And finally… something for the boss

At PA Life we’re devoted to bringing you the very latest news, tips, advice and recommendations on a whole smorgasbord of topics that we hope are of interest to you in your professional lives. Since our most popular stories seem to be those that provide suggestions on how to engender a better working relationship with your manager, we thought we’d ensure you get even more brownie points by bringing you a selection of news items of interest to the boss.

In this edition, we look at the best new business books for your exec to read this year, as chosen by Adam Grant, who is a professor of management at the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Top of Grant’s list is Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, who examines issues such as what it takes for leaders to transform paranoia and cynicism into trust and whether a common enemy is necessary for co-operation. Next up is Quick and Nimble by Adam Bryant, in which the author interviews hundreds of executives to identify the most effective strategies for innovation across industries, making for a work that is full of practical insights.

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold is a self-help book that mixes research with real-life examples to provide compelling advice on how to become more motivated, save money, eat less, get organised, boost your willpower and keep those New Year’s resolutions.

Number four on the list is Scaling Up Excellence by Robert Sutton and Hayagreeva Rao. This pair of eminent Stanford professors shed light on the problems of scaling in a business context with a book that contains lots of case studies and actionable ideas designed to help make individual departments and entire organisations work more effectively.

Making it into the management lecturer’s top five must-reads for business bods is Everything Connects by Faisal Hoque and Drake Baer. Philosophy, business and history combine in this volume to provide a fascinating look at leadership, creativity, innovation and sustainability and what leaders can learn from Eastern wisdom and contemporary psychology.

Check out the full top 12 at tinyurl.com/oor2ycq