What to read this month

‘Kind: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work’, by Graham Allcott

In a world where the arrogant, ruthless boss is an archetype, this book aims to bust the idea that there’s no place for kindness at work. Graham Allcott, author of How to be a Productivity Ninja, believes the opposite is true and that kindness has “incredible power”.

He believes, however, that it is misunderstood. “Kind” and “nice” are not the same. Allcott sets out definitions while emphasising that being kind is not an easy route. You still have to tell people the truth — you just have to be careful how you do it.

Allcott first examines the effectiveness of kindness when it comes to team and company performance. He believes it sets the tone for a high-performance culture because it increases empathy. As a result people trust each other more, helping develop a psychologically safe environment that improves critical thinking and increases engagement and retention.

The book’s second part tackles some common myths: “being a bastard is how you succeed”; “kindness is weakness”; and “there are kind people and unkind people”. Part three sets out eight principles of “kindfulness” at work — such as setting clear expectations, listening deeply, and treating people the way they want to be treated.

The book felt a little repetitive at times — but it lays out a difficult-to-ignore case, and is interwoven with kindness “challenges” for readers to put into practice. The author is on to something, but is he too optimistic in his belief that the future will be “kinder”? Will businesses that do not embrace kindness be left behind, and will consumers vote with their wallets by demanding kinder working practices? 

One wonders. And those bully-bosses who should read this book, probably won’t. Janina Conboye

‘The Employee Advantage: How Putting Workers First Helps Business thrive’, by Stephan Meir

“When a business is in critical condition,” Hubert Joly, former boss of Best Buy, tells Stephan Meier, “its people are the key to a successful turnaround.” The electronics retailer’s investment in its workforce was crucial to saving it from collapse.

This employee-centric mindset is advantageous but little-appreciated. With Nandil Bhatia, his Columbia Business School colleague, Meier analysed earnings calls of publicly traded companies. On average, they talked 10 times more often about their customers than their workforce. They typically associated employees with “cost” and “risk”.

Packed with case studies and profiles, Meier leverages his expertise at the intersection of behavioural economics and business strategy to argue that investing in employee wellbeing drives success. “It does not need to come at the expense of profits. In fact, being employee-centric can, when done right, increase the size of the pie.” Happy (engaged) employees create happy customers. 

Meier’s road map is compelling and rooted in business reality. The methods companies use to win customer loyalty can be reapplied to staff. Take Eli Lilly, the pharmaceuticals firm pioneering weight-loss drugs. It found Black employees and women were under-represented in executive roles. What moved the dial? “The company literally took the customer experience team and redeployed it to map the employee experience”. It used this research to pinpoint moments in individual employees’ experiences in need of improvement.

Meier rejects a blanket solution. Instead, he highlights the need to involve employees and personalise the approach to fit different employee needs and motivations, which he refers to as the “Workforce of One” approach. Georgina Quach

‘The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World’, Karthik Ramanna

People are furious and this is now a problem for major corporations. Ramanna’s book The Age of Outrage seeks to help leaders navigate attacks from employees, customers and the general public against their businesses. This anger, he says, “is no longer an occasional phenomenon” but a daily part of corporate life. Managing it is a “necessary and critical capability”, like financial acumen or operationally being capable of handling regular adverse weather conditions.

For frazzled executives tearing their hair out after the latest generational blow-up in the workplace or social media diatribe by a customer, this book might be a good place to start. Ramanna, a University of Oxford Blavatnik School of Government professor, has sought to help executives go beyond posturing and rhetoric to figure out how to engage with hostile parties. 

Using real life examples from Disney and Ikea to Nestlé and the London Metropolitan Police, he takes readers through his “framework”. First acknowledging and understanding the roots of outrage (for example, from fear or a sense of injustice), he then turns to what individuals can do to “turn down the temperature” and act in a moment of crisis. How to think about formulating a response and implementing any actions is critical, as is fully understanding what resilient leaders and organisations look like in this polarised age. 

In the messy world of doing business every day, things may not be so easily compartmentalised and resolved. But anger can at the very least be understood and organisations can think about how to address it in a useful way that does not perpetuate the rage. Anjli Raval

‘The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to Next-Generation Enterprise’, by Ravin Jesuthasan and Tanuj Kapilashrami

This is not a book for the lay reader. Jesuthasan, a future-of-work expert at consultancy Mercer, and Kapilashrami, Standard Chartered’s chief strategy and talent officer, have produced a dense analysis of one of the most interesting management trends: the transition from a working world based on job titles and org charts to one that recognises, applies and rewards individuals’ skills and capabilities.

The book will be read in detail by human resources leaders, if only for insights into how Kapilashrami and StanChart are reforming the way the bank manages its “talent” (as “people” are called almost throughout). But if the talent itself takes a look, it may recoil. The authors insist that skills-powered organisations will not diminish “the human dimension of work”, and that human skills such as a learning mindset or emotional intelligence will be vital. But they also enthuse about AI-enabled tools that help “infer” skills from prior experience and match people to the tasks the organisation needs to complete.

Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami are right that employers will need technology to help them navigate this complex new world of evolving skills. But only in the final chapter do they ask: “What about you as an individual?” One tip: develop “a capacity to say no to things that can knock you off track”. The success of tech-fuelled “talent marketplaces” will depend on how they accommodate those workers who push back. Andrew Hill

‘Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment’, by Jason Schreier

The rocky journey leading to Microsoft’s $75bn historic acquisition of Activision Blizzard began in the 1990s, when video gaming was just beginning to enter people’s homes. 

By 2010, World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s biggest franchise, had become one of the most profitable games ever, with more than 12mn subscribers, each paying $15 a month, at its peak. They invented compelling worlds, of dragons, elves and giants towering over lush landscapes, that you could explore with international fellow questers.

But the decision makers behind it were human, and, to begin with, all male. Blizzard’s founders Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce assembled in 1991, and most of Blizzard’s female staff joined in the decade after WoW was released in 2004. For them, the reality of the company’s perceived frat house image — hazing and nerf gunfights were regular onboarding rituals — “was much more complicated”. Through meticulous interviews with 350 people, Schreier chronicles the mismanagement, internal clashes and allegations which culminated in California filing a lawsuit in 2021 against Activision Blizzard for sexual discrimination and misconduct. 

Schreier veers into very specialist gaming territory but it is worth persisting. One fascinating aspect in light of the lay-offs afflicting the video game industry today is the culture of “crunching” — working nights and weekends to finish a game. The gruelling development schedule of Diablo II, which broke records in 2000 as the fastest-selling computer game ever, “left permanent marks” on staff, according to Schreier. He is a lucid guide through Blizzard’s fallibilities and strengths, and reminds us that game development runs because of people, not pixels. Georgina Quach