5. Drive (Riverhead) by Daniel Pink: The author and former speechwriter to Al Gore looks at human motivation since our days on the savannas escaping predators, and lays out a new theory, based on intrinsic factors – what we like and want – rather than fear or extrinsic, outside rewards. He argues that people want autonomy, a feeling of mastery in their work, and meaning. He makes his case in the style of Malcolm Gladwell, mixing storytelling and research, with a book that in the end is more satisfying and helpful than Mr. Gladwell’s best-seller Outliers.
6. How To Hire A-Players (John Wiley) by Eric Herrenkohl: Hiring “A” players for your team doesn’t have to be a crap shoot if you adopt some of this recruiting expert’s ideas. Toward the end, he touches on ideas that will be familiar, but the first part of the book has lots of novel suggestions that make sense.
7. Mojo (Hyperion) by Marshall Goldsmith: Mojo is the moment when we do something that’s purposeful, powerful, and positive – and the rest of the world recognizes it. It’s about happiness and meaning in life. We want to get our mojo working, and this executive coach offers a quiz to test how you’re faring and a model to improve based on identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance.
8. Get Rid of the Performance Review (Business Plus) by Samuel Culbert: The UCLA management professor presents a very non-academic assault on performance reviews – savage, sarcastic, and irreverent – as well as a replacement called performance previews. It’s a more collaborative process in which the manager and subordinate discuss how they can work more effectively, together, to meet the many demands they face together.
9. Smart Growth (Columbia Business School) by Edward Hess: The University of Virginia business professor debunks the prevailing belief, inspired by Wall Street, that companies must grow or die. He shows how rare it is for companies to continually grow, and offers a more sensible, nuanced approach, based on a thoughtful, detailed consideration of what type of growth is best for your company.
10. Good Boss, Bad Boss (Business Plus) by Robert Sutton: Having written a book about jerks (The No Asshole Rule), the Stanford University management science professor returns with a look at how not to be a jerk and instead be a good boss. There aren’t many surprises here, but it’s a comprehensive, research-based report that, while not quite as iconoclastic as Prof. Culbert’s book, suggests academics can write in a sprightly way if they wish.
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POSTSCRIPT
Two topics that seemed to dominate this year’s books were social media and the financial crisis. Nothing on social media was all that compelling for me.
I read a few books on the financial crisis, and if I had to recommend one, it would be Michael Lewis’s The Big Short (Norton), not because it was well written – which it is, like an Elmore Leonard novel – but because it focuses on people who saw the folly that was about to happen, showing it was foreseeable, and happened to profit from it.
Special to The Globe and Mail
