The Non-Obvious Guide to Being More Creative (No Matter Where You Work)
By Kathryn P. Haydon
Award-winning educator and innovation strategist Kathryn Haydon, MSc, makes the case for the synergy of creativity and business savvy in The Non-Obvious Guide to Being More Creative. Packed with practical tools and tricks, Haydon helps each reader unleash not only their creative brilliance but also delineates how to inspire the creativity in others and the most effective ways to incorporate the process into problem-solving and the evaluation of results.
Servicey add-ons come in the form of links and icons that lead to downloads, templates, tutorials, and videos that help the reader apprehend the concepts and principles with optimal clarity.
218 pages (pbk), Ideapress Publishing (2019)
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate
By Fran Hauser
Bedford resident Fran Hauser’s The Myth of the Nice Girl is definitely a breakout hit, not only with Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle site, Goop, but also with People, Forbes, and Bustle, among others. What Hauser does so well in this book is take the cliché of the “nice girl” and toss it right off the C-suite balcony — effectively deconstructing the myth that in order to be a nice person, a woman must be a doormat at the office or that, conversely, to be taken seriously and get things done, she must become a white-collar cross between Miranda Priestly and Nurse Ratched. Nice Girl is a worthwhile bible for professional women of all stripes.
224 pages (pbk), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2018)
The Road Beyond: What Nobody Tells You About Selling a Midsized Business
By Achim Neumann
In The Road Beyond, award-winning Columbia and Wharton grad Achim Neumann, who founded A Neumann & Associates in 2003, deftly navigates the arcane and foreboding arena of M&A. If you want to understand the nuances of properly valuing and selling a privately held business, The Road Beyond can really help.
200 pages (pbk) IWS License, LLC (2017)
IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon
By James W. Cortada
This is no quick read between stops on Metro-North. IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention is a 750-page tome written by a historian who worked at IBM for 38 years before chronicling the fascinating history of one of the world’s most legendary brands.
Going as far back as the 19th century, all the way through the PC revolution of the 1980s, Cortada discusses not only Big Blue’s many successes and failures but also its corporate culture over the decades, the regulatory and antitrust battles — even the track records of its CEOs. A surprisingly approachable and entertaining read.
752 pages (pbk), The MIT Press (2019)
