Lisa Bodell’s Five Essential Books for Innovation and Simplification

I’ve always enjoyed talking with Lisa Bodell. She’s smart and insightful, and dedicated to helping people do the work that matters — always a cause close to my heart. Her latest book, Why Simple Wins, tackles how to reduce workplace complexity, get clarity and bring value to the organization. I can think of no one better to share with us her five essential books for innovation and simplification. Thanks, Lisa, for being my guest blogger today.

Book 1: Powers of Two: How Relationships Drive Creativity

By Joshua Wolf Shenk

In Powers of Two, Joshua Shenk draws on neuroscience, social psychology and cultural history to present the social foundations of creativity, with the pair as its primary embodiment. Revealing the six essential stages through which creative intimacy unfolds, Shenk shows how pairs begin to talk, think and even look like each other; how the most successful ones thrive on conflict; and why some cease to work together while others carry on.

Book 2: The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

By David Brooks

The unconscious mind, it turns out, is not a dark, vestigial place but a creative one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made — the natural habitat of the Social Animal. Brooks reveals the deeply social aspect of our minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism and IQ. He demolishes conventional definitions of success and looks toward a culture based on trust and humility.

Book 3: Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

By Arianna Huffington

As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success — money and power — has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life and, ironically, our careers. Thrive provides a new way forward.

Book 4: Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

By Adam Grant

In Give and Take, Adam Grant, an award-winning researcher and Wharton’s highest-rated professor, examines the surprising forces that influence why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom. Praised by social scientists, business theorists and corporate leaders, Give and Takeopens up an approach to work, interactions and productivity that is nothing short of revolutionary.

Book 5: The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation

By Frans Johansson

The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples of how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations. Its assertion that breakthrough principles of creativity occur at novel intersections is an enduring principle of creativity that should guide innovators in every field.

Meet Lisa Bodell

Lisa Bodell is an award-winning author and CEO of futurethink. As a futurist and expert on the topic of change, she serves as a global council member of the World Economic Forum and has helped thousands of senior leaders ignite innovation, including at Bloomberg, Pfizer and Lockheed Martin.

An inspired speaker, Lisa has brought her message to more than 30 countries and nearly 100,000 people each year. She has been rated as a top speaker at Google’s client events and is the author of the bestseller Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution, which won a 2014 Axiom Business Book Award and was voted Best Business Book (Management & Leadership) by USA Book News and Booz & Co. Her new book, Why Simple Wins, was released in October 2016.

Connect:

Web: FutureThink.com

Twitter: @LisaBodell

LinkedIn: LisaBodell

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS POST, YOU'LL ALSO LIKE:

1. Eileen McDargh’s Five Essential Books for Resiliency 
2. Andrea Lee’s Five Essential Books for Living Heroically Despite Difficult Circumstances 
3. Nancy Duarte’s Five Essential Books for Growing Your Business 
4. Bill Jensen’s Five Essential Books for Figuring Stuff Out 

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ABOUT MICHAEL BUNGAY STANIER & BOX OF CRAYONS

Michael Bungay Stanier is the Senior Partner and Founder of Box of Crayons, a company that helps people and organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. They're best known from their coaching programs that give busy managers the tools to coach in 10 minutes or less.

Download free chapters of Michael's latest book The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever here.

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