Book Reviews
Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean Roberto Verganti Harvard Business Press (2009) Does design drive innovation or does innovation drive design? The answer is “Yes.” The success of each approach depends almost entirely…
Read More
The Decisive Company: How High-Performance Organizations Connect Strategy to Execution Steven Elliott Houndstooth Press (February 2025) “Vision without execution is hallucination.” Thomas Edison I agree with Edison and so does Steven Elliott. Organizations today face challenges that are more volatile,…
Read More
Shakespeare: The Biography Peter Ackroyd Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (October 2005) “Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare.” Ralph Waldo Emerson” Peter Ackroyd suggests that Emerson’s remark “is one of those rare cases whose work is singularly important and influential, yet…
Read More
Poverty Abolitionists: Faith, Activism, and Hope for Difficult Times David Beckmann Bloomsbury Academic May (2026) “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead…
Read More
Data Inspired: Building an Organizational Culture for Inquiry and Lasting Transformation Sebastian Wernicke Georgetown University Press (June 2026) “The essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do.” Michael Porter: In Data Inspired, Sebastian Wernicke achieves three separate but related,…
Read More
Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams Ron Friedman Simon & Schuster (June 2026) No team can be “super” unless its members excel in communication, cooperation, and (especially) collaboration As I began to read Superteams, I was again reminded…
Read More
Market Engineering: Because Markets Don’t Build Themselves Bruce Cleveland Silicon Valley Press (June 2026) How to create or recreate a market with sustainable competitive advantages How does Bruce Cleveland define market engineering? He suggests that the term seems to be…
Read More
Maybe It’s Me: Looking Inward to Create Real Change Through Conscious Choices Erika Alessandrini Amplify Publishing (May 2026) “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo the Possum Everyone encounters important questions to answer and serious problems to…
Read More
How Change Really Works: Seven Science-Based Principles for Transforming Your Organization Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer, and Philip Jameson Harvard Business Review Press (May (2026) How to overcome “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom” Years ago, I asked…
Read More
I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything Joanna Stern Harper/An Imprint of HarperCollins (May 2026) Here is “a reported and lived life” for one year, “not generated AI text.” Joanna Stern formulated a vow…
Read More