Jack Covert Selects RSS
Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together by Pamela Slim, Portfolio, 240 pages, $16. 00, Paperback, January 2014, ISBN 9781591846192
I recall an old employer of mine discussing candidates for a position, complaining “They jump around too much, one year here, another there,” inferring that these nuggets of experience wouldn’t add up to what we needed. I wondered how many other hiring managers felt the same way, and felt sorry for the candidates who had the challenge of telling their story.
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On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership by Alison Levine, Business Plus, 272 pages, $27. 00, Hardcover, January 2014, ISBN 9781455544875
Alison Levine’s requirements for accepting team members to join her on an expedition up Mount Everest are notably different from those of us who hire employees to join us on our business adventures. In addition to skill and enthusiasm, she explains, “there was the question, Would I trust this person with my life?
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Tim Harford has a knack for making the complicated, weird, and arcane aspects of economics accessible to the layperson—and a lot of fun to read, to boot. His usual realm is the behavioral, everyday economics of individuals and organizations (his books The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life are both brilliant on that score), but in his new book, The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, he goes big and tackles the wider world of macroeconomics.
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Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate by Rose George, Metropolitan Books, 304 pages, $28. 00, Hardcover, August 2013, ISBN 9780805092639
There is always one book that arrives with the submissions for our annual book awards that I’m surprised I missed when it came out. This year that book is Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George, and it is probably my personal favorite of the year.
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Joy, Inc. : How We Built a Workplace People Love by Richard Sheridan, Portfolio, 288 pages, $27. 95, Hardcover, December 2013, ISBN 9781591845874
Depending on whom you ask, joy in the workplace may or may not be considered crucial to an organization’s bottom line.
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