Your organization's culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. People's competencies should be measured and their weaknesses shored up. People crave feedback. These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they're lies. As Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies - distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking - running through our organizational lives.

Researchers now have a clear understanding of the key drivers that make meetings successful. In The Surprising Science of Meetings, Steven G. Rogelberg, researcher and consultant to some of the world's most successful companies, draws from extensive research, analytics and data mining, and survey interviews with over 5,000 employees across a range of industries to share the proven practices and techniques that help managers and employees enhance the quality of their meetings.  

The Fearless Organization offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent, but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule, or intimidate.

Michael Ventura, entrepreneur and CEO of award-winning strategy and design practice Sub Rosa, shares how empathy - the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes - could be what your business needs to innovate, connect and grow. Having built his career working with iconic brands and institutions such as Google and Nike, and also The United Nations and the Obama Administration, Michael Ventura offers entrepreneurs and executives a radical new business book and way forward.

Managing people is fraught with challenges - even if you're a seasoned manager. Here's how to handle them. If you listen to nothing else on managing people, you should at least hear these 10 articles.

Unorthodox success principles from a billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Eli Broad's embrace of "unreasonable thinking" has helped him build two Fortune 500 companies, amass personal billions, and use his wealth to create a new approach to philanthropy. He has helped to fund scientific research institutes, K-12 education reform, and some of the world's greatest contemporary art museums. By contrast, "reasonable" people come up with all the reasons something new and different can't be done, because, after all, no one else has done it that way.

This audiobook is a practical guide that shows how leaders can build psychological safety in their organizations, creating an environment where employees feel included, fully engaged, and encouraged to contribute their best efforts and ideas. Perhaps, the leader’s most challenging task is to increase intellectual friction while decreasing social friction. 

After conducting a unique global study of over 9,000 people, analysts at the world-leading sales research firm Gartner identified four distinct types of manager. Incredibly, they found one type consistently performs far better than the rest, and it wasn’t the one they were expecting. Connector Managers understand that it’s not enough for managers to just encourage and teach employees themselves, and that providing constant coaching to employees can actually be detrimental to their independent development. 

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle, New York Times best-selling author of The Talent Code, goes inside some of the most effective organisations in the world and reveals their secrets. He not only explains what makes such groups tick but also identifies the key factors that can generate team cohesion in any walk of life. He examines the verbal and physical cues that bring people together. He determines specific strategies that encourage collaboration and build trust. 

Leadership is a relationship - but that relationship must change, say legendary organizational scholar Edgar Schein and former Silicon Valley executive Peter Schein. The vertical hierarchy, with its emphasis on formal, transactional relationships, professional distance, and all guidance coming from the top, is hopelessly inflexible and outdated. In a complex world, leadership must rely on high levels of trust and openness throughout the organization, and that can be achieved only by what they call personization and Level 2 relationships.

Based on the highest-quality evidence and real-life examples spanning industries and countries, Alex Edmans shows that it's not an either-or choice - companies can create both profit and social value. The most successful companies don't target profit directly but are driven by purpose - the desire to serve a societal need and contribute to human betterment. 

For years, we’ve been telling women that in order to succeed at work, they have to change themselves first - lean in, negotiate like a man, don’t act too nicely or you won't get the corner office. But after 16 years working with major Fortune 500 companies as a gender equality expert, Michelle King has realised one simple truth - the tired advice of fixing women doesn’t fix anything. The truth is that workplaces are gendered; they were designed by men for men. 

From mechanical looms to combustion engines to early computers, new technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk. 

Using over 40 simple lessons, How to Lead Smart People shows you how to manage a team of equals with intelligence and diplomacy. Traditional skills are re-evaluated for the leader of a smart team. Split into three sections: leading yourself, leading your team and leading your organisation, the book offers advice for 360-degree management. How to Lead Smart People teaches core skills such as decision-making and delegating but also soft skills such as delivering good and bad news to team members and how to realise longer-term aims such as building trust and growing your team.

Gender balance is first and foremost a business issue. McKinsey estimates we could add 28 trillion to global GDP if we achieved gender equality everywhere - that is more than the GDPs of the US and China combined. But it is so much more than that. Gender balance is one of the best levers we can pull to build better managers and leaders at every level, improve team performance and create better cultures where everyone can thrive.