providing plentiful examples from American government and business, it covers how to identify, isolate, and then manage crisis-level events that threaten one’s professional or personal life. In a prior life, Fink served as an advisor to a United States governor. That wide-open,…