3 Top Business Books You Should Read Before the End of the Year

Nothing is better than immersing yourself in a feel-good book that will boost your mood and inspire you to take charge of your life. Although there’s much going on around you, it doesn’t mean you should stop working on yourself.

Over the past year, the Great Resignation, climate grief, and Covid-19 have affected us all. Nearly 3 percent of Americans quit their jobs in August, which is the highest number ever. People are leaving their jobs in search of happiness, purpose, and better treatment and pay elsewhere. Employer-employee relationships have never been so important.

According to the World Happiness Report, the happiness of Americans is declining, falling to number 19 from the 14th happiest country last year, which can be attributed to many reasons. Millions of people died from Covid-19 in 2020. There has been much economic insecurity and disruption of daily life for those who survived, causing widespread anxiety. Mental health problems have risen, and self-isolation has posed a significant challenge for people’s social interactions. This affects our happiness.

To get back on track to your happy place, I recommend three new books to help you get there.

Jenn Lim, co-founder and CEO of Delivering Happiness, has spent years helping organizations build workplace cultures that benefit their employees. In her new book, Beyond Happiness, she demonstrates how happiness transforms business. Her model implements the importance of starting with ME to define one’s sense of values and purpose and then turning to WE/COMMUNITY. 

Lim writes, “This book is about understanding the authentic self in our work/life journeys. It shares how we can get back to the core of who we are and live the purposeful life we want through the work we do every day. It shows how we can adapt to unknowns by applying Purpose + Values to navigate the future. It shines a light on some of the defining questions of our time: How can individuals have a greater effect on business growth and success? How can companies modernize org designs so we can each do our best work because we love it? How can we find meaning and create a positive impact in our work in communities–regardless of the challenges the world throws our way?”

In Elevating the Human Experience, Deloitte Digital’s chief experience officer, Amelia Dunlop, realizes we’ve been taught to consider our work lives separately from our personal lives. She believes, however, love and worth at work are fundamental to excelling. We must nurture one another to grow. Dunlop understands we must elevate the human experience to succeed. This book will inspire purpose and change in your own life.

Dunlop writes, “When I sometimes catch myself thinking, ‘Work is just work,’ I recall John F. Kennedy’s first visit to NASA in 1961. While on a tour of the facility, he was introduced to a janitor mopping the floor. Kennedy asked him what he did at NASA, to which the janitor famously replied, ‘I am putting a man on the moon!’ This man understood that his job, his role, mattered in the grand aspiration of space travel. I think of him whenever I catch myself thinking that the aspiration to elevate the human experience is too lofty. The janitor had enough self-love to recognize his own worth. Kennedy mirrored back his worth. And together they were part of the larger enterprise in NASA and in the United States to work together toward something that elevated the human experience beyond the known boundaries of earth. If Kennedy and that janitor from NASA can aspire to put a human on the moon, I believe we can aspire to make the experience of being right here on earth at work just a little bit better, a little bit more human.”

In his new book, Lead With We, Simon Mainwaring, a New York Times best-selling author and the founder and CEO of We First, shares a road map for doing business better in today’s world. He has conducted decades of research studying the world’s most successful brand revolutions. Mainwaring believes leading with “we”–putting the collective above the individual–will solve today’s challenges and allow your business to grow.

Mainwaring writes, “Lead With We offers a total reset–a provocative paradigm for how we live and do business that is at once urgent, regenerative, and all-encompassing because anything less is simply unrealistic. Yes, a revolution is occurring among companies of all sizes, as they transform their core businesses and weave social and environmental responsibility deep into the fabric of their organizations. Such firms are thinking longer term, acting more responsibly, becoming transparent and accountable, and collaborating in partnerships with other companies–even competitors–to foster a new, more creative mindset focused on addressing the social and environmental challenges we face, not as an afterthought of doing business, but as the very reason for it.”