Business Books to Watch in June

There's a great blend of books coming out in June, from the eminently practical to the psychologically fascinating. I usually put these books in order of their release date, but over half of the books below are being released on June 6th, an invasion of books on the anniversary of D-Day. 

The Inspiration Code: How the Best Leaders Energize People Every Day by Kristi Hedges, AMACOM

All it takes is the right conversation…

Great leaders inspire action with their words. They spark enthusiasm and commitment. With a single conversation, they can change the direction of someone's life.

Everyone wants to be the kind of leader who energizes and mobilizes others—yet too few are. Why is it so challenging to crack the code?

Executive coach Kristi Hedges spent years studying exactly what inspiring leaders do differently. Informed by quantitative research and thousands of responses from leaders at all levels, she reveals that inspiring communication isn't about grand gestures. Instead, those who motivate us most do a few things routinely, consistently, and intentionally.

Eye-opening and accessible, The Inspiration Code dispels common myths about how leaders communicate—and guides them in cultivating qualities that authentically excite.

Inspired companies need inspirational leaders. Learn to unlock motivation, lift peoples' sights, and lead them into the future.

Sellout: How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home by Victoria Bruce, Bloomsbury

The story of one citizen’s fight to preserve a U.S. stake in the mineral elements essential to high tech industries, national defense, and the future of clean energy.

American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the U.S. government, once proprietary technologies and materials are now exploited around the world. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China’s monopoly of rare earth elements—materials that are essential for our gadgets and weapons systems.

Jim Kennedy is a retired securities trader who bought a bankrupt mining operation. The mine was rich in rare earth elements, but he soon discovered that China owned the entire global supply and manufacturing chain. Worse, no one in the federal government cared. Dismayed by this discovery, Jim made a plan to restore America’s rare earth element mining and weapons system production. His plan also allowed technology companies to manufacture in the U.S. again and develop safe, clean nuclear energy. For years, Jim lobbied Congress, the Pentagon, the White House Office of Science and Technology, and travelled the globe to gain support. Exhausted, down hundreds of thousands of dollars, and with the threat of divorce, in the spring of 2016, Jim sat on the edge of victory, held his breath and bet it all that his government would finally do the right thing.

Like Beth Macy’s Factory Man, this is the story of one man’s efforts to stem the dehumanizing tide of globalization and Washington’s reckless inaction. Jim's is a fight we need to join.

The Mathematical Corporation: Where Machine Intelligence and Human Ingenuity Achieve the Impossibleby Josh Sullivan & Angela Zutavern, PublicAffairs

The Mathematical Corporation is the breakthrough book leaders have been waiting for, showing how the synergistic combination of human ingenuity and machine cognition takes the guesswork out of decision-making and leads to new products, services, and solutions that reshape business and society.

The most powerful weapon in business today is the alliance between the mathematical smarts of machines and the imaginative human intellect of great leaders. Together they make the mathematical corporation, the business model of the future.

We are at a once-in-a-decade breaking point similar to the quality revolution of the 1980s and the dawn of the internet age in the 1990s: leaders must transform how they run their organizations, or competitors will bring them crashing to earth—often overnight.

Mathematical corporations—the organizations that will master the future—will outcompete high-flying rivals by merging the best of human ingenuity with machine intelligence. While smart machines are weapon number one for organizations, leaders are still the drivers of breakthroughs. Only they can ask crucial questions to capitalize on business opportunities newly discovered in oceans of data.

This dynamic combination will make possible the fulfillment of missions that once seemed out of reach, even impossible to attain. Josh Sullivan and Angela Zutavern's extraordinary examples include the entrepreneur who upended preventive health care, the oceanographer who transformed fisheries management, and the pharmaceutical company that used algorithm-driven optimization to boost vaccine yields.

Together they offer a profoundly optimistic vision for a dazzling new phase in business, and a playbook for how smart companies can manage the essential combination of human and machine.

Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World by Mitch Prinstein, Viking

A leading social psychologist examines why popularity matters so profoundly in our lives—and how to become genuinely popular.

Popular examines why popularity plays such a key role in our development and, ultimately, how it still influences our happiness and success today. In many ways—some even beyond our conscious awareness—those old dynamics of our youth continue to play out in every business meeting, every social gathering, in our personal relationships, and even how we raise our children. Our popularity even affects our DNA, our health, and our mortality in fascinating ways we never previously realized. More than childhood intelligence, family background, or prior psychological issues, research indicates that it’s how popular we were in our early years that predicts how successful and how happy we grow up to be.

But it’s not always the conventionally popular people who fare the best, for the simple reason that there is more than one type of popularity—and many of us still long for the wrong one. As children, we strive to be likable, which can offer real benefits not only on the playground but throughout our lives. In adolescence, though, a new form of popularity emerges, and we suddenly begin to care about status, power, influence, and notoriety—research indicates that this type of popularity hurts us more than we realize.

Realistically, we can’t ignore our natural human social impulses to be included and well-regarded by others, but we can learn how to manage those impulses in beneficial and gratifying ways. Popular relies on the latest research in psychology and neuroscience to help us make the wisest choices for ourselves and for our children, so we may all pursue more meaningful, satisfying, and rewarding relationships.

Venture Investing in Science by Douglas W. Jamison & Stephen R. Waite, Columbia University Press

Over the past decade, software companies have increasingly monopolized the flow of venture capital, starving support for scientific research and its transformative discoveries.

New medicines, cheaper and faster personal computers, and other life-changing developments all stem from deep investment in science. In the past, these funds have led to steam engines, light bulbs, microprocessors, 3D printers, and even the Internet. In Venture Investing in Science, the venture capitalist Douglas W. Jamison and the investment author Stephen R. Waite directly link financial support to revolutionary advancements in physics, computers, chemistry, and biology and make a passionate case for continued investing to meet the global challenges of our time.

Clean air and water, cures for intractable diseases, greener public transportation, cheaper and faster communication technologies—these are the rich opportunities awaiting venture capital investment today. Jamison and Waite focus on how early-stage companies specializing in quantum computing, graphene chips, and precision medicine struggle for funding, proposing a plan to bring the small IPO back to market to energize deep scientific investment. Commercializing science-based innovation also reactivates the economic dynamism that once defined American dominance in science and technology research. These partnerships have the potential to create legacies, not to mention lift millions out of poverty and secure the public good.

Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win by Chris Kuenne & John Danner, Harvard Business Review Press

Are You a Driver, an Explorer, a Crusader, or a Captain?

Many factors shape the success or failure of a new business, whether it’s a stand-alone startup or a venture inside a larger corporation. But the most important and least understood of these factors is the personality of the entrepreneur—the particular combination of beliefs and preferences that drives his or her motivation, decision making, and leadership style. And your builder personality is the one resource you can directly control in growing a business that wins. Simply put, who you are shapes how you build for growth.

Built for Growth decodes the interplay between builder personality and new business success. Using a patented analytic methodology, authors Chris Kuenne and John Danner discovered four distinct types of highly successful entrepreneurial personalities—the Driver, the Explorer, the Crusader, and the Captain. Each is motivated, makes decisions, manages, and leads their businesses differently.

Kuenne and Danner blend pioneering research and exclusive personal interviews to illustrate how each type handles the five dynamic challenges in building a business of lasting value: converting ideas into products, galvanizing individual talent for collaborative impact, transforming buyers into partners, aligning financial and other supporters, and scaling the business.

With assessments and tools, including a brief Builder Personality quiz and in-depth profiles of each builder type, Built for Growth is the ultimate guide for how to play to your strengths, complement and compensate for your gaps, and build a successful business—from startup to scale-up. Its vivid stories and practical advice show how you can unlock the potential of your builder personality to shape your business, your team, and your ability to win in the marketplace.

Visit builtforgrowthbook.com to learn more and access the Builder Personality Discovery tool.

Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You Succeed by Daniel McGinn, Portfolio

Harvard Business Review editor Daniel McGinn explores the science of mental preparation—how the difference between success and failure at life’s big moments can come down to what you do in the last few minutes before a major event.

Psyched Up is about how to make the most of the final minutes before any big performance—a test, speech, business presentation, sporting event, dance recital, and so on. It examines the latest scientific research into the smartest ways to deal with your flood of adrenaline, increase your focus, minimize negative thoughts, and optimize your emotions.

Acclaimed journalist Daniel McGinn introduces us to high-performing professionals who have figured out how to perform when everything is on the line, including retired General Stanley McChrystal; NASCAR champion driver Jimmie Johnson; Boston College football coach Steve Addazio; legendary tennis coach Nick Bollettieri; and T-Mobile CEO John Legere; among others. Here are a few of McGinn’s surprising conclusions:

Introverts and extroverts need different kinds of psyching up routines. Introverts might do best with 10 minutes of quiet isolation. Extroverts might thrive by blasting high-energy music.

Resist the temptation to mentally rehearse the hardest parts of whatever you’re about to do. With just minutes to go, it’s better to improve your mood by remembering previous successful moments.

The only difference between superstitions (such as lucky socks) and priming is that priming actually works. Studies say rituals like a favorite mantra can really help. Group rituals help even more.

If you’re coaching someone else, resist the urge to get too technical and informational right before a huge event. You’ll never hear an Olympic coach give specific feedback at the last minute, just “You got this!”

Everyone tells you to calm down in high stress situations. But there’s no biological way to turn off adrenaline. Luckily, being anxious is very close to being thrilled. It’s far easier to redirect your nervous energy into enthusiasm than it is to talk yourself into zen-like calm.

Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures by Jennifer Romolini, Harper Business

An honest, sharp-witted, practical guide to help you get and keep the job you want—from an outsider whose been there and done it, a woman who went from being a broke, divorced, college dropout to running some of the biggest websites in the world.

Jennifer Romolini started her career as an awkward twenty-seven-year-old misfit, navigated her way through New York media and became a boss—an editor-in-chief, an editorial director, and a vice president—all within little more than a decade. Her book, Weird in a World That's Not, asserts that being outside-the-norm and achieving real, high-level success are not mutually exclusive, even if the perception of the business world often seems otherwise, even if it seems like only office-politicking extroverts are set up for reward.

Part career memoir, part real-world guide, Weird in a World That's Not offers relatable advice on how to achieve your dreams, even when the odds seem stacked against you. Romolini helps you face down your fears, find a career that’s right for you, and get and keep a job. She tackles practical issues and offers empathetic, clear-cut answers to important questions:

• How do I navigate the awkwardness of networking?
• How do I deal with intense office politics?
• How do I leave my crappy job?
• How do I learn how to be a boss not just a #boss?
• And, most importantly: How do I do all this and stay true to who I really am?

Authentic, funny, and moving, Weird in a World That's Not will help you tap into your inner tenacity and find your path, no matter how offbeat you are.

Hunch: Turn Your Everyday Insights Into The Next Big Thing by Bernadette Jiwa, Portfolio

In a world where the smallest insight can spark a breakthrough idea, intuition is more valuable than ever.

What do the Dyson vacuum cleaner, Starbucks, Instagram, GoPro, Facebook, and Lululemon yoga pants have in common? Every one of them was the result not of data-driven analytics or corporate brainstorming sessions, but a hunch—the intuitive understanding of a deep, unmet need.

Anxiety over “being more innovative” leads entrepreneurs to create solutions in search of problems. But what if you could use your intuition to identify an existing problem that’s begging for a solution?

International bestselling author and business adviser Bernadette Jiwa shows how anyone can uncover the kind of insights that become breakthrough ideas. Combining hands-on exercises with inspiring stories of the killer hunches that brought us inventions like the first reusable coffee cup, Hunch is a guide to cultivating your intuitive powers, a roadmap to getting from insights to ideas that fly.

Every breakthrough idea starts not with knowing for sure, but by understanding why it’s safe to try. Intuition alone doesn’t tell you exactly where “x” marks the spot, but it can give powerful clues as to where you might begin to dig. This is the book you need if you’re ready to begin finding them.

Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age by Jeff Goins, Thomas Nelson

Bestselling author and creativity expert Jeff Goins dismantles the myth that being creative is a hindrance to success by revealing how an artistic temperament is, in fact, a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

For centuries, the myth of the starving artist has dominated our culture, seeping into the minds of creative people and stifling their pursuits. But the truth is that the world's most successful artists did not starve. In fact, they capitalized on the power of their creative strength. In Real Artists Don't Starve, Jeff Goins debunks the myth of the starving artist by unveiling the ideas that created it and replacing them with fourteen rules for artists to thrive, including:

• Steal from your influences (don't wait for inspiration),
• Collaborate with others (working alone is a surefire way to starve),
• Take strategic risks (instead of reckless ones),
• Make money in order to make more art (it's not selling out), and
• Apprentice under a master (a "lone genius" can never reach full potential).

Through inspiring anecdotes of successful creatives both past and present, Goins shows that living by these rules is not only doable but it's also a fulfilling way to thrive.

From graphic designers and writers to artists and business professionals, creatives already know that no one is born an artist. Goins's revolutionary rules celebrate the process of becoming an artist, a person who utilizes the imagination in fundamental ways. He reminds creatives that business and art are not mutually exclusive pursuits. In fact, success in business and in life flow from a healthy exercise of creativity.

Expanding upon the groundbreaking work in his previous bestseller The Art of Work, Goins explores the tension every creative person and organization faces in an effort to blend the inspired life with a practical path to success. Being creative isn't a disadvantage for success; rather, it is a powerful tool to be harnessed.

Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude by Raymond M. Kethledge & Michael S. Erwin, Bloomsbury

To inspire and lead others, you must first lead yourself: a powerful and invaluable guide to productive time spent alone.

Famous leaders have long used solitude as means for inspiration. Solitude is a state of mind, a space in which to focus on one’s own thoughts without distraction, with a unique power to bring mind and soul together in clear-eyed conviction. In our time-challenged world today, such space is ever more important to leaders, and increasingly difficult to find. We are losing solitude without even realizing it.

Lead Yourself First will inspire leaders to spend time alone. Through firsthand interviews with a wide range of contemporary leaders in politics, business, sports, the military, and family life, as well as through illuminating historical accounts of Abraham Lincoln, Jane Goodall, Pope John Paul II, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others, leadership experts Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin show how solitude can improve clarity and bolster creativity; generate the emotional balance needed to sustain certainty and the moral courage required to challenge convention; and strengthen a leader’s ability to make courageous decisions in the face of adversity and criticism. In years past, leaders used solitude subconsciously; today it takes a conscious choice to unplug from one’s daily life. Introduced by Jim Collins (author of the bestseller Good to Great), Lead Yourself First is a crucial and timely guide, a rallying cry for how leaders can reclaim the power of solitude in today's over-connected world.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes: Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation by Scott Nations, William Morrow

In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history in the vein of the works of Michael Lewis and Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial executive and CNBC contributor examines the five most significant stock market crashes in the United States over the past century, revealing how they have defined the nation today.

The Panic of 1907; Black Tuesday (1929); Black Monday (1987); the Great Recession (2008); the Flash Crash (2010). Each of these financial implosions that caused a catastrophic drop in the American stock market is a remarkable story in its own right. But taken together, they offer a unique financial history of the American century. In A History of the United States in Five Crashes, financial executive and CNBC contributor Scott Nations examines these precipitous dips, revealing how each played a role in America’s political and cultural fabric, one building upon the next to create the nation we know today.

Scott Nations identifies the factors behind the disastrous runs on banks that led to the Panic of 1907, the first great scare of the twentieth century. He explains why 1920s America adopted investment trusts—a concept that helped post World War I Britain—and how they were a primary catalyst of the 1929 crash. He explores America’s love affair with an expanding stock market in the 1980s—which spawned the birth of portfolio insurance that significantly contributed to the 1987 crash. And he examines the factors that led to the 2008 global meltdown, and the rise of algorithmic trading, the modern financial technology that sparked the 2010 Flash Crash when American stocks lost a trillion dollars in minutes.

A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one.

The New Pioneers: How Entrepreneurs Are Defying the System to Rebuild the Cities and Towns of America by J.P. Faber, BenBella

Imagine a world where there are no building codes, no licensing requirements, no permit fees, no inspectors—no rules or regulations, only common sense and the desire to build something better. This is the world that forged America, the land where the early pioneers and town developers thrived.

But this type of open environment is long gone.

It’s prohibitively expensive for young entrepreneurs to start a business today. In fact, it is almost impossible to build anything unless you are part of a larger organization that has the expertise and resources to navigate the system. Our municipal, state, and federal codes, from business permitting and OSHA compliance to occupational licenses and tax requirements, have blossomed out of control.

Today’s innovators and builders must ignore the rules, go to places where the rules are not enforced, or figure out how to get around them. The New Pioneers is the story of Americans—millennials, immigrants, artists, and entrepreneurs—who are doing just that in cities across the nation, including Detroit, San Diego, New Orleans, Phoenix, and many more.

Written by journalist J.P. Faber, The New Pioneers shows the entrepreneurs of today, especially those in urban areas, how they can work around obstacles to create wealth and revive our cities. Small business owners and individual builders have the power to fix what’s broken in society—if only they are allowed to do so.

This book is an optimistic look at how we can rebuild our cities and jump-start more small businesses. It shows how we can make far better use of our resources, both human and physical. The New Pioneers paves a road to success in a crumbling world. It’s time for the little guy to have a fighting chance to get ahead once again.

The Perfect Mix: Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned as a Bartender by Helen Rothberg, PhD, Atria

In the tradition of the popular business classics Leadership Is an Art and What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, Dr. Helen Rothberg, a sought-after consultant to CEOs and entrepreneurs, reveals memorable insights about leadership developed while she worked as a bartender and restaurant manager.

Good managers and good leaders are not always the same. Dr. Helen Rothberg trains leaders, from Fortune 500 executives to startup entrepreneurs, with her particular brand of ADVICE—Action, Determination, Vision, Integrity, Communication, Empathy. Based on the management and life lessons she learned from working as a bartender while getting graduate business and behavioral science degrees, each aspect of ADVICE helps leaders hone their vision—of themselves and their business. You will explore who you are and who you need to become, analyze what has worked in the past and what might work better in the future, and realize ways to continually adapt—with courage and grace—to the unpredictable, uncertain business environment.

Through the book’s colorful stories of barroom brawls and boardroom bravado, competition and cooperation, conflict and other challenges, you’ll conceive of new ways to develop working relationships with colleagues and customers; keep things running smoothly; and manage infuriating, delightful, and sometimes dangerous clients as well as temperamental and talented employees, and owners or bosses with brilliant ideas who may not communicate well.

Leading an organization is knowing when to stir or shake things up, blend or serve neat, and Dr. Rothberg finishes each chapter with the recipe for a creative cocktail that embodies a lesson, to mix perfectly, contemplate, and savor.

The Leadership Mind Switch: Rethinking How We Lead in the New World of Work by D. A. Benton & Kylie Wright-Ford, McGraw-Hill

An essential guide to developing dynamic, inspiring leadership skills relevant for our times.

The most successful leaders of the future will be those who adapt their leadership styles to keep up with dramatic changes that are happening in the workplace now.

The Leadership Mind Switch will inspire professionals to develop their personal leadership style to accommodate the multiple mindsets, experiences, and backgrounds of their peers, direct reports and managers. It is real-time advice within the setting of a digital-human-machine revolution.

Combining personal research with wisdom from successful leaders, the authors explain how to create a positive workplace, lead people with different work styles, make an impact, and more. This book is ideal for current and future leaders passionate about improving their leadership skills.

Rapid Organizational Change by Steven Bleistein, Wiley

A new lean and agile model for more effective change management

Rapid Organizational Change gets right to the heart of the change initiative problem, and offers a time- and money-saving solution. The fact that so many change initiatives fail or underperform can be traced back to one major issue: pace. While most change management models stress the importance of timeliness, they remain bound to an organization-wide approach to execution. By targeting change efforts at specific mid-level layers of management, this book helps you achieve the desired outcome more efficiently while saving time, effort and money. Full of practical advice and real-world examples, this book is your action guide to making change happen in a meaningful way. You'll learn how to continually develop great leadership at the institutional level, and gain real, actionable guidance on putting more women in management positions to help you grab that competitive advantage.

Today's disruptive technologies and macro-economic patterns have elevated organizational agility to the rank of survival skill. Change is a constant in business, but it's now coming faster than ever; this book gives you the strategies you need to keep from being left behind.

• Target mid-level managers for faster change
• Institute perpetual leadership development outside of HR
• Correct gender inequality in management positions
• Utilize your best resources to gain competitive advantage

Most change management models have the same inherent problem: by the time new processes and strategies trickle down to every manager and staff member, the opportunity has passed and the change can no longer be effective for its intended purpose. Rapid Organizational Change lays out a new shortcut to help your organization stay out in front.

Digital @ Scale: The Playbook You Need to Transform Your Company by Anand Swaminathan & Jürgen Meffert, Wiley

A blueprint for reinventing the core of your business.

Value in the next phase of the digital era will go to those companies that don't just try digital but also scale it. Digital @ Scale examines what it takes for companies to break through the gravitational pull of their legacy organizations and capture the full value of digital. Digging into more than fifty detailed case studies and years of McKinsey experience and data, the authors, along with a group of expert contributors, show how companies can move beyond incremental change to transform the business where the greatest value is generated—at its core. The authors provide practical insights into the three pillars of digital transformations that successfully scale: reinventing the business model, building out a business architecture from the customer back into the organization, and establishing an 'amoeba' IT and organizational foundation that learns and evolves. This is the ideal guide for all leaders who recognize the power and promise of a digital transformation.

Strange Contagion: Inside the Surprising Science of Infectious Behaviors and Viral Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves by Lee Daniel Kravetz, Harper Wave

Picking up where The Tipping Point leaves off, respected journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz’s Strange Contagion is a provocative look at both the science and lived experience of social contagion.

In 2009, tragedy struck the town of Palo Alto: A student from the local high school had committed suicide by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Grief-stricken, the community mourned what they thought was an isolated loss. Until, a few weeks later, it happened again. And again. And again. In six months, the high school lost five students to suicide at those train tracks.

A recent transplant to the community and a new father himself, Lee Daniel Kravetz’s experience as a science journalist kicked in: what was causing this tragedy? More importantly, how was it possible that a suicide cluster could develop in a community of concerned, aware, hyper-vigilant adults?

The answer? Social contagion. We all know that ideas, emotions, and actions are communicable—from mirroring someone’s posture to mimicking their speech patterns, we are all driven by unconscious motivations triggered by our environment. But when the right physiological, psychological, and social factors come together, we get what Kravetz calls a “strange contagion”: a perfect storm of highly common social viruses that, combined, form a highly volatile condition.

Strange Contagion is simultaneously a moving account of one community’s tragedy and a rigorous investigation of social phenomenon, as Kravetz draws on research and insights from experts worldwide to unlock the mystery of how ideas spread, why they take hold, and offer thoughts on our responsibility to one another as citizens of a globally and perpetually connected world.

Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths by Scott Keller & Mary Meaney, Bloomsbury Business

Offering leaders and senior managers the answers to critical questions on organizational design and management.

The two authors, both consultants with McKinsey, took stock of the most common questions they are asked by their clients in the areas of human capital, organization design, transformational change, and merger management. Containing the latest thinking on the most effective answers to those questions, this book offers leaders and senior managers support of their efforts to harness the full potential of their organizations.

This new book offers an accessible and practical new framework for addressing some of the most common issues facing leaders and senior managers today. Leading Organizations is anchored in a series of essays or short chapters using graphics, bullet points, and examples to illustrate the key messages and ensure a highly visual exploration of organizational design and management.

It's Not Complicated: The Art and Science of Complexity for Business Success by Richard Ronald Nason, Rotman-UTP Publishing

It's Not Complicated offers a paradigm shift for business professionals looking for simplified solutions to complex problems. 

In the new knowledge economy, traditional modes of thinking are no longer effective. Compartmentalizing problems and solutions and assuming everything can be solved with the right formula can no longer keep pace with the radical changes occurring daily in the modern business world.

In his straightforward and highly engaging style, Rick Nason introduces the principles of “complexity thinking” which empower managers to understand, correlate, and explain a diverse range of business phenomena. For example, why some new products go viral while others remain unnoticed, how office cliques develop despite collaborative work policies and spaces, how economic bubbles form, and how an unknown retiree foiled one of the most carefully planned product launches ever with a single letter to the editor of his local newspaper. Rather than consider complicated and complex as interchangeable terms, Rick Nason explains what complexity is, how it arises, and the errors in solving complex situations with complicated thinking. It's Not Complicated provides managers with fresh, counterintuitive, and actionable models for dealing with challenging business problems.