I’m happy to check back in for a third year running and give some quick reviews of the professional development books I read over the past year.
When I sat down to write this post, I was pretty sure this was going to be rather short. I didn’t think I had read a book a quarter that really fit the bill for what I would consider “professional development.” This year, I took my foot off the gas pedal. I accomplished a lot - completed my master’s degree and ran my first marathon - and often felt like coming home and kicking back instead of reading a few chapters of a business book and going the extra 10 percent. I was able to round up four books, even if a few toe the line of what folks may consider “professional development.”
Frankly, I’m feeling less inspired to read about some of these topics than I was a few years ago after realizing that many texts aimed at individuals or individual contributors seem to reference the same influential texts. What’s the point of reading another book about optimization when it’s just going to continue citing Danny Kahneman and Anders Ericsson? I anticipate next year’s list containing a bunch of books where the focus is not just a human at a desk but the factors outside that desk (the modern workplace, macroeconomics) or what one does before and after they take a seat in their Aeron every morning. As always, I’m eager for suggestions, so don’t hestitate to send them my way!
Measure What Matters by John Doerr
My organization made an effort to implement OKRs this year and I felt it would probably be a good idea to read The Book On The Subject. For those unfamiliar, OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a system for structuring and setting goals in an organization that helps ensure alignment and prioritization throughout an organization, from top to bottom. I think OKRs are an intuitive system (if you can even call them a “system”) and the implementation strategy outlined in the first half of the book is a good exploration of how to set goals within an organization. That being said, the book reiterates over and over that OKRs need full organization and leadership buy-in and, well, I stopped hearing anything about OKRs at work after the first quarter. I just find it very hard to stay on top of such a regimented system (in addition to the official, old-school goals to track within the company’s ERP platform) when it feels like I’m on an island.
I also had trouble buying into some of the case studies presented. I had a hard time getting invested in the success of Zume Pizza knowing they had already pivoted to a different company strategy. I would have been really curious to know how OKRs guided them through that process (which happened a few years after publication) but instead I was just thinking about all of the food industry folks who had gotten laid off when Zume had to throw in the towel on pizza. Additionally, I was totally unable to suspend my disbelief that Bono wrote the case study about OKRs used at his nonprofit. He explicitly lists and thanks the other members of the organization - why not just put their name on the chapter and drop Bono’s name left and right?!?
For folks interested in OKRs, I’d recommend just perusing shorter overviews on the topic and pick up the book if you are taking an active part in moving your organzation toward the adoption of OKRs.
How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell
I was extremely excited for this book and had it on my list after reading the heaps of praise it received on its release. I can’t really argue that the book doesn’t live up to its pitch, just that the lens through which it defines resistance is different than what I anticipated. Many pages are shed to the structural ways in which our humanity is being encroached upon by societal expectations in the 21st century and how they evolved from the state of the world in the 20th century - which, yeah, fair. My big takeaway was that Odell strongly encourages us to find hobbies and pursuits (nature, bird watching, etc) that are devoid to technology and help us connect with the essence of life - again, fair. It felt a lot like a rumination on how trapped we are when I was really hoping for something a little less fatalist. It reminds me of the meme about how to draw an owl - if I had a healthier relationship with the world at large, I may not have been so excited to dig into this book and find a silver bullet!
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
Including Lewis in the “professional development” category is really stretching it, I know, but I’m keeping it because it is about the Kahneman and Tversky, the behavioral economists responsible for Thinking Fast and Slow that made the list a few years back. I expected The Undoing Project to just be a layperson’s rundown of the key takeaways from TFaS, but instead Lewis wrote a really interesting complement that instead dives deep into the personal history of the duo’s relationship. Personal references that are mentioned in passing in TFaS, such as the duo’s work in the IDF, is expounded upon is great detail. Highly recommended for folks with prior knowledge or as an entryway into behavioral econ - but feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt as I’m pretty partial to all parties involved.
The Episodic Career by Farai Chideya
The Episodic Career was a book club pick that left most members of the group a little underwhelmed. The first few sections of the book underscore how the American job market in America doesn’t necessarily paint a rosy future for Milennials. Maybe some readers needed an explainer when it was published in 2016, but after all of the economic upheaval during the pandemic it already feels somewhat outdated.
The meat of the book dives into psychographic profiles of workers based on their propensity for risk and desire for social impact. It was a fun little quiz to find out where I fell in the matrix and what Chideya observed in her research about folks that met my profile. But reading the entire 50+ page section on breakdowns for each category was too dry for me to muscle, akin to reading explanations of all 16 Myers-Briggs profiles.
I can’t really recommend it for folks who are already somewhat established in their careers. In my experience, folks get an idea of how they’d like to pivot once they get their first “real” job and figure out what they value and what they abhor. I do wish someone had handed me a copy of this book in high school or college, as I think it sets the table for understanding the job market in a way that feels personal without being overly prescriptive. If there’s someone in your life who’s just starting to think about what the next 50 years of their career may look like, I think The Episodic Career would be a great read.
If you have read anyhing on this list and want to chat or have a book recommendation, Please reach out. I also keep track of my reading on Goodreads if you’re interested in what else I’ve been reading.