Here are 100 books that The Stupidity Paradox fans have personally recommended if you like
The Stupidity Paradox.
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I have been researching the changes in the workplace for 40 years now. The steady move over that time has been away from a situation where employers controlled the development of their “talent” and managed it carefully, especially for white-collar workers, toward arrangements that are much more arms-length where employees are on their own to develop their skills and manage their career. Most employees now see at least some management practices that just don’t make sense even for their own employer–casual approaches to hiring, using “leased employees” and contractors, who are paid more, to do the same work as employees, leaving vacancies open, and so forth.
This is a classic oral history of jobs in what older people call “the good old days.” It is told from the perspective of the individuals doing the jobs they were talking about, and it reveals how interesting their day-to-day experience is.
The reminder for today, especially in our remote workplaces, is how important relationships with people at work are to our happiness and well-being. It’s also a reminder of how important it is for people to have some control over what they do and to feel invested in their work.
People want to do things well and take pride in what they do. We forget all this when we think of workers as widgets to be optimized.
Perhaps Studs Terkel's best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a timeless snapshot of people's feelings about their working lives, as well as a relevant and lasting look at how work fits into American life.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
My grandfather was a labour activist in Hull in the UK and my father had many classic labour texts such as the book by Tressell, listed below. That got me interested in the world of work and later more specifically in managing people. I moved from studying economics to employment relations /human resource management. Given that most of us (workers) spend 80,000 hours of our lives at work - more time than we are likely to spend on any other activity during our lifetimes - how we spend these lives has remained a source of fascination
This is a brilliant scholarly book (which has been valuable in my own work) arguing that the traditional economic view of the employment relationship needs to be balanced with employee entitlement to fair treatment (equity) and the opportunity to have meaningful input into decisions (voice).
The aim is to strike a balance between efficiency, equity, and voice and give employment “a human face”, allowing for shared prosperity and human dignity.
John W. Budd contends that the turbulence of the current workplace and the importance of work for individuals and society make it vitally important that employment be given "a human face." Contradicting the traditional view of the employment relationship as a purely economic transaction, with business wanting efficiency and workers wanting income, Budd argues that equity and voice are equally important objectives. The traditional narrow focus on efficiency must be balanced with employees' entitlement to fair treatment (equity) and the opportunity to have meaningful input into decisions (voice), he says. Only through a greater respect for these human concerns can…
My grandfather was a labour activist in Hull in the UK and my father had many classic labour texts such as the book by Tressell, listed below. That got me interested in the world of work and later more specifically in managing people. I moved from studying economics to employment relations /human resource management. Given that most of us (workers) spend 80,000 hours of our lives at work - more time than we are likely to spend on any other activity during our lifetimes - how we spend these lives has remained a source of fascination
It was on the shelf at home (a big red covered book with very small print!) and is very much seen as a classic of working-class literature.
Tressell wrote this semi-autobiographical account of his time as a housepainter and presented the workers as philanthropists who work desperately hard to enable profits for the bosses. The book was rejected by publishers in his lifetime and only published after his death, his daughter having saved the book from his desire to burn it after rejection from several publishers.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a classic representation of the impoverished and politically powerless underclass of British society in Edwardian England, ruthlessly exploited by the institutionalized corruption of their employers and the civic and religious authorities. Epic in scale, the novel charts the ruinous effects of the laissez-faire mercantilist ethics on the men, women, and children of the working classes, and through its emblematic characters, argues for a socialist politics as the only hope for a civilized and humane life for all. This Wordsworth edition includes an exclusive foreword by the late Tony Benn.
Trapped in our world, the fae are dying from drugs, contaminants, and hopelessness. Kicked out of the dark fae court for tainting his body and magic, Riasg only wants one thing: to die a bit faster. It’s already the end of his world, after all.
My grandfather was a labour activist in Hull in the UK and my father had many classic labour texts such as the book by Tressell, listed below. That got me interested in the world of work and later more specifically in managing people. I moved from studying economics to employment relations /human resource management. Given that most of us (workers) spend 80,000 hours of our lives at work - more time than we are likely to spend on any other activity during our lifetimes - how we spend these lives has remained a source of fascination
Most people will have heard of Parkinson’s law: the idea that work expands to fill the time available for its completion, but he (drawing from his time as a naval historian) also developed the law of triviality: that an organization typically give devotes disproportionate time to insignificant issues.
The short book is full of many other insightful observations about organizational life and bureaucracy, including the tendency for officials to make more work for each, other leading to the famous prediction that the Royal Navy would eventually have more admirals than ships.
Parkinson's Law states that 'work expands to fill the time available'. While strenuously denied by management consultants, bureaucrats and efficiency experts, the law is borne out by disinterested observation of any organization. The book goes far beyond its famous theorem, though. The author goes on to explain how to meet the most important people at a social gathering and why, as a matter of mathematical certainty, the time spent debating an issue is inversely proportional to its objective importance. Justly famous for more than forty years, Parkinson's Law is at once a bracingly cynical primer on the reality of human…
The World Economic Forum has identified systems thinking as one of the most important skills humankind must adopt to manage the complex global challenges we are facing. Peter Senge (one of the recommended authors) said systems thinking is the discipline that integrates the disciplines. I love systems thinking because it explains so much about the world. In the 1960s, my father gave me all of the early systems thinking literature, and I have been on a mission to educate people about systems thinking ever since. I know it has helped me immeasurably.
Quite honestly, I have a love/hate relationship with the book! I love it because it is so inciteful in how and why organizations and managers struggle with clarity.
Senge reveals why the system is so powerful and directs so much of the behavior, good and bad. However, it is dense, and you really have to pay attention, but it is worth it.
One of the seminal management books of the past 75 years, The Fifth Discipline is an international multi-million-copy bestseller. Written in an engaging and accessible way, with diagrams and illustrations, it will change the way you think and therefore way you and your team grows and develop. In the long run, the only sustainable source of competitive advantage is your organisation's ability to learn faster than its competitors....
'Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it's like to operate under this system.…
I am a chemist (PhD University of Leuven, Belgium). This explains my preference for a rational approach. I was also an assessor for the European EFQM organization. This European Management Model allows an organization or company to achieve excellent results for all its stakeholders. One of the methods used is the Best Practice method. Finally, at the end of my career, I asked myself the question: How do we know that our country is well managed? There is no management model for this yet. That is why I developed a new model: the SAC model. Together with my colleague Grace L. Duffy, we have described this model in several papers.
I agree with the authors that there is sufficient knowledge in most companies, but that it is not or hardly used. Managers read books, follow training courses, get advice from consultants, etc., but they do not put these ideas and advice into practice. I was triggered by the question: “Why is so little knowledge converted into concrete actions that lead to measurable results?”
I was fascinated to discover the causes and remedies of these symptoms. There are multiple possible causes: teamwork, internal competition, leadership, fear, and rewards.
I found an original and powerful suggestion for translating a new idea from the book I read into concrete actions in my daily work.
Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use…
Everyday Medical Miracles
by
Joseph S. Sanfilippo (editor),
Frontiers of Women from the healthcare perspective. A compilation of 60 true short stories written by an extensive array of healthcare providers, physicians, and advanced practice providers.
All designed to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the day-to-day activities of all of us who provide your health care. Come…
I've been fascinated throughout my career by what makes an effective leader. I read about leadership; I carefully observed effective leaders; and I worked hard to become a leader. After a 40-year career, I concluded that nonprofit leaders required a leadership model that met the unique challenges of leading a nonprofit organization and that I was the right person to write the book. I'm proud of The 5 Truths for Transformational Leaders. I believe the book addresses the unique challenges of leading a nonprofit organization. I hope you discover how to use its principles to make a bigger difference in achieving your organization’s mission. Nothing could be more important for the future of our nation.
I’ve had the good fortune to work with Noel to develop a leadership program for Boys & Girls Clubs leaders that is based largely on the content of The Cycle of Leadership.
Noel believes the most successful leaders are teachers. To succeed they need a teachable point of view about how the organization will succeed. The teachable point of view is shared relentlessly shared at every opportunity with all stakeholders.
Part of this conversation is inviting feedback. Thus, the cycle, leaders teach, they receive feedback, and their teachable point of view evolves. One of my greatest learnings from this book was a deeper understanding of how the mission of an organization needs to be the basis for decisions and actions. This provided me with the courage and conviction to act.
In The Leadership Engine, Noel Tichy showed how great companies strive to create leaders at all levels of the organization, and how those leaders actively develop future generations of leaders. In this new book, he takes the theme further, showing how great companies and their leaders develop their business knowledge into "teachable points of view," spend a great portion of their time giving their learnings to others, sharing best practices, and how they in turn learn and receive business ideas/knowledge from the employees they are teaching.
Calling this exchange a virtuous teaching cycle, Professor Tichy shows how business builders from…
I teach sustainability at the MIT Sloan School of Management and get to know hundreds of passionate executives and young professionals every year. They are out to change organizations, disrupt markets, build social movements, and advance public policy to make the world a better place. As I coach and connect these leaders throughout their careers, I get a front row seat to their personal development. I get to observe - what makes for an effective agent of change or social entrepreneur? How can we enact social and environmental values in organizations that seem to ignore those concerns? How do we change ourselves to be more effective in changing the world?
I love Otto Scharmer’s roadmap for changing ourselves and changing the world. He confronts the ecological, social, and spiritual divides in our current moment of crisis in human civilization. He identifies the ego-centric quality of attention and consciousness that have produced those crises. And he offers an over-arching process (“Theory U”) and a set of practices for transforming self, system, and society that I have found incredibly useful.
A powerful pocket guide for practitioners that distills all of the research and materials found in Otto Scharmer's seminal texts Theory U and Leading from the Emerging Future.
Creating a Better Future
This book offers a concise, accessible guide to the key concepts and applications in Otto Scharmer's classic Theory U. Scharmer argues that our capacity to pay attention coshapes the world. What prevents us from attending to situations more effectively is that we aren't fully aware of that interior condition from which our attention and actions originate. Scharmer calls this lack of awareness our blind spot. He illuminates the…
As an innovation expert for over 30 years, I've been cautioning about
the "dark side" of innovation and emphasized the importance of
sustainability. Though in light of the urgency of our planet's
situation, we need to shift our focus from sustainability to
regeneration. The unprecedented complexity and
connectedness of today’s world demand thinking in systems,
and the kind of innovation that leads to the transformation of our
current social and economic systems so we can live in harmony
with nature. This requires us to question who we collaborate
with, what we value, and how we create value. We need to work
together differently, with different leadership, and to change our own ways of thinking.
If the first two books provide the general context and rationale for systemic approaches, the following three will offer some guidance for the other necessities for thriving in the 21st century: achieving transformational change, shifting towards urgently needed regeneration, and the twin path of developing as a person and as a leader in order to facilitate the transformational change we need.
By now (almost) everyone will have realized: we cannot continue on the trajectories we are currently on, there is just not enough planet left. But how do we go about introducing the transformative change we so urgently need?
We all know how challenging change is, be it at the personal or organizational level. Otto has developed a systemic approach that is based on collaboration and co-creation, considers systems and has been proven to work (which he illustrates through case studies from around the world).
Access the deepest source of inspiration and vision
We live in a time of massive institutional failure that manifests in the form of three major divides: the ecological, the social, and the spiritual. Addressing these challenges requires a new consciousness and collective leadership capacity. In this groundbreaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways and in so doing discover a revolutionary approach to learning and leadership.
In most large systems today, we collectively create results that no one wants. What keeps us stuck in such patterns of the past? It’s our blind spot, that is,…
Karl's War is a coming-of-age-meets-thriller set in Germany on the eve of Hitler coming to power. Karl – a reluctant poster boy for the Nazis – meets Jewish Ben and his world is up-turned.
Ben and his family flee to France. Karl joins the German army but deserts and finds…
Jeff has been a UX designer, team leader and product manager for over 20 years. His work in the field helped define some of the key practices product managers use today. Building a customer-centric practice is key to successful products and services and Jeff has demonstrated that not only in the products and companies he’s helped build but in the writing and thinking he’s contributed to the product managaement community.
We can only learn new things if we unlearn old things. The only way we get better is through reexamining our old ways of working and discarding those that are irrelevant. In a series of fun, well-written case studies and discussions Barry makes it clear how this approach to thinking, personal and product development redefines success in any field.
The transformative system that shows leaders how to rethink their strategies, retool their capabilities, and revitalize their businesses for stronger, longer-lasting success. There's a learning curve to running any successful business. But once you begin to rely on past achievements or get stuck in outdated thinking and practices that no longer work, you need to take a step back-and unlearn. This innovative and actionable framework from executive coach Barry O'Reilly shows you how to break the cycle of behaviors that were effective in the past but are no longer relevant in the current business climate, and now limit or may…
