Five business books you must read in 2016

A look at the most anticipated business books of 2016

By Curated by Lekshmy Pradeep

Published: Tue 12 Jan 2016, 9:41 AM

Last updated: Wed 13 Jan 2016, 1:21 PM

We have read a lot of interesting books in 2015. The last year saw the introduction of a variety of amazing books such as Everybody Matters, How to Fly A Horse, The Revenue Growth Habit, We Are Market Basket, Reclaiming Conversation, etc. The new year also promises to have an exciting range of books.
We take a look at some of the promising works in 2016.
1 How to Have a Good Day by Caroline Webb
A former McKinsey consultant offers evidence-based ways to balance work and life.

In How to Have a Good Day, economist and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb shows readers how to use recent findings from behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience to transform our approach to everyday working life.
The book is arranged around seven practices that are central to having a good day: setting the right priorities, making productive use of our time, having effective conversations, doing our very best work, achieving great personal impact, being resilient to setbacks, and sustaining our energy. Throughout, Webb teaches us how to be at our best even under pressure, and equips us to handle common challenges such as co-worker conflicts and difficult deadlines.
Filled with stories of people who have used Webb's insights to boost their job satisfaction and performance at work. A remarkable and much-needed book, How to Have a Good Day gives us the tools we need to have a lifetime of good days.

2 Superbosses by Sydney Finkelstein.
A Tuck university professors reveals his findings from more than 200 interviews to outline how to be a great boss.

Based on years of research, Sydney Finkelstein, professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and author of Why Smart Executives Fail, looks at how a select few visionaries develop the most successful talent in every industry.
After meeting chef Alice Waters at her legendary restaurant, Chez Panisse, Finkelstein got to thinking about the dozens of chefs who had come from her establishment to open their own restaurants and gain notoriety as some of the country's most creative culinary figures.
After years of research, Finkelstein found that similarly powerful mentors did indeed exist across every industry from finance to entertainment to fashion and the arts, and that they created a network of superstars in their community, using techniques that are varied and often counterintuitive.
Finkelstein profiles luminaries such as Waters, Lorne Michaels, Miles Davis, Ralph Lauren, Larry Ellison, and Bonnie Fuller.
Drawing on fascinating first person accounts and surprising best practices, Finkelstein explores a phenomenon that never had a name before. And he shows how each of us can emulate the best tactics of superbosses to create our own powerful networks of extraordinary talent.

3 Best Job Ever! By C.K. Bray
A PhD and career coach gives action-based plan for building the career of your dreams.

Best Job Ever! is the ultimate guide to creating your dream career and increasing your financial success by providing you with valuable and insightful career information, personal stories and examples of others who have successfully created their Best Job Ever!
Written by a nationally recognised expert in career development, this book provides you with a concrete, step-by-step blueprint for revolutionising your career and revamping your life. You'll find the motivation you need to climb out of your daily ruts as you dig deep to discover your personal motivation, financial needs, and career and life goals. This actionable guide gets you started right away as you explore various avenues for improvement-whether that means re-engaging with the job you have, getting that promotion or making a career change. You'll learn how to overcome career fear, beat job boredom, find and follow your passion while advancing your skill sets and building a career and life plan. The stories will help you decide when to forge ahead with your current career, when to change tracks entirely and how to increase your salary while doing it.
The vast majority of employees feel disconnected from their careers and dread going to work. Life is short! Don't waste your days in unfulfilling career when there are options out there to create the Best Job Ever! and find meaningful, fulfilling and financially rewarding work.

4 Originals by Adam Grant
A Wharton prodigy returns to explain how to challenge the status quo without risking it all.

With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation's most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognise a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent.
Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn't even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

5 The Happiness Track by Emma Seppala
An expert on health psychology argues that happiness is the key to fast tracking our professional and personal success.

A leading expert on health psychology, well-being, and resilience argues that happiness is the key to fast tracking our professional and personal success.
Everyone wants to be happy and successful. As work and personal demands rise, we try to keep up by juggling everything better, moving faster, and doing more. While we might succeed in the short term, it comes at a cost to our well-being, relationships, and, paradoxically, our productivity.
In The Happiness Track, Emma Seppala, the science director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, explains that our inability to achieve sustainable fulfillment is tied to common but outdated notions about success. We are taught that getting ahead means doing everything that's thrown at us with razor-sharp focus and iron discipline; that success depends on our drive and talents; and that achievement cannot happen without stress.
The Happiness Track demolishes these counter-productive theories. Drawing on the latest findings from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience-research on happiness, resilience, willpower, compassion, positive stress, creativity, mindfulness-Seppala shows that finding happiness and fulfillment may, in fact, be the most productive thing we can do to thrive professionally. Filled with practical advice on how to apply these scientific findings to our daily lives, The Happiness Track is a life-changing guide to fast tracking our success and creating the anxiety-free life we want.

Courtesy: Forbes, Amazon and Goodreads