Reflections: Favorite Reads of 2023
Books, Books, Books…..We Love Books…..
If you follow us at all, you know that we LOVE books. Like love love them - paper books, audio books, articles about books, people who write books, people who research for books.....we love them all.
Here are a few of our favorites from 2023 (it was hard to narrow it down to only 8). Some of these fall squarely in the “Leadership & Development” space, but most do not, or they dance on the edge. However, we would argue that if you are truly looking at Leadership & Development from a human-centric lens, ANY book that helps you to better understand humans and/or offers a different or new perspective IS a Leadership & Development book.
So here you go! Quick descriptions and links to more info below!
Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke, PhD
Annie Duke is a retired professional poker phenom (She is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship) with a cognitive psychology PhD from UPenn. If that one sentence doesn’t make you want to read this book….we give up.
This book is fascinating, funny, easy to read, and filled with great true stories that illustrate why humans are SO BAD at knowing when to quit. Many of us consider quitting and failure to be synonymous….but are they? <spoiler alert: NO>
“Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest.” - Quit, Annie Duke
An Immense World by Ed Yong
Ed Yong is a British-American science journalist and Pulitzer winner, and he has a corgi named Typo. Which (Do we need to explain?) makes him instantly likable.
In An Immense World, Yong beautifully brings the reader into the wildly variant sensory experiences of animals. At first glance, you might think, “What does that have to do with leadership, organizational culture, or HUMANS?” But stay with us…..through Yong’s masterful journalistic storytelling, he uncovers the depth and breadth of our (human’s) assumptive biases and blindspots - not just as they relate to individual facts, but as they relate to the holistic lens by which we make sense of the world. This book is a unique and fascinating journey of empathic discovery and perceptual questioning.
“It tells us that all is not as it seems and that everything we experience is but a filtered version of everything that we could experience.” - An Immense World, Ed Yong
Behave by Robert Sapolsky, PhD
This one is for the biology & neuroscience enthusiasts out there. Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist, researcher, and author who currently makes his professional home at Stanford University.
In Behave, Sapolsky clearly and thoroughly walks the reader through the biological and anthropological “why’s” of human behavior. Spending time on the physiological function of the brain, how different hormones impact behavior, and how culture and human interaction intersect to influence behavior. But this is not just a biology textbook. Sapolsky takes his deep scientific knowledge and makes connections to group dynamics, conflict & “othering"” polarization, religion, war, PTSD, free will, and a host of other fascinating and incredibly relevant areas. This book packs in a lot. Enjoy!
“You don’t have to choose between being scientific and being compassionate.” - Behave, Robert Sapolsky
A Liberated Mind by Steven C. Hayes, PhD
This one is for the behavioral psychology nerds out there. Steven Hayes is a practicing psychologist and is one of field’s most cited psychologists, with over 40 books published and hundreds of journal publications. He is the originator of ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy).
This book is an overview of ACT supported by the cumulative data of over 1,000 studies featuring ACT in practice. The underlying “problem statement” that frames ACT is that human physiology and psychology are having trouble keeping up with the pace and evolution of the modern world, which he posits is the root cause of modern-day suffering. ACT is Hayes’ mindset “treatment” map to reconcile the inner world of humans and the inevitable and ever-accelerating pace of modern life.
This book is interesting and useful if you are a trainer, coach, parent, psychological practitioner, or just a HUMAN working on how do do and be better in life.
“The central shift is from a focus on what you think and feel to how do you relate to what you think and feel. Specifically, the new emphasis is on learning to step back from what you are thinking, notice it, and open up to what you are experiencing.” - A Liberated Mind, Steven C. Hayes
The Road to Character by David Brooks
This one was a re-read. It is that good. If you aren’t familiar with David Brooks, where have you been?!?!? Prolific author and journalist, probably most well known for his tenure at the New York Times, he has spent his life researching and writing about politics, culture, and social science.
This book is a series of “short-story-style” chapters organized around themes of character, such as struggle, self-mastery, and love. Using a wide variety of historical examples, he takes the reader on a thought provoking and self-reflective journey through the deep questions of character.
This book will make you think hard about yourself and the people in your orbit. As a bonus, you will learn some really interesting tidbits and factoids about historical figures and interesting people that you probably didn’t know. Fun stuff for the self-reflection nerds out there!
“…wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and figuring out a way to handle your ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation.” - The Road to Character, David Brooks
You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
This book is the best useful and tactically relevant breakdown of “active listening” that we have come across. Kate Murphy is journalist who has made a career of LISTENING. She states, “The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a journalist is that everybody is interesting if you ask the right questions. If someone is dull or uninteresting, it’s on you.”
In this book she takes the somewhat nebulous idea of “active listening” gives context through cultural observation and neuroscience, and outlines specific and actionable calls to action. If you are a leader of humans….SO IMPORTANT. But frankly, this book would benefit any person that is intersted in improving the quality and effectiveness of any and all of their relationships.
“The truth is, we only become secure in our convictions by allowing them to be challenged. Confident people don’t get riled by opinions different from their own, nor do they spew bile online by way of refutation. Secure people don’t decide others are irredeemably stupid or malicious without knowing who they are as individuals.” - You’re Not Listening, Kate Murphy
Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy Edmondson, PhD
We were SOOOOO excited about this one from Amy Edmondson, the undisputed expert and researcher on Psycholgoical Safety and its importance in the workplace, released this gem in the fall of 2023, and it did not disappoint.
One, obviously we love anything that brings Failure conversations into the national spotlight. Two, this book really is excellent. In fact, it was recently crowned the winner of the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year for 2023.
One of the most useful parts of this book is how clearly Edmondson defines and describes different types of failure. Not all failures are created equal. She shares our view that the very popular “Fail Fast, Fail Forward” initiatives that have become wildly popularized in business culture at the least unclear and and the worst actually damaging to organziational culture and individual/team effectiveness.
“Good failures are those that bring us valuable new information that simply could not have been gained any other way.” - Right Kind of Wrong, Amy Edmondson
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
And one for the poets and amateur experiential anthropologists out there. Ross Gay is a poet, essayist, professor, and student of humanity. This book is a beautiful autobiographical exploration of joy, suffering, love, and shared humanity. Not gonna lie, tears were shed reading this one - tears of sadness and joy - which Ross would probably argue are two sides of the same coin.
As skilled poets and writeres often do, the stories begin simply, inviting readers into an experience of shared humanity, and then slowly….slowly….Ross opens our minds to a depth of nuance and complexity that cannot be summarized in a couple of sentences. You will have to read it yourself and see what you think. :)
“What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?” - Inciting Joy, Ross Gay