Accel5®’s Business Book Summaries of the Month: November 2022

This month’s collection covers a variety of essentials, including goals and priorities, corporate culture development and more, all briefed to be enjoyed in minutes.

Impact Players
Liz Wiseman

Summary: Some professionals perform at their best in moments that matter. They know how to make the right moves at the right times and get the results their teams need. Pros in this group step up time and again and make an impact on their organizations. In Impact Players, Liz Wiseman acknowledges that it isn’t easy to stand out in this way or be recognized as the go-to person to get tough jobs done. However, she asserts that building this reputation is possible and shares the best practices striving professionals can work on today to get started.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Accountability
• Goals & Priorities
• Results Driven
• Collaboration & Teamwork
• Leadership Essentials
• Managing Teams

Winning on Purpose
Fred Reichheld with Darci Darnell and Maureen Burns

Summary: For years, companies have used the Net Promoter System (NPS) to evaluate customer satisfaction and loyalty. In Winning on Purpose, Fred Reichheld—the inventor of NPS—shares why organizations must shift from financial capitalism to customer capitalism and the basic tools, metrics, and processes they can use in today’s customer-centered business environment.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Customer Focus

Amp It Up
Frank Slootman

Summary: Your organization can make significant performance improvements without expensive changes to its talent, structure, or fundamental business model. In Amp It Up, CEO Frank Slootman uses his decades of experience as a leading tech industry executive to teach leaders at any level how to run a mission-driven, high-performance company. His tactical advice can help you declare war on mediocracy and transform your organization for maximum growth and scale. By applying his leadership approach, you can align your people, execute with urgency, and move your organization down the road to success.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Leadership Essentials
• Continuous Improvement
• Vision & Mission
• Corporate Culture Development

Bringing Up the Boss: Practical Lessons for New Managers
Rachel Pacheco

Summary: When people are promoted to management positions, they may be unprepared to take on this new type of role in the workplace. In Bringing Up the Boss, Rachel Pacheco provides helpful advice for individuals who find themselves in this situation. She offers lessons learned as well as tools for becoming a great manager—whether managing individuals, teams, or oneself.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• New Manager Essentials
• Managing Teams
• Managing Performance

The Exceptionals: How the Best Become the Best & How You Can Too
Kumar Mehta, PhD

Summary: Undeniably, the extraordinary people who marvel us with their feats and accomplishments are exceptionally talented. But they’ve also leveraged hard work, self-belief, determination, and persistence to maximize their gifts. Indeed, it’s the combination of talent with intense effort and intangible traits that sets the exceptionals—the top one percent of the one percent—apart. In his book The Exceptionals, Kumar Mehta, Ph.D., offers a roadmap for achieving and sustaining excellence. Based on research and case studies from diverse professions, it’s a book for leaders and all those who want to maximize their potential and become the best version of themselves.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Goals & Priorities
• Leadership Essentials
• Results Driven

Leading with Empathy
Gautham Pallapa

Summary: The uncertainty of our times, underscored by the recent pandemic, has created untold adverse effects in our workplaces. In Leading with Empathy, Gautham Pallapa explains that the key to navigating this uncertainty is acting with a greater understanding of others’ needs. Using personal stories, tips, and practical strategies, he shows how leading with empathy can mitigate stress in your life and the lives of your employees to create a more positive and productive workplace. This book is a call to action for leaders of all levels to transform their organizations and meet today’s biggest challenges with more kindness, understanding, and empathy.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Leadership Essentials
• Emotional Intelligence

Humans at Work: The Art and Practice of Creating the Hybrid Workplace
Anna Tavis and Stela Lupushor

Summary: New technologies like artificial intelligence and data analytics are already impacting the way people engage with organizations. Major trends like a dispersed workforce, social change, and value chain disruptions are altering expectations and behaviors in the workplace. In Humans at Work, employee and workplace experience experts Anna Tavis and Stela Lupushor advocate for human-centric practices as key to creating the workplace of the future.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Managing Change
• Adaptability
• Corporate Culture Development

Get Good with Money
Tiffany Aliche

Summary: No one is innately good with money. It takes discipline—not magic—to get our financial lives in order and be financially whole. That’s the message “Budgetnista” Tiffany Aliche shares in Get Good with Money, her 10-step, shame-free roadmap to help people name their financial goals and take productive steps toward them. Using the curriculum from her renowned Live Richer Challenge, which has helped thousands of women get and stay on their financial tracks, Aliche explores 10 monetary fundamentals everyone should master to live richer lives. She also shares a Get Good with Money Tool Kit of resources, worksheets, spreadsheets, and quizzes that make this challenging work far easier to take on.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Goals & Priorities

How to Change
Katy Milkman

Summary: From TED talks to books, workshops, apps, and social media posts, it’s almost too easy to find practical tools we can leverage to change our behaviors and make progress toward our goals. The trouble is that we don’t always use them. Sometimes, we simply forget or put them off for later. At other times, we lack the confidence to try something new and fall back on old habits that have proven time and again to get in the way of our goals. In How to Change, Wharton professor Katy Milkman explains that the real obstacles to attaining our goals are inside our heads. For some of us, these obstacles may include impulsiveness, a tendency to procrastinate or be lazy, or forgetfulness. For others, they may show up as a lack of confidence or an overly strong desire to conform to an underachieving crowd. Milkman coaches us to identify our “internal adversary,” size it up, and use proven approaches to dismantle it.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Goals & Priorities
• Continuous Learning

The Lean Startup
Eric Riles

Summary: Every day, startups emerge. Entrepreneurs pour their all into great ideas, leveraging resources, talent, and circumstance. Their goal is to create “the next big thing” that solves a problem people may not even know that they have, and a few make it out of the gate, sharing their concept with the world and making a name for themselves and their businesses. The problem is that many more of these businesses fail. In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, the co-founder and CTO of IMVU and author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned, explores the whys and dives into ways their leaders can drive more success. After explaining that there must be a leanness to innovation, risk-taking, and growth and a reconceptualization of what entrepreneurship should look like today to improve the outcomes, Ries offers a framework that can help leaders everywhere succeed.

For those looking to improve upon these competencies:

• Entrepreneurial Mindset
• Leadership Essentials