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The holidays leading up to New Year’s are a great time to give yourself or a friend a kick in the career. These fresh titles, published in 2007, can help any professional rethink what it means to work in the 21st century:
Responsibility at Work: How Leading Professionals Act (or Don’t Act) Responsibly
edited by Howard Gardner
In an age when each morning’s news brings a fresh report of a scandal in business, government or sports, a book on the ethics of work can come off as either spot-on or passé. By bringing in timely examples from education, law, medicine, journalism and business, Harvard professor Gardner and his colleagues earn top billing in the business literature.
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
by Timothy Ferriss
Which would you prefer to do?
A. Slave away in your cubicle for the rest of your productive life.
B. Take a shot at doing anything you want nearly all day, every day, anywhere in the world you choose, while adding a digit or two to your earning power.
Whether you chose A or B, you’d better read this book and get a life.
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams
Wikis -- big, flat online collaborations -- are connecting people and knowledge in ways that will pull in more and more US employers. The authors describe how business and the workplace will be transformed by massive collaboration, whether it’s Geek Squad workers sharing tech tips through gaming or florists trading data on which wholesalers have the best in bloom.
Toyota Talent: Developing Your People the Toyota Way
by Jeffrey Liker and David Meier
What’s catapulted Toyota’s US sales past Chrysler’s and Ford’s? Superior talent development might be the most important factor. Liker and Meier lay out in detail how managers can nurture the people who drive the processes that make or break a business -- whether it’s an automaker or an accounting firm.
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success
by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Many professional women discover that although the decision might be wrenching, taking a detour from a full-time career is the relatively easy part. What’s difficult is jumping back on the conventional career track without making extra-large concessions in pay and status. Hewlett shows how a sample of progressive blue-chip employers keep the faith with their off-again, on-again professional workers.
Chindia: How China and India Are Revolutionizing Global Business
edited by Pete Engardio
If American corporations and their managers are to survive and thrive, China and India must play a role in their strategies, from manufacturing to marketing. That’s the cogent argument Engardio and his fellow BusinessWeek journalists make here. From “China’s Free-Range Cash Cow” to “The Seeds of the Next Silicon Valley,” these writers provide essential briefings on the rise of the Asian giants.
What to Do with Your English or Communications Degree
by Rachel Klein, Lisa Vollmer, et al.
Attention English majors: Has it hit you that someday you’ll have to convert your passion for letters into a pile of lucre? Of course it has, but you’ve had little to go on besides the occasional anecdote about a friend’s friend who made it big as a TV writer (or made it little as a proofreader). Enter this slim guide from the Princeton Review, which sketches dozens of fulfilling occupations for the verbally adept.
Don’t Retire, Rewire!
by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners
What do you do after you say good-bye to your 9-to-5 (OK, 8-to-7:30) grind? The authors’ premise is that most folks don’t think about this question nearly enough, getting their retirements off to an unfulfilling and even stressful start. Sedlar and Miners suggest how retiring Boomers can rewire themselves by mixing a new cocktail of leisure, service to the community and work on their own terms -- for pay or not.
Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World
by Bill Clinton
You may not find a volume called Giving on a bookstore shelf filled mainly with titles about how to pry more money loose from your employer or fire your boss if you’re passed over for a promotion. But your work skills do qualify you for a higher calling: Giving back to the community. Former President Clinton lays it out in plain language.
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