The Power of Mattering By Zach Mercurio

Credit: The Power of Mattering; Zach Mercurio

 

Overview 

Your people have a fundamental need to be seen, heard, and valued.  Increasingly, people report feeling overlooked, ignored, and underappreciated at work. Simply put, they don't feel like they matter to their leaders or organizations—and it's taking a toll. This hidden epidemic of insignificance is fueling a mental health crisis, intensifying loneliness, and, for organizations, driving disengagement, turnover, and low performance. The good news is that leaders can learn the skills to ensure that everyone around them feels valued and knows how they add value at work. Through a captivating exploration of the emerging science of mattering and drawing from hands-on work in hundreds of diverse industries and organizations, researcher and speaker Zach Mercurio reveals how mattering to others is a fundamental—yet often overlooked—requirement for thriving.

He introduces a simple yet effective framework for making daily interactions with your people more meaningful:

Noticing: the practice of seeing and hearing others
Affirming: the practice of showing people how their unique gifts make a difference
Needing: the practice of showing people they're relied on and indispensable

Filled with practical advice, helpful exercises, and inspiring real-world examples, The Power of Mattering equips leaders at all levels with the tools they need to revitalize their teams—and entire organizations—by showing people that they matter. Credit: The Power of Mattering; Zach Mercurio.

Abundance By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

 

Credit: Abundance

To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.  Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished. Credit: Abundance.

Matriarch By Tina Knowles

 

Credit: Matriarch, A Memoir

Book Overview

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of a more grandiose world. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood. Credit: Read more at Matriarch.

Shift By Dr. Ethan Kross

 

Credit: Shift, Managing Your Emotions By Ethan Kross

 

Overview

A myth-busting, science-based guide that addresses the timeless question of how to manage your emotional life using tools you already possess—from the bestselling author of Chatter. Whether it’s anxiety about going to the doctor, boiling rage when we’re stuck in traffic, or devastation after a painful break-up, our lives are filled with situations that send us spiraling. But as difficult as our emotions can be, they are also a superpower. Far from being “good” or “bad,” emotions are information. When they’re activated in the right ways and at the right time, they function like an immune system, alerting us to our surroundings, telling us how to react to a situation, and helping us make the right choices. 

But how do we make our emotions work for us rather than against us? Acclaimed psychologist Dr. Ethan Kross has devoted his scientific career to answering this question. In Shift, he dispels common myths—for instance, that avoidance is always toxic or that we should always strive to live in the moment—and provides a new framework for shifting our emotions so they don’t take over our lives. Credit: Penguin Random House.

Like: The Button That Changed The World

 

Credit - Like: The Button That Changed The World

Reeves (The Imagination Machine), chairman of the corporate think tank BCG Henderson Institute, and Goodson, founder of the data analytics company Quid, join forces for a stimulating inquiry into the creation and consequences of the “like” button. They trace the button’s unlikely path to digital ubiquity, describing how in the mid-2000s, news aggregator Digg.com’s distillation of feedback into “digg” and “bury” options foreshadowed the thumbs up/down binary, and how Mark Zuckerberg refused to introduce a like button to Facebook until 2009 because he worried it would undermine his site’s share feature. Exploring the like button’s neurological effects, Reeves and Goodson note studies finding that both liking someone else’s post and receiving likes on social media boosts dopamine levels, which the authors attribute to the evolutionary impulse to share information and reward others who do the same. The authors don’t shy from their subject’s darker side, lamenting that it enables data brokers to track and sell information on individuals’ preferences, and that it may contribute to political polarization by feeding algorithms that create online echo chambers. Credit: Like: The Button That Changed The World.