Book Reviews
A Manager’s Guide to Self-Development – book review
What does it take to become a better manager, and can a book help? Olga Anishenkova explores The Manager’s Guide to Self-Development, examining its practical exercises, reflective approach and emphasis on personal responsibility, while considering its strengths and limitations as a resource for leaders at every stage of their careers. Book: A Manager’s Guide to Self-DevelopmentAuthor: Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne, Tom Boydell, Joan Keevill, Kevin Roe and Jean-Anne Stewart For a long time, I have held the belief that any…
What to Do If…? – book review
From those difficult conversations to everyday leadership challenges, navigating workplace dilemmas takes confidence and reflection. Steph Charlesworth reviews Anne-Maartje Oud’s practical guide to handling everyday professional challenges, exploring how its bite-sized advice, relatable stories and flexible strategies can help readers develop new skills and find solutions throughout their working lives. Book: What To Do If…?: How to Handle Any Situation at Work and Come Out WinningAuthor: Anne-Maartje Oud Anne-Maartje Oud has distilled her extensive career on workplace behaviour into 268 pages…
The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients – book review
Independent consultants often know how to deliver excellent work, yet converting expertise into paid projects can remain difficult. Houra Amin explores a practical approach centred on client priorities, sharper discovery and better problem framing, showing how consultants can build stronger relationships, shape proposals and connect learning activity to business value. Book: The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning ClientsAuthor: David A. Fields This is a practical and refreshingly direct response to a challenge many independent consultants face: why is winning work…
Beyond Words – book review
Most leadership challenges are relational, not transactional and that should reshape L&D priorities. In his review, Andy Evans explores Beyond Words and its 8 Principles of Relational Capacity, following the path from survival to safety to success, and what this lens reveals about burnout, culture initiatives, and AI in organisations. Book: Beyond Words: How to Lead People from Survival to SuccessAuthor: Kerry-Lyn Stanton-Downes There’s a particular type of leadership book that arrives with a bold premise, delivers three hundred pages…
The Adaptive Leader – book review
Agility, for most L&D teams, is less about sprints and more about decisions close to work, safe experimentation and leading through uncertainty. Matt Smith reviews Giles Lindsay’s book The Adaptive Leader, exploring adaptive traits and cross-cultural ambition, alongside a key tension between “being agile” and the book’s recurring Agile terminology. Book: The Adaptive LeaderAuthor: Giles Lindsay There is a version of agility that most L&D professionals recognise, even if they have never attended a sprint planning session or facilitated a…
The Platinum Workforce – book review
In The Platinum Workforce, futurist Trond Arne Undheim maps how AI, IoT and biotech could reshape jobs and spawn new roles. Catherine Dock reviews the book’s practical role frameworks, credible case studies and warnings about disruption for white-collar work, and asks what skills we should learn, teach and question next. Book: The Platinum WorkforceAuthor: Trond Arne Undheim As someone who has run Technology Learning & Development organisations, I was excited to read this book. I’m also as the parent of…
Thinking in Systems – book review
In her book ‘Thinking in Systems’, Donella Meadows shows why well-meant training often fails when structures, interconnections and purpose stay intact. Drawing on stocks, flows and feedback loops, Houra Amin explores what learning leaders can diagnose before intervening, and how patience, mental models and better metrics reshape sustainable organisational change. Book: Thinking in SystemsAuthor: Donella Meadows Donella Meadows opens with a quote from Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “If a factory is torn down but the…
The Uncertainty Toolkit – book review
Cathy Hoy investigates why competency-based L&D falls short when uncertainty, not skill, blocks performance. Drawing on Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar Lewis’s new book The Uncertainty Toolkit, she highlights evidence from UCL research, practical exercises and new metrics for tolerance. The aim is to shift teams from threat to challenge. Book: The Uncertainty ToolkitAuthors: Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar Lewis For years, learning and development has been built on competency; we spot a gap, design a course, and measure if…
My book ‘AI for People Professionals’ was a human-first experiment
Behind the pages of a book shaped by humans and machines, Erica Farmer shares the creative highs, challenges and lessons from writing ‘AI for People Professionals’. From neurodivergent-friendly workflows to AI-supported thinking, it’s a candid look at what it means to write about the future of work in real time. When I started writing my book AI for People Professionals, I had no idea how much of a creative, emotional and intellectual rollercoaster it would be. This wasn’t just a…
Unleash the Inner CEO – book review
An insightful read that encourages embracing change and harnessing the power of leadership for success – reviewed by Gaëlle Watson Book: Unleash the Inner CEO – Make distributed leadership a reality Author: Jeremy Blain Beyond the title of leadership, this book is about reinventing the workplace for the digital age. It clearly addresses the C-Suite of organisations, focusing on the most strategic elements of leadership transformation. The tone, vocabulary and examples are tailored to appeal to senior leadership teams. Bain passionately…
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