The Books I Enjoyed the Most in 2022

Original already published at https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/the-books-that-i-enjoyed-the-most-in-2022/

Your Stories Don’t Define You, How You Tell Them Will is the first book I read in January. It is written by my friend Sarah Elkins whom I met only online. As we know more about how humans function, how they listen, what impacts us, the whole world seemed to agree storytelling is crucial.

None of us want to be dumped information. We learn during storytelling. We remember stories. We are inspired by stories.

This book covers all the places we need stories from our relationships to our careers. Sarah is a great storyteller herself and also shares a lot of good stories on her podcast too.

If you want to be a better storyteller this is a gem from someone who walks the talk.

Re-HUMAN-izing The Workplace is a book by Chuck Blakeman whom I met several years ago as soon as I watched his TedTalk. I knew I had to meet him and I did and stayed connected for years now. As the title implies, it is all about remembering and focusing on HUMANS at work.

He focuses especially on the art and science of Distributed Decision-making, networked organizations, power of the crowd. It is in line with everything I believe in to create a great work culture. He has several examples. He has forms to fill out and answer questions at the end of every chapter for you to do the work on your own too. Always a fan of his books and his work.

The Heart of Business from Hubert Joly was pure joy to read since it talks about #purpose and how to build a #purposefulbusiness. He tells his story with Best Buy and how it all worked. I cannot even tell you the number of sentences highlighted and marked, as I read through it. It is a must read for all young #leaders to be inspired.

Deep Purpose from Ranjay Gulati as you can imagine got my attention the minute it was published. So much in there is going to be referenced in the book I am writing about Purpose. Of course as usual I reached out to Prof Ranjay Gulati and we already had a few chats. If you want to find out more about him and his work you can also listen to us here on this video. He is now among my Purposeful Leaders series. If you want to learn more how purpose plays a part in business, it is one of the best books you can read.

Daniel Pink's When is a book that I have not read for years. I love and learn so much from his books. This year I met him in person in San Diego while he was doing a tour of his new book Regret (still waiting to be read). So that motivated me to go and buy When which talks about scientific research about time. As someone who always feels like I am in time crunch, I can always use a book about “time” and how to use it wisely. There are so many interesting research in it including when we are the happiest and when the number of our friends go up and decline. I shared a lot of I read with people around me since it is a book for everyone.

Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick was recommended to me by my co-founder and one of the smartest people I have ever met; Jasmine Kernaleguen. Knowing I am writing a new book for 3 years now, she said this might be a good resource. I really liked a lot of the teachings of this book which also point to mistakes I made in my previous books. It changed the flow and the content a lot so it may take a while before I finish mine. Yet I wanted to mention it here to stay accountable. I really want 2023 to be the year I complete it, since there will be no end to it if I keep on adding what I am learning.

Humble Inquiry from Ed Schein is a book I read in 2016 yet I wanted to add it to this list today since I heard he passed away. All his books including this one taught me so much about being a better consultant. Thank you Edgar Schein, you left an amazing legacy behind. Thank you for all your passionate work.

If you want to know some of the books I read in the past years, here are some links: 2021 books, 2020 books, 2019 books.

Look forward to reading lots of other books in 2023 that are already on my bookshelves waiting for me (and all the others I cannot resist and will buy!)