Two Marketing Moms distills key insights from business books, podcasts, TED Talks, and MasterClasses to help you grow professionally. Here are our favorite resources on leadership, marketing, creativity, and career growth.
Demonstrates what nonprofit marketers have known all along — how marketing can be a force for change through the use of empathy, connection, and emotional labor.
The bestselling author and member of the Marketing Hall of Fame, Seth Godin recaps many of his original concepts explored in some of his best-loved library of 18 books. He challenges marketers as agents of change to be a driver of the market by identifying their smallest viable audience, those that they can serve best, and solve their problem. It's about meaningfully and personally connecting to the people that want it and bringing positive change into their lives.
"The smallest viable market makes sense because it maximizes your chances of changing a culture. The core of your market, enriched and connected by the change you seek to make, organically shares the word with the next layer of the market. And so on. This is people like us."
Sales and sales-related activities make up about 40% of our jobs, or 24 minutes of every hour, according to Daniel Pink, human behavior expert and author of four NYT bestsellers. In his new MasterClass, Pink teaches science-backed principles for effective sales and persuasion in 16 jam-packed video lessons.
This book provides a quick recap of all the central marketing concepts with a simplified version of the marketing funnel in three phases — before, during and after the customer journey as you move from prospect to lead to customer. For those new to marketing or wanting a quick refresh, the 1-Page Marketing Plan will help you speed up implementation and focus on those activities that deliver the most value.
Download your copy at 1pmp.com.
"Good marketing takes the prospect through a journey that covers the problem, the solution and, finally the proof."
GS&P's founders provide wonderful insights based on their four decades of experience creating some of the most iconic advertising.
Baldwin emphasizes keeping your brand values authentic and articulate for a more intimate way to spread your message and reach new audiences. Next time you find yourself in a sales position remember "near and dear while crystal clear", keeping your message near to your heart and staying clear on those values.
Dan White covers the various aspects of marketing from brand development to measurement with simplified prose and supporting visualizations that help explain some of the more complex marketing concepts. A must-read for newcomers to the industry and a solid reminder for seasoned veterans.
Junior by Thomas Kemeny is a book that celebrates "the years in the trenches" that will have advertising insiders chuckling in recognition as to the daily foibles of their vocation. Kemeny provides helpful writing tips and strategies for beginners and old-timers alike to bring more clarity to their own communications.
Here are a few favorite funny quips from the book:
"Everything sounds better with a British accent."
"LOL is in the Oxford English dictionary. OMG, help us."
On New Business "The best work you'll never make."
"There is nothing in advertising worth fighting for, but that's no reason not to."
Every ad agency has a process and formula for storytelling… Storybrand's SB7 framework is a simple formula that makes the customer the hero with a problem, who meets a guide with a plan to fix it, and calls them to action to avoid failure, ending in success.
It's a neatly tied up package to define a customer journey straight out of a Hollywood plot… I like the simplicity of the framework. The focus is on the customer and how your products and services can solve their problem. In short, storytelling sells. But you knew that and just got lost along the way…
"Rethink the Business of Creativity" is the new official textbook and must-read for all in the ad industry. Creatives will find inspiration in their tools for concepting. Account teams will find inspiration in managing people and profit. The lost art of the traffic department also gets a huge shout-out.
My favorite ideas include the 1-or-100 rule (the best idea could be your 1st or your 100th) which leads to KG = keep going (achieving quality through quantity) and the Ping-Pong Ball Theory (people can only digest one message at a time).
"We believe that if you create a culture that inspires and protects creative thinkers, they'll come up with better ideas."
Brené Brown spent 20 years studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy. Her TED Talk is one of the most-watched in the world. In her Netflix special, she discusses what it takes to choose courage over comfort in a culture defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty.
The 5 Step Process to Get What You Want Out of Life:
Based on a breakthrough study of over 2,600 leaders along with real-life inspiring stories, Botelho and Powell overturn myths about what it takes to get to the top.
Those who reach the top share four key behaviors: They are decisive, adaptable, reliable and engaging (DARE). The book features useful analytics-driven insights to guide your career.
Top research findings:
Using Rumelt's breakthrough concept, leaders become more effective strategists when they focus on challenges rather than goals, pinpointing the crux of their pivotal challenge that will make the biggest impact, and taking decisive, coordinated action to tackle it.
Based on one of the largest surveys ever conducted on high performers, Brendon Burchard reveals the six habits that move the needle the most in helping you succeed. To become a high performer, you must seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and demonstrate courage.
This book provides a framework that enables you to practice these proven habits. Take your own high-performance assessment here.
In the Leadership PIN Code: Unlocking the Key to Willing and Winning Relationships, Dr. Nashater Deu Solheim reveals how leaders can develop engaging, high-performing teams. With her background as a forensic clinical psychologist, Solheim shares psychological techniques of how to build trust with your teams using Persuasion, Influence and Negotiation. The key to building trust is to approach team members with humility, curiosity and in a nonjudgmental way. Her book is full of techniques and approaches to help leaders build more influencing relationships.
In this speech, Sinek talks about the top two things great leaders need to have — empathy and perspective.
General Colin Powell defines the key characteristic of effective leadership as simply trust.
Morgan interviewed 140 CEO's and surveyed 14k employees about what it will take to be a successful leader in the next decade.
Based on this input, he created The Notable Nine:
Four mindsets (global citizen, chef, servant, explorer) and five skills (technology teenager, coach, futurist, translator) that leaders will need to master to lead effectively in the future.
It's fascinating to see how individual employees view organizational challenges very differently than managers, senior executives, and CEOs. My favorite concept was Barry-Wehmiller, a manufacturing company who views employees as "heart-count" vs "headcount" to be reminded that...
"Every employee has a heart and a soul instead of just a pair of hands."
A finite game is designed for continuous play. In the infinite game of business, Sinek inspired leaders to see beyond the bottom line – to make tomorrow better than today.
"That means trusting and inspiring employees to be more innovative, to embrace change, to become more resilient, and to be remembered for what we did for others."
This, he says is the key to a meaningful life.
Benjamin Zander's 2008 TED Talk called "The Transformative Power of Classical Music" will convert any listener to follow classical music with his sheer enthusiasm for it.
Favorite Quotes
"The trouble with you is you are a two-buttock player. You should be a one-buttock player. And I moved his body…while he was playing and suddenly the music took off, took flight, there was a gasp from the audience when they heard the difference. And then I got a letter from this gentleman. He said I was so moved I transformed my entire company into a one-buttock company."
"The conductor of an orchestra does not make a sound…he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful. And that changed everything for me. It was totally life changing…I realized my job is to awaken possibility in other people…If their eyes are shining, you know you are doing it. If they are not shining…you ask…who I am being that my player's eyes are not shining."
"I have a definition of success. For me, it's not about wealth and power, it's about how many shiny eyes are around me."
James Wallman, the writer of "Stuffocation" and "Time and How to Spend It", draws on social science research from leading scientists to develop his 7-point checklist for spending your time in ways that lead you to be happier and more successful. He also shares his 8 tools to design flow such as deleting distractions, being active, and taking creative and physical risk which he humorously demonstrates during his talk.
Quotes:
"There are ways of spending your time that will increase your odds of being happier, more resilient, more creative, and more successful."
"How you spend your time is vitally important. It's the same as burning money."
"If you want to be happier, spend more on experiences and less on stuff."
The 80/20 principle states that 80% of results come from only 20% of causes or effort. The 80/20 Way revolves around using time more intelligently by focusing on the 20% of important, vital things that lead to most of our success, happiness and fulfillment.
Koch, the best-selling author of The 80/20 Principle, wrote this book for non-business people to help them learn how to apply the laws of focus ("less is more") and development ("create more with less") to work, money, relationships and life. His theory is that by doing less, we can live more.
"Chuck your to do list, make a not to do list."
"Focus is the secret of all personal power, happiness and success."
"Make a great mental leap: dissociate effort from reward. Focus on the outcomes that you want and find the easier way to them with the least effort, least sacrifice and most pleasure. Concentrate on what produce extraordinary results without extraordinary effort."
The 5 Second Rule is the 5,4,3,2,1 countdown method created by Mel Robbins developed to push herself to make 5 second decisions and become the solution to her own problems. By being courageous and decisive, you too can be one step away from a completely different life. This book uses a research-backed metacognition tool that emphasizes a bias towards action that creates immediate and lasting behavior change. Or as Nike says, Just Do It!
The ability to stay focused is a competitive advantage, yet technology makes it easy to be distracted. Nir Eyal provides a framework to explain how distraction works along with tips and tools to reclaim your focus and attention.
The basic value proposition of essentialism is to give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, so you can make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter. If you could be truly excellent at only one thing, what would it be?
At any given point in time, there is only one thing you should focus on doing that will propel you toward the success you want. That one thing is what moves you closest toward your goal. While the concept is simple, the book offers helpful insights around time management and time blocking, connecting purpose, priority and productivity, and how to create a domino effect by sequentially lining up your priorities (not simultaneously).
For more information go to the1thing.com, or check out the video summary of the book.
A good read that can challenge, inspire and motivate you with practical habit-building strategies. This book focuses on small habits you do every day and creating a process to get 1% better everyday.
Young teaches us about ultralearning – a learning strategy that is both self-directed and aggressive.
Methods include:
If your goal is lifelong learning to foster an ultralearning culture at work, this book is full of techniques that will help you make learning a priority.
Challenges readers to live more and work less through personal escape from a workaholic lifestyle. He challenges readers to live more and work less. While the book was published in 2007 and telecommuting is no longer a new concept, his productivity hacks remain timely and insightful.
Favorite Tim Ferris Tips:
Based on 30 years of research, the inventor of the 10,000-hour rule provides his techniques for mastering any skill. Peak shows that there is no magic to those who have exceptional abilities. Intense, extended "deliberate practice" is the key to enhancing learning. Through storytelling from competitive sports to musical performances to business and science, Ericsson & Pool demonstrate how champions put their gifts to work through training and practice inspiring everyone to realize that they too can reach their true potential.
Stanford psychologist Carol S. Dweck demonstrates how success in business, parenting, school, and relationships can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents. Dweck compares characteristics of a fixed mindset that assumes our intelligence and abilities cannot be changed versus a growth mindset that thrives and embraces challenges which aid in further developing our intelligence. It is her view that the growth mindset will increase our capacity for success and happiness.
To learn more, check out her video on Teaching a Growth Mindset.
Jay Shetty, a social media influencer, thought leader, and podcaster, distilled the wisdom he gained while living as a monk for three years into practical advice for the masses. Adapting to the monk mindset is about the elimination of outside influences and internal fear so that you can make decisions with intention, purpose, and confidence. In doing so, Shetty reveals how we will be able to look to the world beyond ourselves, share our gratitude, and deepen our relationships with others.
Happiness is the precursor to success. But first, we need to develop the ability to see that positive change is possible. Only once we learn to see the world through a more positive lens can we summon all our motivation, emotion, and intelligence to achieve our personal and professional goals.
We become more successful when we are happier and more positive — happiness is the precursor to success, not the result. Happiness and optimism can fuel performance and achievement.
The Algebra of Happiness provides a formula for happiness based on Scott Galloway's personal experience as a father and a son combined with his professional experience as a serial entrepreneur, and an academic.
He examines success, love, health, and the definition of a life well-lived in his own unique no mercy/no malice style.
A love letter to stoicism, the ancient greek philosophy of enduring adversity with perseverance and resilience. Holiday gives examples from great people in history and how they applied stoicism to overcome difficult situations.
This book will help you realize that you can turn your obstacles upside down to discover your new path.
Drawing on history's greatest leaders, visionaries and even athletes—and using references to Stoicism—Holiday demonstrates how each used the power of stillness to let go, step back, reflect, and regain balance to let ideas flow.
In today's digital economy, the more socially committed younger generation of consumers are more interested in the origins of products. They want to know what ingredients are used, how the product is packaged, and what the company stands for. As a result, they are spending their money with brands that reflect their values and beliefs. Successful brands of the future will be those that embrace their purpose, replace consumption with collaboration, and provide clarity about what value they add to people's lives. Read Brendon Burchard's to learn the 9 declarations, 6 practices of integrity, and 9 virtues of greatness.
Safi Bahcall, an American physicist, technologist, and entrepreneur, uses examples from world history combined with storytelling to advise leadership teams on strategy and innovation. His focus is not on the moonshot, a destination or big exciting goal, but a loonshot, which is how we get there.
Because innovation happens in the dynamic transfer between these groups, these small shifts in how teams are structured can enable big breakthroughs.
In a time where innovation is needed most, Loonshots is a must-read for all leaders striving for organizational transformation. Click here to view a recap of his thesis.
3 Ways to Cultivate Loonshots:
Creativity is what we do in our business. Godin's premise is that the committed, consistent practice of embracing the process of creation is our output. While the creative journey itself may be different, it's the same pattern and practice that we all follow. Once you see the pattern, trust the process, and commit to the journey, you can begin where you are. By continually improving upon it, you gain the courage to share it.
Led by innovation expert Scott Anthony, the team from a growth-strategy consulting firm used behavioral science research to create a playbook to harness the innovation potential inside any organization.
The authors reveal a collection of BEANS – behavior enablers, artifacts, and nudges collected from the most successful companies around the world to inspire others to build and sustain their own models of innovation.
Reverse engineering is systematically taking things apart to explore their inner workings to extract important insights. It isn't just for the world of computing — it is a favored tool from a variety of industries to unlock hidden insights, acquire and master new skills, and spark creativity.
This book is full of strategies, formulas and tips to open your mind to fresh possibilities.
"Observing the greats opens your mind to fresh possibilities."
131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday.
A MasterClass on creativity and leadership in the fashion industry.
All entrepreneurs are not superstars and visionaries, but the ones with groundbreaking ideas intuitively made connections between categories, target audience insights, or unmet needs that others overlooked. Hunch provides a road map to help you recognize potential opportunities and harness the power of intuition to discern which ones are worth solving.
Professor Damon Centola examines the science of how innovative ideas, movements, and behavior spread through social networks. His research dispels the myths of the influencer, ideas that go viral, and our natural inclination to make innovations stickier by demonstrating that social change is more complex. Centola reveals how widespread change comes from the diverse network periphery of regular people that stimulates the discovery of new knowledge. Their logistical coordinated activity requires an emotional hook that triggers feelings of loyalty and solidarity that can lead to a tipping point for a movement to catch on among the masses.
Tim Ferriss interviewed 100+ of the world's top performers with an identical set of 11 questions providing a compilation of advice, tools, tactics and habits to help answer life's most challenging questions. Links to the most recommended books in Tribe of Mentors can be found at tim.blog/booklist.
"When in doubt, let kindness and compassion guide you. And don't be afraid to fail."
"There is a big difference between intelligence and wisdom… wisdom reigns supreme."
"You won't take a bullet for pleasure or power, but you will for meaning."
"Busy is a decision… you don't find the time to do something, you make the time to do things."
"Courage is more important than confidence… confidence is achieved through repeated success at any endeavor. The more you practice something, the better you will get at it, and your confidence will grow over time."
"Ego is about who's right. Trust is about what's right."
"Sometimes… not getting what you want opens the door to getting what you need."
"Integrity is the only path where you will never get lost."
"Nothing is achieved because of easy choices… hard choices make us wiser, smarter, stronger, and wealthier, and easy choices reverse our progress."
"Look for something where you love the process, and the results will follow."
Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini imagine a world where human beings, not processes or methods, are at the center of organizations — replacing bureaucracy with Humanocracy. Their theory includes a new hierarchy of work-related capabilities focusing on those that create the most value for an organization: initiative, creativity and daring. The ultimate goal is to create a more empowered workforce that allows humans to do their best work unfettered by bureaucracy.
Humanocracy provides insights, guidance and examples of organizations that have made employees feel more empowered, courageous, connected, compassionate and community-driven.
"It's time to free the human spirit from the shackles of bureaucracy – and that doing so will produce profound benefits for individuals, organizations, economies and societies with courage, compassion and contrarian thinking, anyone can transform a large organization—whatever their title or position."
NYU professor and one of the world's 50 best business school professors on Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
While technology enables employees to live and work more meaningfully and to connect more than ever before, companies must never forget the soul that drives them. Marketing innovator Tobaccowala posits that business leaders must find ways to integrate the story with the spreadsheet in the right balance to restore the soul of business.
In Post Corona, NYU Professor and serial entrepreneur Scott Galloway, predicts how the pandemic will reshape the business environment.
For many brands in the post corona world, safety and survival are the main goals, but it may also mean rethinking business models. For marketers, this means a much greater emphasis on data-driven digital, not just pulling back on traditional media and shifting to digital channels (mostly to Google and Facebook) and streaming audio and video, but also creating more efficiency for the customer such as an improved website or mobile experience.
Privacy will continue to be a big issue and Apple could lead the way in this arena if it separates from Google and launches or acquires its own search engine such as DuckDuckGo. Twitter could shift to a subscription model – Galloway suggests a fee-based model based on the number of followers.
With its massive collection of data, Amazon has been expected to move into the healthcare space for years, and it could start with insurance, followed by a network of healthcare providers all accessible via Alexa and tracked through Halo its fitness wearable. Prime could expand into Prime Health to give members access to the right physician, right now, at a lower cost, and the prescription could be delivered through Amazon's own fulfillment, along with your COVID-19 vaccine.
Read about the potential transformations in higher ed on your own. It will give you hope for the next generation.
Organizational psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant pushes us past the 2020 pivot to rethinking its meaning and our outlook on it in his latest book Think Again. Through storytelling and factoids from academic research, Grant guides us to regularly question our own opinions and views. We can do this by surrounding ourselves with others that will not just support us, but challenge our thought process. The world is not black and white, shades of grey exist and our ideas and beliefs can and should be reevaluated and shifted over time.
Netflix Culture: Freedom & Responsibility," also called the Netflix Culture Memo, is the foundational living document of behaviors and skills written by Patty McCord, Netflix's Chief Talent Officer and CEO, Reed Hastings. Initially developed as a set of 127 slides published in 2009, the document communicates how Netflix operates, what it values, the behaviors that are expected from its employees, and what they, in turn, can expect from the company.
Miller's 60-day guide details 10 areas where successful leaders and their businesses excel: character, leadership, personal productivity, business strategy, messaging, marketing, sales, negotiation, management, and execution. Each lesson coincides with a daily video found at businessmadesimple.com/daily to help teach all you need to know to grow a business.
Jenyns identifies the four stages of business systemization as survival, stationary, scalable, and saleable. He then highlights his detailed SYSTEMology process designed to address the critical systems within your business, and teaches you how to organize, document, follow, and optimize them using real-life examples and success stories. His easy-to-use process and downloadable resources will light a fire for any company in survival or stationary mode to quickly move to scalable and saleable.
A visual cheatsheet for anyone wanting an MBA refresher course with explanatory graphics on the basics of business finance, marketing, business negotiations, HR management, ethics, and more.
Why some ideas catch on and others don't. A fast read with actionable advice to up your storytelling game.
Is anyone really listening? 55% of conversations are transmitted nonverbally.
Malcolm Gladwell Teaches Writing features 23 video lessons to help writers research, structure narrative, develop stories, characters and their worlds, use humor, explore tone and voice, title creation, and book promotion. Gladwell is best known for simplifying social science research and turning it into actionable lessons featured in his best-selling books "The Tipping Point," "Blink," and "Outliers."
The approach to change is about removing barriers. Five hidden factors that impede change branded as REDUCE: reactance (when pushed, people push back), endowment (attachment to the status quo), distance (perspective must shrink the distance), uncertainty (alleviating the switching cost of another option), and corroborating evidence (some things need more proof). Together they reduce the barriers to change.
Three lessons about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death.
A former FBI hostage negotiator shares tactics that can be applied to everyday business situations. While most of us won't be negotiating as if our lives depended on it, his philosophy is to create trust and build rapport with tactical empathy.
His mantra, "Never split the difference," can empower you to get what you deserve.
Make Your Idea Matter features 75 short chapters of business and brand storytelling ideas to help you discover new ways of thinking about what you do, how you tell your story, and how to make it matter.
Ideas that fly begin with the customer's story. The story is the jumping off point for product innovation and marketing that translates opportunities into tangible insights. Those insights are turned into products and services that provide customers with features and benefits that are relevant to them. Those that are successful will unlock the value of the story by making things that are meaningful for the people who use them.
Successful people and organizations don't feel the need to compete because they know who they are and they are not afraid to show it. A company is either competitive-driven (reactive to the marketplace focused on profits) or story-driven (responsive to customers with a clear sense of purpose and identity).
Story Driven gives you a framework to help you articulate and lead with your story.
If we show people that we care, they care back. She writes: "Great content doesn't feel like marketing – it feels like a gift." Jiwa demonstrates how to differentiate and add value by telling a better brand story.
David Epstein examined the world's top performers, from athletes and musicians to inventors and scientists. Using case studies from these different fields, Epstein demonstrates that generalists, not specialists, are more likely to succeed in the future of work because of their broader, more diverse experiences and their breadth of skill sets and perspectives.
His perspective counters the 10,000-hour rule of early, deep, deliberate practice needed to excel in one area. By delaying specialization and having a "sampling period" early in life, the diverse experiences of generalists helped them to think outside of their eventual domain to come up with connections that their more specialized peers are unable to see.
Here's to roaming, dabbling, failing, collaborating and having a wide range of interests!
"Everyone needs habits of mind that allow them to dance across disciplines."
Written as a parable about four characters navigating through a maze to look for cheese, this book stands the test of time as a metaphor for what you want in life, such as a good job, money, success, relationships and health. The story focuses on how each of the characters deals with unexpected change. The maze represents the physical environment where you spend your time looking for what you want. The core message is that things constantly change, so we must adapt. The quicker we anticipate, monitor and adapt to change by learning something new or acting differently, the sooner we can let go of old cheese and find new cheese.
Our favorite quotes from the book:
"Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that are to come."
"Old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese."
"Movement in a new direction helps find new cheese."
"If you do not change, you can become extinct!"
Wharton School professor and scientist Adam Grant uses storytelling combined with social science research to challenge the idea of what it takes to get ahead in business. His premise is that success comes not only from hard work, talent and luck, but also how we approach our interactions with other people. By categorizing people into givers, takers or matchers, he demonstrates shifts from one reciprocity style to another in different relationships.
Grant shows that givers are more likely to climb to the top of the success ladder due to their ability to build networks, collaborate, communicate, influence and help others to achieve their potential.
Check out giveandtake.com to test your giver quotient and learn more.
Our favorite insights:
The New York Times columnist David Brooks has written a personal story of his own mid-life journey to enlightenment. The book addresses the four big commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: family and spouse, vocation, philosophy or faith, and community.
Beyond the personal growth value of the book, nonprofits will find value in Part V on community. This section highlights community building, the power of communal storytelling that links people together. Brooks makes his case through the metaphor of two mountains — and for nonprofits, the second one is where the donor base lives.
"The first mountain is the individualist worldview, which puts desires of the ego at the center."
"The second mountain is what you might call the relationist worldview, which puts relation, commitment, and the desires of the heart and soul at the center… when your life is defined by fervent commitments, you are on the second mountain."
Joann Lublin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, leadership speaker, and author of the book Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life. Joann's book compares baby boom and Gen X executives, demonstrating how far working mothers have come—and how much further they'll need to go in a post-pandemic world.
The pandemic made us revisit what is most important to us and many people made changes in their careers, relationships, and in their lifestyles. ROAR by Michael Clinton provides real stories and inspiration based on a sampling of 630 adults aged 45-75 who have successfully crossed over into a new second half of their lives.
Her book helps you identify your dragon of self-doubt and slay it so you can conquer motherhood and all the other facets of your life.
Reveals the secrets of elite performers to teach us to stretch far beyond our capabilities, through his blueprint for extreme performance improvement.
This fast-paced book shows how to use science to make better daily decisions. Pink's research demonstrates that each day has a peak, a trough and a recovery. Working out in the morning can help you lose more weight and boost your mood more than any other time in the day. The afternoon trough, which emerges seven hours after waking – around 2 to 4 pm – is a danger zone for productivity, ethics and health. Pink recommends taking lunch out of the office along with restorative and/or micro-breaks and even 10-20 minute naps daily. Read the book to learn more timing clues to help you get the most out of each day.
Click here for a video overview of the book.
Examines how organizations should create and sustain culture through leaders' actions.
This book highlights findings from a survey of 100 leaders and experts that reveal serious issues with workplace wellness programs (95% of them do not work) and ways to improve them.
Rex Miller urges leaders to spend money on improving work environments instead of wellness programs, as physical space has a dramatic effect on workplace stress management. He suggests implementing "nudges" such as making stairways more appealing, providing healthy foods and drinks, adding lighting that mimics our circadian rhythms, better air circulation, and better building design. Organizations now spend an average of $18,000 per employee for health coverage, and these costs are expected to double by 2030. That is enough for leaders to realize that wellness should be their highest priority toward high performance, strong ROI, and employee well-being.
For more information, go to healthyworkplacenudge.com.
"A frictionless atmosphere enhances focus and engagement. That's because the ability to focus and accomplish good work is key to experiencing happiness."
As an educator, consultant and trainer on racial and social justice, DiAngelo addresses the book to a white audience. Through specific examples from her training, she demonstrates white fragility in action – how a minimum amount of racial stress triggers a range of defensive moves that help us maintain our comfort levels.
DiAngelo challenges her white readers to understand the racial realities of people of color through authentic cross-racial interactions, education on the history of race relations, and to break the silence about race and racism with other white people.
"The racial status quo is comfortable for white people and we will not move forward in race relations if we remain comfortable."
"The key to moving forward is what we do with our discomfort. We can use it as a door out – blame the messenger and disregard the message."
"Or we can use it as a door in by asking, why does this unsettle me?… how does this lens change my understanding of racial dynamics?…"
"It is possible that because I am white, there are some racial dynamics that I can't see?…"
As a student of leadership and diversity, Johnson outlines what leaders can do to increase the variety of diverse perspectives in their workforce and to mitigate bias. While implementing diversity programs has become a priority for most organizations, women comprise only 25% and people of color comprise 27% of executives in Fortune 500 companies. Only 5% of CEO's are women.
By embracing different perspectives and backgrounds with a shared purpose, interdependent diverse teams are more highly engaged – so much so that highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147%, according to Johnson. This book provides practical strategies to become an inclusifyer.
Take the quiz to see where you are in the Inclusify Leadership Matrix.
"Inclusifying implies a continuous sustained effort toward helping diverse teams feel engaged, empowered, accepted and valued."
Wondery's Podcast The Next Big Idea is hosted by Rufus Griscom and features thought-leaders Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink. Each episode brings you ideas that have the power to change the way you live, work and think. This episode features the book Indistractable: Staying Focused in a World of Distractions by Nir Eyal.
A podcast recommendation for those looking to enhance their professional skills.
Netflix's new animated short "If Anything Happens I Love You" addresses the pain and grief in the aftermath of gun violence. Filmmakers Michael Govier and Will McCormack partnered with the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety's Creative Council member Laura Dern on this project.
Learn more: ifanythinghappensiloveyou.com.
Three-part series on Bill's childhood, education, rise at Microsoft, and transition to the Gates Foundation.
The Marketing Plan Workbook from Julia McDowell at Five Ones is a handy guide with 50 pages of planning help and productivity to help you meet your marketing goals. As a workbook inspired by bullet journaling with graphic illustrations, it is meant to be scribbled in as you check off your marketing plan to-do list.
To order visit: fiveones.com/product/marketing-plan-workbook.
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