I Wish I’d Known This: 6 Career-Accelerating Secrets for Women Leaders

By Brenda Wensil and Kathryn Heath
(Berrett-Koehler Publishers), ebook and audiobook. Run time: 5 hrs

Reaching senior management level or getting a C-suite job is tough for anyone, but women face particular challenges. Sometimes it’s because of preconceptions of how women should behave, but it can also be because others don’t tell women where they’re going wrong in the same way they might guide a male colleague.

Leadership acceleration experts Brenda Wensil and Kathryn Heath have coached many talented businesswomen, and have identified six common blind spots that can prevent you from progressing your career.

Through a combination of real-life examples and analysis, the authors explore the dangers of blind spots such as career drift – when you either don’t have any clear goals or haven’t communicated them to others – and a lack of self-awareness: you don’t know how others see you, so you can’t address and manage those perceptions. Another? Failing to build up a ‘posse’ that can advise you and help you get ahead.

One interesting area is what Wensil and Heath call reputationality: that special something you’re known for at work. Understanding what your reputationality is can help you explain what you bring to the workplace, and also find the right fit for your personal style and strengths.

Beyond the theory and many examples from Wensil and Heath’s coaching clients, the book offers loads of practical exercises to work through, to help you address these potential blind spots in your own career.

While I Wish I’d Known This is geared towards helping women progress more smoothly, most of this expert advice would benefit any ambitious person with their sights set on a leadership position.

Dead in the Water: Murder and Fraud in the World’s Most Secretive Industry

By Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel
(Atlantic Books), ebook and audiobook.
Run time: 10 hrs 18 mins

If you were captivated by the 2013 film Captain Phillips, which tells the story of the Somali pirate attack on the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, you’ll love this deep-dive into the murky dealings behind the international shipping industry.

Dead in the Water follows one of the biggest financial fraud cases in history: the Brillante Virtuoso oil tanker’s fake pirate attack and destructive blaze in the Gulf of Aden in 2011. Bloomberg reporters Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel spent more than four years unpicking the events, outlining how unscrupulous shipping magnates are able to hide their connections with the vessels they own through a complex network of shell companies in countries that offer ships a ‘flag of convenience’ – tax havens with little maritime regulation.

In the Brillante Virtuoso case, the plot to destroy the ship resulted in murder and an attempt at massive insurance fraud, in part aided by the insurance industry’s gentlemanly reluctance to take a closer look. After all, if a ship and its cargo is lost at sea every now and again, it’s good for business.

Meanwhile, Brillante Virtuoso crew members and witnesses tell – and change – their stories, as private investigators attempt to find out who the so-called pirates really were, how the tanker was destroyed and who killed marine surveyor David Mockett.

This non-fiction exposé on international shipping supply chains reads like a thriller, but will give you chilling insight into the workings of our modern economy.

Killer Thinking: How to Turn Good Ideas Into Brilliant Ones

By Tim Duggan (Pantera Press), ebook and audiobook.
Run time: 6 hrs 30 mins

Dreading the thought of another team brainstorming session? Australian author and entrepreneur Tim Duggan is with you all the way. The founder of Junkee Media says we’re all brimming over with ideas, the trick is to develop the good ones into killer ones.

‘Killer’ is Duggan’s acronym for kind, impactful, loved, lasting, easy and repeatable – the combination that delivers the greatest good to the largest number of people.

In Killer Thinking, Duggan takes you through an eight-step process to come up with ideas, identify the best ones and hone them into something special. One of the most important steps is spending time fully understanding the problem you’re looking to solve. Many of us skip the process of drawing up a brief that outlines the problem and the parameters (how quickly we need a solution, the budget, or how it needs to be implemented).

We also tend to jump straight into brainstorming with the team, rather than first exploring ideas by ourselves. As a result, we miss a chance to build on or combine individual ideas into something much better.

Duggan recommends replacing brainstorms with cerebrations – a party of ideas! The in-real-life sections at the end of each chapter are your chance to apply what you’re learning to a problem or idea of your own.

Also recommended

Find. Build. Sell: How I Turned a $100 Backyard Bar Into a $100 Million Pub Empire

By Stephen J Hunt (Wiley), ebook and audiobook.
Run time: 5 hrs 46 mins

Australian businessman and publican Stephen Hunt draws on 30 years of buying, renovating and selling pubs to offer a practical guide on how to turn a poorly performing business into a highly profitable one.

Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World

By Bernard Marr (Wiley), ebook and audiobook.
Run time: 7 hrs 30 mins

How do we futureproof ourselves and develop critical skills for the future? Bernard Marr, an internationally bestselling author and futurist, offers an insightful and engaging discussion on the future of work.

Don’t Start a Side Hustle: Work Less, Earn More, and Live Free

By Brian Page (HarperCollins Leadership), ebook and audiobook.
Run time: 4 hrs 14 mins

Brian Page warns aspiring entrepreneurs against swapping a 40-hour week with an 80-hour side hustle. He offers a guide to adopt a ‘passivepreneur’ lifestyle, including how to create cash flow from products and how to build a passive income empire.

Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Data Modeling, Visualization, Digital Storytelling, and More

By Devin Knight (Packt Publishing), ebook

This beginner’s guide shows how to migrate your existing Excel and data analysis skills to build accurate Power BI analytical models, reports and dashboards. It explains how to draw data from a variety of sources and clean it up using the Power Query editor.

Listen

Understandable Economics: Because Understanding Our Economy Is Easier Than You Think and More Important Than You Know

By Howard Yaruss (Prometheus Books), audiobook.
Run time: 7 hrs 39 mins

This engaging and accessible guide to economics investigates a wide range of questions, from why inequality is soaring to whether free trade causes job losses.

CA Library’s excel reading list

Whatever your level of Excel proficiency, the CA Library offers an extensive selection of complimentary Excel ebooks, articles, online videos and LinkedIn learning courses to help you upskill in this essential tool. Check out the CA Library’s Excel reading list at bit.ly/excel-reading

CA Library: A wealth of information in a single location

Did you know the CA Library offers services and on-demand resources to members at no charge?

The titles featured here are available to download directly from the library catalogue along with technical and soft-skill ebooks, audiobooks, articles and online resources.

Members can also access the online database that includes journals such as Harvard Business Review and newspapers including The Australian Financial Review.

Need help finding information? Take advantage of the complimentary research service and simply get in touch with the library team with your query.

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