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Books
Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They got Out of Getting it Wrong
edited by Jessica Bacal
Jessica Bacal, head of the Wurtele Center for Work and Life at Smith College, interviewed 25 successful women––not about how they became successful, but about what they got wrong along the way. Their answers are both educational and comforting for any other woman who thinks she’s the only one who didn’t sail through a career flawless and perfect. – LW
Edward R. Murrow’s ‘This I Believe’: Selections the 1950s Radio Show
edited by Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Mary Jo Gediman
In 1951, CBS radio (and later television) correspondent Edward R.
Murrow began a radio series that asked leaders from all walks of life to articulate, in five minute spoken essays, “the guiding beliefs by which they lived their lives.” There are many ways to lead, and not all leaders are the people in charge. But true leadership always emerges from people who know what their authentic, core values are, and who try to live by those values in daily life. An eclectic and inspiring collection of essays – and there are other volumes of “This I Believe” books if you read this one and want more. – LW
Teach With Your Heart: Lessons I Learned From the Freedom Writers
by Erin Gruwell
Teach with Your Heart is the autobiography of Erin Gruwell, the Long Beach, California high school English teacher who created The Freedom Writers––and transformed the lives of her students. She is a powerful example of the kind of leadership that emerges from authentic passion, and an authentic voice, and is a role model for any person, in any profession, to embrace. – LW
The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking and Creating Great Choices: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking
by Roger Martin/Jennifer Riel and Roger Martin
These two companion books look at how the best leaders are able to look at two choices they don’t like and come up with a creative, third solution. Integrative thinking, as that skill is termed by Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is the ability to break down choices into their underlying assumptions and recombine, or “integrate” those elements into new options. Opposable Minds outlines the subject; Creating Great Choices is more of a tactical workbook, with exercises to help groups learn the art of integrative and creative choice-creation. – LW
Creativity in Business
by Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers
Based on a pioneering course for business students at Stanford University in the 1980s, Creativity in Business is about unlocking your creative powers and unleashing them within the context of running a business. Filled with inspiration and techniques form Eastern philosophy and mysticism, the book—first published in 1986—was one of the first to consciously blur the lines between business and art. The central thesis is that business (dealing as it does with dynamic tools like capital, people, markets, and ideas) is the highest form of art. An intriguing read, especially given that many of the concepts seem much more widely accepted today. A classic that should be on any entrepreneur’s bookshelf. – MS
The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All
by Michael Useem
The book cover describes this as “nine true stories of triumph and disaster and their lessons for all of us”—and that’s as good a description as I could come up with. Useem, the Director of the Wharton School’s Center for Leadership and Change Management, tells the compelling stories of nine critical events, and examines how the individuals and leaders made their choices, and what lessons the rest of us can draw from that. The tales range from the Mission Control crisis of Apollo 13 and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain leading a pivotal charge in America’s Civil War to Alfredo Cristiani’s efforts to end the civil war in El Salvador. Interesting, thought-provoking reading. – LW
Web sites/blogs
The mandate of Edge Foundation is similar to ours, albeit on a broader set of topics: to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world.
Podcasts
“This I Believe”
by NPR
“This I Believe” was revived by NPR for four years in the 2000’s, and features audio versions of some of the essays in the book (see above). – LW
