Book Recommendations Thread!

In the SoFA Member Development ideas thread @hanna.fischer recommend we have a thread just for book tips!

So here we are :stuck_out_tongue: This one will be pinned here so it’s always easy to find! Just post your book recommendations. Let’s keep this thread just for recommendations and/or requests.

If you do want to start a book club on a book in particular, check out the “How to start a SoFA Book Club!” thread!

5 Likes

Here are some books recommendations/books I’d like to do book clubs on!

And some other books I love!

  • The Dao De Jing - many translations
  • Waking the Tiger - Peter A. Levine
2 Likes
  • A Liberated Mind, Steven Hayes. There’s a vague connection in terms of people here: Hayes is connected to Prosocial. It’s basically the inner readiness for doing any of this collaborative work with self-responsibility, or inner freedom if those words work for you.
  • How to measure anything - Douglas Hubbard. Very technical and nerdy but so important! I think reading the book (I’m 50% in and reading it slowly in small bits) is making me a better decision-maker and facilitator. In particular, it’s addressing the typical reservations of “well, one can’t measure that so let’s not even try”
1 Like

On new ways of working:
Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan from The Ready
Humanocracy by prof. Gary Hamel (+ all previous books of his)
Age of Agile by Steven Denning

1 Like

Going Horizontal by Samantha Slade is very good to work on one’s mindset.

1 Like

Yes! another book recommendation list :wink: Heres my take:

Domain: ‘TEAL organisations’

Mindblowing reads:
An everyone culture (Kegan)
Reinventing Organizations (Frederic Laloux)
Theory U; Leading from the emerging future (Otto Scharmer)
Humankind (Rutger Bregman)

Recommended reads:
Mooseheads on the Table (Lisa Gill and Karin Tenelius),
Brave New Work (Aaron Dignan)
7-day weekend (Ricardo Semler)
Lead together (Lowe, Basterfield, Marsh)
Many voices one song, who decides who decides (Ted Rau)

Good reads:
Team of teams (Stanley McChrystal)
Better Work Together (Enspiral Foundation)
Corporate Rebels (Joost Minnaar, Pim de Morree)
No-Limits Enterprise (Doug Kirkpatrick),
Going Horizontal (Samantha Slade)

Average reads:
Humanocracy (Gary Hamel, Michele Zanini),
Theory U (Otto Scharmer)
Freedom Inc. (Carney, Getz)

Not read yet, but on my eternal to-do-list (in no particular order):
Rehumanizing the Workplace (Chuck Blakeman),
Dare to Lead (Brene Brown)
The Happy Manifesto (Henry Stewart)
Teal dots in an orange world (Erik K. Østergaard)
Organizing for complexity (Niels Pflaeging)
Working with Source (Tom Nixon)
Beyond Empowerment (Doug Kirkpatrick)
Emergent Strategy (Adrienne Maree Brown)
Regenerative Leadership (Laura Storm, Giles Hutchins)
The Art of Alignment process. (Patty Beach)
On dialogue (David Bohm)
The Loop Approach (Sebastian Klein, Ben Hughes)
Full Circle Leadership (Alanna Irving)
Core Quality Quadrant (Daniel Ofman)

3 Likes

Having been recommended one book by @egon.loke and reading it (Humankind), I’ll pay close attention to his reading list :smiley:
Humankind was AMAZING!
Worth every paragraph!

1 Like

I’d like to put in a plug for the Prosocial worldview and toolkit–conceptual and pragmatic action tools that apply systemic thinking to group engagement in order to improve cooperation and trust. The research background draws upon direct observation of indigenous peoples who steward shared resources, or commons, effectively. The Steven Hayes’ work presented in “A Liberated Mind” is captured in the use of the Prosocial “noticing tools” that help group members understand one another on feelings, thought and behavioral levels–bringing together a more coherent sense of “what matters most” to the group that leads to more focused action goals. I am very excited to see that David Bollier will be hosting a seminar for Sociocracy4all on June 9th–he is a seminal thinker on the commons…here’s a quote from his web site: “There is no master inventory of commons because commons arise whenever a given community decides it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability.” His worldview is a natural fit for sociocratic governance application–for what could be our most cherished commons than our collective sense of trust in service to a thriving life for all? At least, that’s how I think of a free and happy community self-governance–Ideally they lay out agreements in which I can most deeply be myself while being with others in interdependent, mutually regenerative relationship.

1 Like