Accel5’s Business Book Summaries of the Month: February 2023

Add these summarized business books from Accel5 to your reading list.

This month’s collection covers a variety of essentials, including strategic thinking, adaptability, collaboration and teamwork and more, all briefed to be enjoyed in minutes.

A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness
Roger L. Martin

Summary: Companies use established business models because they’ve been proven, and it’s easier and faster than inventing a new model. However, these models often don’t achieve the desired outcomes, and as a result, leaders simply apply the models more rigorously—only to get the same subpar results. In A New Way to Think, Roger L. Martin compares each of the 14 traditional models to an alternative model and demonstrates how rethinking business models can improve the likelihood of attaining the results you want.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Management Essentials
• Strategic Thinking

Exit Path
Touraj Parang

Summary: Silicon Valley investors and seasoned entrepreneurs alike know that acquisitions are the most probable path to success for startups. As a result, it’s never too early for entrepreneurs to begin working on exit strategies for their companies. In Exit Path, Touraj Parang shares how to create the strategy, relationships, capabilities, and leverage that will lead to the best possible outcome in a sale.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Entrepreneurial Mindset

Leading Lightly
Jody Michael

Summary: Leadership can sometimes feel like a difficult grind. In Leading Lightly, psychotherapist and executive coach Jody Michael teaches leaders how to approach life with enduring ease and clarity. With her help, you can develop the cognitive and emotional capacity to deal with whatever leadership challenges come your way. You can use the methods and ideas in this book to develop your mental fitness, optimize high work performance, and lead and live in a whole new way. Even under stressful conditions, you can measurably transform results for you, your team, and your organization.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Leadership Essentials
• Emotional Intelligence
• Accountability

Human-Centered Communication
Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli

Summary: Virtually everything (and everyone) has moved online. Because of this shift, we can buy, sell, teach, learn, connect, and communicate far more efficiently than in any generation past. Unfortunately, this shift has come at a cost. In Human-Centered Communication, Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli explain that the roles of people and humanity have lost focus. Instead, conversations seem to prioritize activity and scale, which seldom bring us—or our customers—the sense of connectedness we crave. They recommend that we build the skills needed to foster online connections and learn to overcome the “digital pollution” that stands in our way.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Communicating Effectively
• Trust & Transparency
• Emotional Intelligence

The Digital Mindset
Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley

Summary: The key to succeeding in today’s business landscape is understanding how to work with digital technologies and data. In The Digital Mindset, Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley provide a guide to the fundamentals of these topics, covering everything from AI to statistical analysis and creating a culture of experimentation. By adhering to their advice, you can help your organization stay competitive as it moves towards an exciting new future.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Continuous Improvement
• Strategic Thinking
• Managing Change
• Collaboration & Teamwork

Move to the Edge, Declare It Center
Everett Harper

Summary: Our 21st-century problems are complex. In Move to the Edge, Declare It Center, veteran CEO, entrepreneur, and strategist Everett Harper offers a step-by-step guide to making decisions in high-pressure environments. You’ll learn how to make decisions with incomplete information, support teams through uncertain environments, and discover valuable business insights through experimentation and sustained innovation.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Decision Making
• Leadership Essentials

Up Close and All In
John Mack

Summary: In Up Close and All In, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack candidly shares his journey as the son of an immigrant fulfilling his dream to become a Wall Street powerhouse. Full of riveting behind-the-scenes stories, self-deprecating anecdotes, and seasoned words of wisdom, Mack’s narrative provides insight into both the world of investment banking and the heart and mind of one of its most charismatic leaders.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Leadership Essentials
• Communicating Effectively
• Collaboration & Teamwork

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
Arthur C. Brooks

Summary: For so many of us, the first parts of our lives are marked by action and achievement. Then, in the second half, there’s a slowing. It isn’t always our preference to slow down. It simply seems to happen to us as we age and grow beyond the goals we set in our earlier years. In From Strength to Strength, Arthur C. Brooks talks about this slowing and how it can drive us to look backward at our goals and what we’ve achieved. It can also drive us to look forward and wonder when our slowing progress will come to a grinding halt. Brooks tells us we can deny our decline and push ourselves harder than ever before toward new tiers of success or choose another option: accept the changes we experience and make them a source of our strength. He asserts that, in doing so, we can transcend decline through new forms of success, find deeper happiness, and uncover true meaning in our lives.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Goals & Priorities
• Adaptability

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
Jenny Blake

Summary: Many believe that lifelong careers are a throwback to a past era. For many of us, frequent career transitions are taking their place, specifically those that allow us to deploy our best skills and talents right when they’re needed before seeking out other equally fulfilling opportunities. Career growth strategist Jenny Blake calls this approach to working a pivot. This intentional, methodical process doesn’t encourage us to set a clearly defined course, but it does rely on us knowing what we want or don’t want to achieve over the long term. When we combine this foresight with a willingness to pivot, we can position ourselves to move agilely when and where it matters most. Blake calls attention to four specific steps we can take to work toward our long-term vision. These steps are cyclical and can be repeated again and again until we launch in another direction and begin the process anew, moving ever closer to our next goals.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Adaptability

Daring Greatly
Brené Brown

Summary: It’s tempting to wait until we’re perfect and infallible before speaking or showing up in our world. Many of us put our lives on standby until we gain these unattainable attributes, finding a place on the sidelines where we can observe and critique others rather than leaning in, pressing forward, or revealing where we are in the present. In Daring Greatly, best-selling author and popular TEDx talk speaker Brené Brown explains that perfection doesn’t exist in the human experience. Through stories and well-researched information, Brown helps us explore our vulnerability, recognize the fears that coincide with it, and understand the price we pay when we refuse to dare greatly. She also provides a clear set of action steps we can take to engage our vulnerability and transform how we live, connect, parent, and lead others.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Leadership Essentials
• Emotional Intelligence
• Resilience