Great reads for board directors this holiday | Aprio
great reads for boards of directors

5 great reads for boards of directors over the holidays

While you may be staying closer to home this holiday season, perhaps there’s a silver lining that you’ll have more time to enjoy a new book. 

Here’s our list of 5 great books for board members, corporate secretaries and board administrators to get inspired for our coming year (it has to be better than the last one!). There’s something here from everyone with topics covering leadership, innovation, diversity and good governance. Happy reading!

Great read #1: Building an Inclusive Organization: Leveraging the Power of a Diverse Workforce

great reads for board of directors on diversity

Inclusivity was a profound topic of discussion and action in 2020 with many boards still having a distance to go to be representative of their stakeholders, customers or members served.

A diverse workforce is a business imperative. Without it, companies are made up of employees who come from the same background and have the same skills and, therefore, the same blind spots. A diverse workforce brings together different strengths, a variety of experiences, a huge breadth of knowledge and a wealth of creative problem-solving techniques. 

However, in order to leverage the benefits of this diverse workforce, businesses must be inclusive. Building an Inclusive Organization is a practical guide to creating an environment of real inclusion. It explains how to remove unconscious bias from company processes including recruitment and selection, how to make the case for diversity and inclusion to all stakeholders and how to embed inclusion into an organization’s culture and overall business strategy.

View it on Amazon

Great read #2: What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence

From Blackstone chairman, CEO, and co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman, a long-awaited book that uses impactful episodes from Schwarzman’s life to show readers how to build, transform, and lead thriving organizations. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, philanthropist, executive, or simply someone looking for ways to maximize your potential, the same lessons apply.

View it on Amazon 

Great read #3: Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

great reads for board of directors

Forget what you know about the world of work. Bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies–distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking–that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact. They cause dysfunction and frustration, ultimately resulting in workplaces that are a pale shadow of what they could be. Nine Lies About Work reveals the few core truths that will help you show just how good you are to those who truly rely on you.

View it on Amazon 

Great read #4: Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way

great reads for board of directors

Is your firm’s board creating value—or destroying it? Change is coming. Leadership at the top is being redefined as boards take a more active role in decisions that once belonged solely to the CEO. But for all the advantages of increased board engagement, it can create debilitating questions of authority and dangerous meddling in day-to-day operations. Directors need a new road map—for when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way.

View it on Amazon 

Great read #5: The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives

great reads for board of
Technology is accelerating far more quickly than anyone could have imagined. During the next decade, we will experience more upheaval and create more wealth than we have in the past hundred years. In this gripping and insightful roadmap to our near future, Diamandis and Kotler investigate how wave after wave of exponentially accelerating technologies will impact both our daily lives and society as a whole. Probing the science of technological convergence and how it will reinvent every part of our lives—transportation, retail, advertising, education, health, entertainment, food, and finance—explore how humanity will be taken into uncharted territories and reimagine the world as we know it. 

View it on Amazon 

 

On behalf of your whole board support crew here at Aprio, we wish you a safe and wonderful holiday season. Happy reading! And if you are a speed reader – you can also check out our 2019 recommended reads.  Stay well out there.

 

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