New Books in Business, Management, and Marketing

Today I talked to Paul Davis about her new book Beating Burnout at Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being and Resilience (Wharton School, 2021)What if companies held executives responsible for the turn-over rate, absenteeism rate, and the degree to which employees in the department they direct had higher-than-usual chronic mental and physical health issues? Might that be a different, more humane world of work? The answer is yes, most likely; and Davis’s book and this episode explores what causes stress and burn-out as well as solutions. Adjusting the workload, providing a sense of recognition and rewards, allowing for flexibility as opposed to micro-managing, and building teams that foster a feeling of trust and belonging are among the keys. The bottom line here is that managing people by offering support and imposing control is the single best recipe for lowering the level of burnout for staffs everywhere.Paula Davis, JD, MAPP, is the founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute. A former lawyer, Paula earned a M.A. in applied psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She’s been featured in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, and The Washington Post, and she contributes to Forbes, Fast Company and Psychology Today.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). 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

In 2013, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey started a movement with Conscious Capitalism, a New York Times bestseller that taught the power of the heroic spirit of business. Since then, readers and fans have been asking Mackey for a follow-up on leadership. Now he's answered their call, to inspire entrepreneurs and trailblazers to take the next step: as leaders who see beyond the bottom line. Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity Through Business (Portfolio, 2020) by John Mackey, Steve McIntosh and Carter Phipps pulls back the veil on the strategies that have helped Mackey shepherd Whole Foods through four decades of incredible growth and innovation, including its recent sale to Amazon. Through time-tested virtues, from Passion for Purpose to Seek Win-Win-Win Solutions, each chapter will challenge you to rethink conventional business wisdom. The book weaves together anecdotes and case studies, profiles of other conscious leaders and innovative techniques for self-development -- culminating in an empowering call to action.In this episode host Mark McKergow talks to Carter Phipps about Conscious Leadership, how being 'conscious' (aware, learning, flexible, not asleep!) is ever more important for leaders in businesses and elsewhere. The book is a rich collection of ideas and examples - a few well-known, others less familiar - which take forward the ideas of purpose-driven businesses with wider ambitions than simply making money. Carter is also refreshingly up-front about the need for businesses to make money as well!  In the conversation Carter explores how purpose and effectively co-exist for successful businesses, how leadership has become a crucial factor in talent engagement and retention, and how long-term thinking becomes ever more important as the range of stakeholders grows. He also mentions 'Cultural Intelligence', a way to look at different world views and seek to help people understand where others are coming from so they can work together and not simply slug it out. Mark McKergow is an author, speaker, facilitator and coach specialising in solution-focused and post-heroic leadership approaches in organisations. He is the author of six books including The Solution Focus (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2007) and Host: Six new roles of engagement (Solutions Books, 2014), and is currently building the Village In The City project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do many startups fail? Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School realised that even he didn’t really know the answer, despite a lifetime teaching entrepreneurship, and decided to write a book to answer exactly that question. You can hear him go into detail on the NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership Channel interviewed by experienced entrepreneurs Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis. Whether you want to start a business one day, or just have better conversations with people who are in business, don’t miss this “book of the day” podcast. He draws attention to a critical gap in the Lean Startup methodology which can save both dollars and time if correctly applied. This idea alone makes the podcast worth listening to.The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.In this episode we do go a little further into Tom’s background that normal, and give an entrepreneurial take on his ideas.He does a great job of explaining his ideas, and there is much for any entrepreneur to learn.If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn't answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success (Currency, 2021), Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures.* Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder's talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly.* False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to "fail fast" and to "launch before you're ready," founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions.* False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand.* Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to "get big fast," hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures.* Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both.* Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong.About our guestTom Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS) and the faculty co-chair of the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. Since joining the HBS faculty in 1997, he’s led The Entrepreneurial Manager, an introductory course taught to all first-year MBAs, and launched fourteen electives on all aspects of entrepreneurship, including one on startup failure. Eisenmann has authored more than one hundred HBS case studies and his writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes.About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a career in B2B sales, including the experience of seeing how marketing departments fail to provide sales people with the presentations they need, Greg decided to found PitchKitchen to help other CEOs solve the problem he faced. Greg shares his journey into sales from art school, and what the key elements of a successful approach to sales presentation and websites that sell really are.Greg Rosner is the CEO of Pitch Kitchen and author of Road Warrior Survival Guide. In this discussion, Greg reveals how his extensive history with sales presentations led him to break away from the corporate world and start Pitch Kitchen. Pitch Kitchen helps B2B companies turn bad presentations into a great conversation. You can learn more about Greg Rosner (PitchKitchen) on Linktree,  Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Crunchbase, and the Pitch Kitchen website. Books he recommended in this episode include, Never Split The Difference, Building a Storybrand and GAP Selling.The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.About the NBNThe New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube. This episode can be viewed here https://youtu.be/j_5n4m1sN8gAbout Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Carla Diana about her new book My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).Carla Diana is a robot designer responsible for the creative aspects of Diligent Robotics’ new hospital service robot named Moxi. She created and leads the 4D Design masters program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, wrote the world’s first children’s book on 3D printing, LEO the Maker Prince, and she cohosts the Robopsych Podcast.The author is intrigued by where technology is headed—the “electronic guts” of high-tech offerings--at the same time that she never loses focus on what kind of gut reaction a user will have in interacting with a product. This episode therefore ranges from discussing modalities central to Diana’s work (sound, movement, and lighting) to addressing how important it is for designers and engineers alike to engage in “bodystorming” exercises that align everyone around what the user’s experience will be like. Delight and ease of use are both key criteria in achieving success. If there’s a Frankenstein aspect to helping bring robots “alive,” fortunately Diana is somebody concerned with all the ethical challenges that arise.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). 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

In his highly influential book, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Carleton College Professor of Economics, Nathan Grawe, alerted college and university leaders to the challenges they would be facing with the accelerating decline in the number of U.S. high school graduates that will come in the middle of this decade. In his new book, The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021), he updates the demographic trends through the mid-2030s and describes the variety of strategies different institutions are adopting to respond to the decline in their traditional student population. He shares what led him to become an economist and the rigorous training he received at the University of Chicago. We have an engaging discussion of the implications of his work for both university leaders and policymakers as they debate reforms for funding college students. He also shares some insights from his new project looking at the publishing and career paths of economists working in liberal arts colleges.David Finegold is the president of Chatham University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We often think the key to success and satisfaction is to get more: more money, time, and possessions; bigger budgets, job titles, and teams; and additional resources for our professional and personal goals. It turns out we're wrong.Using captivating stories to illustrate research in psychology and management, Rice University professor Scott Sonenshein examines why some people and organizations succeed with so little, while others fail with so much. People and organizations approach resources in two different ways: "chasing" and "stretching." When chasing, we exhaust ourselves in the pursuit of more. When stretching, we embrace the resources we already have. This frees us to find creative and productive ways to solve problems, innovate, and engage our work and lives more fully.Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined (HarperCollins, 2017) shows why everyone--from executives to entrepreneurs, professionals to parents, athletes to artists--performs better with constraints; why seeking too many resources undermines our work and well-being; and why even those with a lot benefit from making the most out of a little.Drawing from examples in business, education, sports, medicine, and history, Scott Sonenshein advocates a powerful framework of resourcefulness that allows anybody to work and live better.Debbie Sorenson is a psychologist in Denver and the host of the excellent podcast Psychologists Off the Clock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I spoke with Bobby Lee about his book 'The promise of Bitcoin: The Future of Money and How It Can Work for You' (McGraw-Hill, 2021).Bobby Lee is a very interesting character, among the leading figures in the field of cryptocurrency. He is the founder and CEO of Ballet, a cryptocurrency startup. He is the cofounder of BTCC, the longest-running bitcoin exchange and leading financial platform worldwide. He also serves on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has built wider awareness of bitcoin, one of the industry’s most influential groups. Before founding BTCC, Lee was vice president of technology of Walmart. Previously, Lee was a software engineer at Yahoo!, where he led the development of the earliest online communities.We started the conversation mentioning the mysterious figure of Satoshi Nakamoto. We covered the actions currently being taken by central banks in the field and we spoke about the case of China. We also discussed why criminals are interested in using Bitcoin.The book is a very good tool for those like me who were only vaguely aware of the cryptocurrency sector. Bobby offers a compelling argument for how this digital currency could impact the global economy. A financial revolution is materializing before our eyes. The way individuals, organizations, and governments conduct transactions—from purchasing a book online to acquiring major corporations to delivering billions in financial aid—will look vastly different in the near future. According to Bobby, Bitcoin is spearheading this transformation and may be the best investment opportunity of our time, yet most people have yet to understand its promise. In this book, Lee, one of the earliest, most successful pioneers in the cryptocurrency space, debunks myths and dispels fears that surround Bitcoin, arguing that this rational, logical system is superior to traditional monetary systems. He cites signs of Bitcoin’s widening acceptance: a growing community of users worldwide and multiple initiatives for investing in and holding bitcoin among major financial services organizations and institutional investors who control trillions in assets. Lee offers a primer on the best strategies for investing in this digital currency. He discusses the pros and cons, and covers the complicated yet more profitable method of acquiring bitcoin, mining. He offers predictions for the future, including price, trajectory, use, and participation in the larger economy—as well as developments in regulation, technology, business, and society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Business of Architecture: Your Guide to a Financially Successful Firm (Routledge, 2017) is the essential guide to understanding the critical fundamentals to succeed as an architect. Written by successful architects for architects everywhere, this book shows the architecture industry from a corporate business perspective, refining the approach to architecture as a personal statement to one that must design and build within the confines of business and clients. The Business of Architecture will educate new and experienced architects alike with valuable insights about profit centers, the architect as developer, how to respond to requests for proposals, intellectual property, and much more.Kathy Dixon FAIA, NOMA, and CEO of WMCRP Architects, Inc and principal of K. Dixon Architecture, is a licensed architect with 26 years of experience. Timothy A. Kephart has degrees in Economics and Political Science from the University of Rochester. Karl L. Moody began his career as an associate architect with Simmons and Associates in New York City.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Twitter enters its own adolescence, both the users and the creators of this famous social media platform find themselves engaging with a tool that certainly could not have been imagined at its inception. In their engaging book Twitter: A Biography (NYU Press, 2020), Jean Burgess and Nancy K. Baym (@nancybaym) tell the fascinating and surprising story of how this platform developed from a quirky SMS tool for publicly sharing intimate details of personal life to a major source of late-breaking news, political activism, and even governmental communication. This story explores how many of Twitter's most ubiquitous and iconic conventions were not systematically rolled out from a centralized corporate strategy, but so often driven by users who continued to innovate within the limitations of the platform they had to democratically create the platform they desired. Yet this story highlights the tensions along the way as Twitter has adapted to new and unforeseen challenges, business models, and social consequences as the experiments of social media have become increasingly powerful, influential, and contested. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the wild and changing landscape of internet communication and communities. Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices