“The Business Romantic” Included in Forbes 2015 Summer Reading List

"A far-reaching call to re-think business and work"

The opening months of 2015 brought important and helpful new titles for creative leaders. Among the works providing fresh ideas have been Herminia Ibarra’s Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, Google VP for People Operations Laszlo Bock’s manifesto, Work Rules!, Tim Leberecht’s similarly far-reaching call to re-think business and work, The Business Romantic, and Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli’s new Steve Jobs biography.

For summer, a new shelf of books promises to illuminate major concerns for leaders ranging from social and economic megatrends and entrepreneurship to enhanced team dynamics and creative thinking.

Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning, the Rumble, the Revolution (Spiegel & Grau, August 25)

The new title from psychologist and best-selling author of Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection extends her research and insights on how to respond to vulnerability, disappointment and failure. By becoming more fully aware of and owning our own stories, she argues, we are better able to succeed as leaders of ourselves and others.

Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips, The Misfit Economy: Lessons in Creativity from Pirates, Hackers, Gangsters and Other Informal Entrepreneurs (Simon & Schuster, June 23).

This much-anticipated book extends Clay and Phillips’ ‘misfit’ project on the energetic innovation occurring at the margins of more formal institutions, economies, and societies. The original research covers a range of such visionaries and activists, from Hispanic gang leaders to Somali pirates, and argues convincingly for greater appreciation of their organizational and economic creativity.