Does anyone else find themselves on BookTok lately? Every Monday in June we’ll be sharing a fave book we have read in the last few years that changed the way we look at business/marketing/life in general.
Dare to Lead
First up: Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. If you don't know Brene and her work, run (don't walk) to your nearest bookstore and grab any of her books. This one in particular is incredible for offices/teams to read together to learn to rumble through tough conversations, stay curious, and understand what it means to be a leader (hint: it's not just those people in charge).
At the core of the book you’ll discover that the bravest of leaders actually have the courage to allow vulnerability and that those leaders are essential to thriving work cultures.
Hood
Our next read is Hood, by Stephen R. Lawhead. As much as leaders love to look for top-selling non-fiction to share with their teams, this next book is a fiction book. Fiction can teach us things using storytelling (part of what we do with marketing!).
This book series (there are 2 others in the trilogy: Scarlet and Tuck) puts Robin Hood in the early Middle Ages in Wales. It's a very cool twist on the classic version we know, and you'll learn a lot of Welsh words and more about the early history of the Welsh, English, and French. Enjoy!
Radical Candor
The next book we're making sure you know about Kim Scott's Radical Candor. This book is a must-read for anyone who works with other humans.
Kim Scott was a leader at Google and Apple, has taught management classes, and now is the co-founder of the Radical Candor Executive Education Company, which comes alongside companies to put the book’s practices into place.
So what is Radical Candor? It’s about challenging your peers directly but with care by being clear and candid. It also involves probing for criticism in order to improve.
After you read this book, you'll learn how to have confident conversations with your employees (and coworkers and even your spouse) without coming off like a total jerk. 💩
This chart is our favorite (and simplest) callout from the book:
Creativity Inc.
The final book we are highlighting in this series is Creativity Inc., written by Ed Catmull. If you love all things Pixar and have an interest in the creative process (both are true for us), you'll devour this book. This book may be approaching a decade old, but it holds up.
While exploring the good (and the not-so-good) history of Pixar Animation Studios, Catmull dives into the creative process, meetings, and "Braintrust" sessions that occurred at Pixar in a really fun way. And for the more left-brained folks, he also discusses how he became the successful manager he is with advice for every level of leader.
One of our favorite callouts from the book? "Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better."
We hope you enjoy reading some of these as much as we did!
