Reviews Abigail Murison

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Don’t Quit Your Day Job: The 6 Mindshifts You Need to Rise and Thrive at Work

By Aliza Knox with Wendy Paris (Wiley), ebook and audiobook

With a career that’s included stints at Google, Twitter and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), multiple foreign postings, plus marriage and raising two sons, author and career mentor Aliza Knox is proof you can have it all. However, it requires a mindshift – or rather six of them – to successfully combine the career you want with the personal life you want.

One of Knox’s key messages is we need to move away from the concept of work-life balance as a seesaw, because the two elements are not in competition with each other. Instead, a rich and rewarding personal life can actually benefit your career, and vice versa.

Knox points out that nowadays, careers are long – often spanning 40 or 50 years. Many people will change careers – even moving into jobs and industries that didn’t exist when they first entered the job market. This gives you plenty of time to course-correct if you need to. It also frees you up to make decisions without agonising too much about the potential long-term impact and accept that pretty much any role will teach you something.

She advises committing to a path to gain from the experience, but not to be afraid to move on to something else. While the actual work you do may change significantly, social capital (genuine relationships and goodwill) is the ingredient worth valuing and growing across your career.

You should also be aware to jump on opportunities – what Knox refers to as seeing and acting on serendipity. A chance meeting or an inspiring presentation could lead to your next career role, or a new personal pursuit.

As someone who has worked in remote teams Knox shares her tactics to manage dispersed teams and keep employees engaged and connected.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job reminds us that keeping a sense of agency in all aspects of our lives is essential and everyone benefits if we bring our whole selves to work.

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan: Take Charge, Build Your Team and Deliver Better Results Faster

By George B Bradt, Jayme A Check and John A Lawler (Wiley), ebook

If you’re even the slightest bit ambitious, you should read The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan well before you apply for a promotion or a senior leadership role.

George B Bradt, Jayme A Check and John A Lawler present tried-and-tested advice that starts with how to evaluate and get the top job, to leveraging that critical period before you first step into your new office, through to day 100 and beyond.

The authors consider different scenarios: from an internal promotion, to a leader brought in to oversee a merger or turn a poor-performing company around. The 100-day deadline is the time most observers will give a new recruit to prove themselves up to the job. This makes building your team, developing a “burning imperative” (a shared mission) and getting early wins on the board critical for long-term success.

A lot of the focus is on your own self-awareness as a leader: understanding what you don’t know, identifying and managing your supporters and detractors, and choosing the right level of executive control or independence you need to influence company culture and get quick results.

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan was first published in 2006 and has remained a bestseller. Now in its fifth edition, it includes timeless strategic advice and really drills down into each leadership milestone. There’s support to help you keep on top of your to-do list: comprehensive checklists and worksheets, as well as access to regularly updated online tools through onboarding specialist business PrimeGenesis. It’s essential reading to help prepare you for the next step.

Decision Time: How to Make the Choices Your Life Depends On

By Laurence Alison and Neil Shortland (Sourcebooks), ebook

What would you have done if faced with rescuing a coach and 12 young members of a Thai football team from a flooding cave? And would you have gone into Robb Elementary School in Texas to hunt down the shooter, or waited outside?

For years, professor Laurence Alison and Neil Shortland have worked with law enforcement, military personnel, first responders and health professionals in the UK and the US to try and figure out what leads to a good or a bad decision. While most of us may never be faced with a life-or-death decision, we can use the insights in Decision Time in our everyday lives when considering a new job, getting married or moving overseas.

Alison and Shortland explore how traits such as values, our need for closure and the desire to get the best possible outcome can impact how we make decisions – and the dangers of inertia, which can result in no decision being made at all.

The authors stress resilience when facing tough choices, underpinned by four pillars – health, joy, purpose and feedback. Decision Time is an entertaining read that offers practical advice you’ll find yourself applying at work and at home.

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The New World of Work: Marcus Buckingham

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