Summer Reading List
Articles, podcasts, and book recommendations for summer vacation
It’s the summer and in the United States we’ve got an upcoming holiday, so I wanted to put together a list of articles, newsletters, and podcasts in case you want some reading or listening during the holiday break.
If you’re someone that reads this newsletter quickly from start to finish, highly recommend bookmarking and then coming back to check the links when you have more time.
Note: some of these are paywalled, where I can, I have provided a free subscriber link.
How Netflix Culture Has Changed (NY Times)
Over a decade ago, Netflix came out with its Culture Deck, which at the time was a unique and transformational approach to sharing company culture and values to prospective and current employees. This was a huge step and influence in the company culture and employer branding movement that spawned a whole set of downstream implications about how companies talk about(and on occasion, take action) their company culture. The news this week is that Netflix has come up with a revised version of that original culture document (you can read the new version here) and the NY Times has a story about their take on it. (Link Here)
AI Work Assistants Need a lot of Handholding (WSJ)
Even with all of the rush to bring AI tools to market, it turns out some of them still need a little bit of work, just like every single technology tool that has ever been implemented in an enterprise setting. Two issues here. First is a user/behavior issue, in terms of people being comfortable with thinking and working in a way that can maximize the tool. But the core issue goes back to the infamous quote: “garbage in, garbage out.” These tools rely on parsing and making sense of data, and need data to be really effective. When your data isn’t clean, you can’t go very far. Consequently, if you are using a tool in the enterprise and your data is not clear nor impactful, it’s going to be hard to do anything with the output that generates material impact or value. (Link Here)
As Employers Embrace AI, Workers Fret (Time)
While many organizations are testing and experimenting with new AI tools and solutions, it seems like we are still in the growing pains phase in terms of how employees feel about these new tools and solutions. In a best case scenario, AI eliminates the work we don’t want to do and allows us to do the work we can/should do, but how likely is that to happen? The flip side is, that it won’t happen if we don’t evolve our thinking about work and what work we can/should be doing. No answers, just reflections (Link Here)
Brené Brown Teams Up With BetterUp
Brené is teaming up with BetterUp to launch the Daring Leadership Institute, and to scale the impact of her Daring Leadership Program. It’s hard to know the specifics of these types of announcements, but it’s my understanding that Brene ran her own certification and training program around this via her company and brought on facilitators to train employees on her program and that it was pretty successful. That said, for anyone who has never ran training/certification programs, these things operationally can be very challenging to run. Not to mention, if you have ambitions to scale (which it seems like she does) inevitably you will run into challenges around quality/quantity. Finding a partner that can help with the scale/complexity can help solve some of these challenges. (Link Here)
Don’t Skip The Work Happy Hour: Why Losing Friendships at Work is Bad For Everyone (Business Insider)
At my wedding, I had a table full of my friends who I met from my time working in corporate. Some of my favorite memories from work were the events or interactions with co-workers that weren’t planned but naturally came about because we worked together. Today, as an entrepreneur, one of the things I miss most about not being at a company. Turns out, having good friends at work matters as it relates to engagement and performance, for companies and employees. I don’t think everyone needs to be friends with their colleagues, but I do think that increasing social connection is important, and most companies are not doing enough in this area. (Link Here)
3 Ways to Build a Culture That Lets High Performers Thrive
Back in 2015, I remember reading Lindsay and Neel’s research around motivation and being impressed with the simplicity and usefulness of their framework. (I wasn’t alone, as it became a NY Times Bestseller) They are back at it again, but this time with some insights around how to build a culture that lets your top performers thrive. (Link Here)
Increasing Your Return on Talent: The Moves and Metrics That Matter (McKinsey)
My favorite insight from this piece was around thinking about your ROI on talent as a system. Not necessarily a program or piece, but rather, an integrated set of activities that drive value. (Link Here)
Most People’s Life Satisfaction Matches Their Personality Traits (APA)
I assume not all of you will want to read the research verbatim (it's a really tough read) so I’ll share my TLDR: The researchers of this study wanted to find out what influences happiness and well-being. They found that it’s possible to predict someone’s life satisfaction based on 3 personality traits: emotional stability, extraversion, and conscientiousness. (Link Here)
How Preferences Are Shifting in The Age of Gen AI (BCG)
BCG did a study to better understand the attitudes of job seekers and employees around work preferences with respect to technology and AI. They cite that due to the rapid pace of change and uncertainty, workers are citing things like career stability and learning and development as critical factors for what matters most in a job. (Link Here)
Breathing Is Easy But We’re Doing it Wrong (Plain English)
A fascinating listen about breathing and sleep (Listen Here)
The Radical Shift Behind America’s Declining Birth Rate (Plain English)
In all of my keynotes on the future of work, I always make a point to talk about the demographic shifts and their implications on talent. I don’t think we’ve fully grappled with this as a society in the US, but one of the underlying factors that drives this is the fact that we’re just not having as many children as we used to. Derek Thompson has done a few episodes on this already from a global perspective, but this one really gets into the nuance of the United States. (Listen Here)
What Newsletters to Read
People often ask me what other newsletters I read or recommend. Substack has a great recommendations feature for other Substackers (you can see mine here) but in addition to that I wanted to share a few other newsletters that I read frequently that I would recommend that you check out. As always, context matters, so I tried to put some context on these to help people find the ones that are most important to them
Charter’s Future of Work Newsletter - A weekly newsletter that has all you need to know about the Future of Work. Great for staying on top of what’s new and changing in the workplace if you’re in the future of work or HR space.
Weekly Workforce - Written by Eryn Peters, this weekly newsletter covers the talent economy, and goes deep on topics like the freelance economy and workforce trends. Great for anyone covering talent/freelance/gig work.
New World Same Humans - A newsletter written by David Mattin, a researcher and futurist. Great insights at the intersection of technology and society trends for anyone trying to stay sharp on the future of work.
The Offbeat - A newsletter for learning and development professionals. A mix of curated resources on learning as well as ideas and best practices. Great for staying sharp on your craft.
Talent Edge - Brian curates some of the best content related to talent management, people analytics and strategic workforce management. Great for the talent and HR professionals as well as executives/senior leaders who have to stay in the know on strategic talent trends.
This Week in Culture - A LinkedIn newsletter by Jessica Kriegel. Jessica is an expert in workplace culture, and each week puts out a newsletter on stories related to culture and the workplace. (You can also check out my interview with her here.) Great for all the org & HR and talent professionals.
Weekly People Research - This is a weekly newsletter written by Nicolas Behbahani, a People Analytics Leader based in France. Each day, Nicolas shares research related to talent/people & HR that he has found and summarizes it, and at the end of the week he shares a newsletter which summarizes what he shared during the week. The volume and consistency of this is impressive!
Career Bites - A weekly newsletter written by Lorraine Lee. A short but actionable read of advice to help you navigate and advance in your career.
Books
A mix of recently released books, as well as some ones that are going to be released in the summer & fall.
Likable Badass: How Women Get The Success They Deserve (Alison Fragale) -
Getting From College to Career: Third Edition (Lindsey Pollak)
Smart Not Loud: How to Get Noticed at Work For the Right Reasons (Jessica Chen)
If you’re looking for some help for your learning and development, leadership development or professional development for this year, I’d love to work with you: Here is how I might be able to assist:
Team Trainings & Professional Development: Happy to facilitate training or professional development opportunity for your team & organization - common topics include: influence without authority, navigating change, hybrid working, and others.
Consulting & Advisory Work - Are you looking to improve the ways of working of your team or organization or looking for guidance on remote/hybrid work? Let’s chat about how we can work together
Leadership & Learning Programs: Formal training and leadership development in your company, such as new manager or new leader training, or skill-based programs.
Feel free to contact me directly for more details!
Have a great week!
Al