Contributors to the February 2020 issue of TD magazine offer their book recommendations.

Lea Hougland

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher

This book promotes effective, nonconfrontational negotiation techniques. It gave me the tools to not be afraid to disagree with others in both personal and work relationships while maintaining a courteous and diplomatic disposition.

Excel for Dummies by Greg Harvey

As a former teacher, Excel spreadsheets were not part of my day-to-day responsibilities, which meant I had to master it quickly when I moved into the office culture. Excel for Dummies not only gave me the tools to survive the transition but to become a pro.

Morgean Hirt

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't by Simon Sinek

With so much cynicism, self-interest, and a cancel culture in society, this book has re-inspired me to take a look at how to best motivate myself and my team to do our best work.

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

This is a poignant story about the power of curiosity, learning, and finding inner strength we often didn’t know we had.

Profiles in Leadership: Historians on the Elusive Quality of Greatness edited by Walter Isaacson

This is a great selection of essays about why some leaders are good at some things but not at others, which provides some interesting thoughts about who we think will be right for the job but may not actually be.

John Coné

Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work by Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau

The authors present tools to answer questions like how, when, and where companies should apply automation in their organizations. This starts with businesses continuously reexamining what a job really is and identifying tasks within jobs and how these tasks may need to be reconstructed.

Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen by Rita McGrath

Business needs to anticipate major changes before they come. To help readers learn this skill, McGrath offers stories of companies that have navigated disruption with varying degrees of success.

Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney

The book introduces a new discipline called category design, which is essentially the idea that companies can create new demand where none existed. Although this idea is most prominent in the tech industry, it can be applied to other businesses.