New Books in Business, Management, and Marketing

The Logic of Professionalism: Work and Management in Professional Service Organizations (Bristol UP, 2022) discusses common management and work practices in professional service organizations. Johan Alvehus opens important discussions on what it means to work, manage, and be managed in such professional organizations, casting light on classic conflicts. He takes everyday work as a starting point and adopts a critical view that focuses on challenges and struggles in both public and private settings. He offers new perspectives and key insights for the future of professionalism. Providing a comprehensive overview of the field, this book is an important guide for understanding how professionalism is maintained in today's organizations. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of management and leadership.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can we make creative industries fair and inclusive? In Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care (Routledge, 2021), Miranda Campbell, an associate professor in the School of Creative Industries at Ryerson University, explores this question theoretically and empirically to present a new vision for both young creative workers and creative production itself. Drawing on ideas of ordinariness and the everyday, along with the need for care and inclusivity, the book is critical of current creative industry practice at corporate level, whilst offering new models and new methods for making culture. With examples from a range of art and cultural forms, the book is essential reading for creative industries, arts and humanities, and social science scholars, as well as for creative practitioners everywhere.Dave O'Brien is Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Edinburgh's College of Art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Pamela Slim about her new book The Widest Net: Unlock Untapped Markets and Discover New Customers Right in Front of You (McGraw Hill, 2021).Almost all the new jobs created in America come from small businesses, Pamela Slim reports. The precise number may be as high as over 99%. And those same businesses provide over 50% of the nation’s GDP. So why not focus more on them? Slim does so by being expansive. Her focus includes Native American, Black, Latinx, Asian, disabled and LGBTQ entrepreneurs. How can they find their niches, then expand them? Who’s their ideal customer? What challenges or problems does a company’s branded offer solve? What kind of partners can one find? What kind of eco-system of “watering holes” allows one to join a greater community and thrive together? What do cohort-based courses like Wes Kao and Seth Godin’s altMBA program look like? If taking a business partner, what pitfalls to be on guard against? Those are among the topics this episode explores.Pamela Slim is an author, community builder, business coach, and former director of Training and Development at Barclays Global Investors. Among her accomplishments is partnering with author Susan Cain to build and launch The Quiet Revolution. Among her books is Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Nathalie Nahai new book Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience (Kogan Page, 2022)David Brooks once joked that in the end the “revolution” promised us by the Baby Boomers amounted to nothing much more than the founding of Whole Foods. What will Millennials bring us? Already it seems that the answer is a workforce and consumer-citizens for whom the values they want to live by and be known for on social media will be paramount. Why is that the case? As Nathalie Nahai argues, a primary reason is the looming environmental disaster of global warming. The stakes are high, and the result is that nothing can be taken for granted. With trust being the emotion of business, today’s agile, atomized and antagonized workplace wants more justice: for women, for blacks, for everyone who feels like the mantra of “profit with purpose” at least helps to offset, a little, the raging economic inequality of today’s economy. From cancel-culture to woke-washing, this is a hugely timely episode.Nathalie Nahai is an acclaimed international speaker, author, and consultant, with clients ranging from Google to Unilever, Accenture and beyond.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jethro Binns was rated 84th in the world squash rankings. A terrible accident on court cut his career short, later he founded Squashskills, which is now the world's leading online squash training resource. Jethro's Twitter Jethro's squash ranking More about Jethro Binns on his business webiste Just Jack Just Jack Music Drive by Dan Pink  About your host Richard LucasRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded, led and/or invested in more than 30 businesses, Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre-schools to leading business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Sarah and Larry Nannery about their new book What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life, and Love with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Tiller Press, 2021).What’s it like to live a life where there’s a time delay as you process what others are saying, what it might mean, and how you feel in response? Sarah Nannery knows that experience intimately, gaining in ability over the years to navigate everything from office politics to her personal life more adeptly given her ASD Brain. As a “neurotypical brain” person, her husband Larry Nannery adds his “two-cents” perspective here in terms of observing and helping Sarah and himself navigate their experiences together. Highlights of this conversation include: what internalization means to Sarah in coping with being “bottled up inside” more than perhaps most people, and how one makes a “conversational sandwich” as a way of handling small talk when it looms large as a challenge.Sarah Nannery is the director of development for Autism Initiatives at Drexel University. Larry Nannery is a technology consultant who focuses on organizational change and life-coaching.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the beginning of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, the Once-ler says, “I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.” Biggering, it turns out, is the default setting for most of us. For years, Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less (Flatiron Books, 2021), has studied how we transform things from how they are to how we want them to be. Both his research and the Once-ler’s tale relay similar sentiments: we gravitate towards adding and systematically neglect subtracting. This remains true even when subtracting might add considerable value to our lives!On this episode, Yael and Leidy discuss the science supporting addition by subtraction. Listen to this episode today to learn how to be deliberate in your choices, subtract what’s no longer serving you, and add value to your life in the process!Yael Schonbrun is a licensed clinical psychologist who wears a number of professional hats: she a small private practice specializing in evidence-based relationship therapy, she’s an assistant professor at Brown University, and she writes for nonacademic audiences about working parenthood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John and Elizabeth continue their conversation with Daniel Souleles, anthropologist at the Copenhagen Business School and author of Songs of Profit, Songs of Loss: Private Equity, Wealth, and Inequality (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press 2019).Dan’s work fits into a newish approach in anthropology of researching people with greater power and influence than the researchers themselves. That's sometimes called "studying up" and Dan and Elizabeth (who's writing a book about gold, after all!) have both thought a lot about it.Read the transcript here.Read Aneil Tripathy's RTB piece about actuarial time scales and how they shape the sort of anthropology that both he and Souleles practice.Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear:--how Maura Nevel Thomas became an expert in time-management skills--why you need to use your to-do list differently than you think--how to determine your priorities--why life-hacks don’t help--and why being productive and being busy aren’t the same thing.Today’s book is: From To-Do to Done: How to Go From Busy to Productive by Mastering Your To-Do List, by Maura Nevel Thomas. Trying to remember a bunch of details and tasks isn't the best use of your brainpower. By collecting all of your tasks in one place, you can reserve your mental energy for work that drives significant results, both in your professional life and your personal life. Rather than just another book on time management, Thomas helps you figure out and then focus on the things that matter to you, to feel more in control, less overwhelmed, and a greater sense of accomplishment now that you're focusing on what's important to you.Our guest is: Maura Nevel Thomas, an award-winning international speaker and trainer on individual and corporate productivity and work-life balance, and the most widely-cited authority on attention management. Her proprietary Empowered Productivity™ System has been embraced by the likes of the U.S. Army, L’Oreal, and Dell. She is a TEDx Speaker, founder of Regain Your Time, author of five books, and was named a Top Leadership Speaker in Inc. Magazine. Maura is frequently featured in major business outlets including Business Insider, Fast Company, and Huffington Post, and she’s also a regular contributor to both Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, with articles there viewed over a million times. Follow her on Twitter @mnthomas.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:--the links for the Brain-Dump PDF referenced in this podcast and directions for how to use it, which can be found on pages 18 and 19 in From To-Do to Done--Atomic Habits, by James Clear--Smart Change, by Art Markman--Attention Management: How to Create Success and Gain Productivity Every Day, by Maura Nevel Thomas-- The Happy Inbox, by Maura Nevel Thomas--The companion guide for From To-Do to Done: Download the guide now!You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should we love work? In The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (U California Press, 2021), Erin Cech, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, demonstrates how having passion for work fosters and reinforces a wide range of social inequalities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and data analysis, the book combines qualitative and quantitative data to elaborate and theorise ‘the passion principle’ that underpins how the more advantaged justify the inequalities associated with education and the labour market. Alongside revealing who benefits, and who suffers, from the ideology that people must be passionate about work, the book gives strategies and ideas on how to challenge and change the passion principle. The book will be essential reading across academia and for anyone interested in contemporary working life.Dave O'Brien is Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Edinburgh's College of Art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices