Autobiography/Biography

The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals by Frank Partnoy. Ivar Kreuger parlayed his success with the Swedish Match Corp. into a capital-raising journey to 1920s America, where enthusiastic investors got caught up in his financial schemes, the complexity (and instability) of which rival many of today’s.

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles. This historical biography of the shipping and financial magnate may be too much of a good thing for some readers, but its insights into the social and business worlds of antebellum America and Vanderbilt’s indomitable influence on America’s financial system make it a rich read.

Business/Corporate History

Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta. Journalist Auletta provides a perceptive and determined look inside Google, the fast-growing company with the corporate motto “don’t be evil” and which is simultaneously proud of its open internal culture and its resistance to outsider scrutiny.

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Glamorous Story of Power, Profits, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe by Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de Rosen. This slim history highlights the creation and marketing of a major luxury brand while detailing the relationship between shoe designer Jimmy Choo and society girl Tamara Mellon, which first produced massive success but later soured.

Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us: Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives by Emily Yellin. Although it focuses primarily on customer service provided (or not) over the phone, this is a unique look at service workers’ points of view and the future, advantages, and drawbacks of automated customer service.

Economics/U.S. Economy

The Capitalist’s Bible: The Essential Guide to Free Markets–and Why They Matter to You by Gretchen Morgenson. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Morgenson’s primer on the history, jargon, successes, and disasters of the capitalist system is essential for anyone who lives within one.

The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox. Time economics columnist Fox provides a scholarly but readable history of the efficient market theory that drove much of 20th-century economics practice, contrasting its focus on rationality with recent behavioral economics findings.

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Only hard-core business and history readers may get all the way through this title, but anyone who thinks our current economic crisis is the first or worst of its kind would do well to read this history of debt, inflation, currency, and banking crises.

Free Market Madness: Why Human Nature is at Odds with Economics–and Why it Matters by Peter A. Ubel. Examines the many ways in which individuals make irrational decisions and argues the free market cannot be entirely trusted to regulate itself in the face of that irrationality.

1. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. The evolving business of football, viewed through the rise of the left tackle Michael Oher.

2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A maverick scholar and a journalist apply economic theory to everything from cheating sumo wrestlers to the falling crime rate.

3. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. How and why certain products and ideas become fads.

4. Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman. The financial guru tailors her financial advice especially for women.

5. Start Over, Finish Rich: 10 Steps to Get You Back on Track in 2010 by David Bach. Getting back on financial track in 2010.

6. The Coupon Mom’s Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs by Stephanie Nelson. Bargain-hunting plans customized for various kinds of shoppers.

7. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed. How four central bankers pushed the global economy into the Great Depression.

8. The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy by Raj Patel. How we can rebalance society, limit markets and develop new ways of seeing the world.

9. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. A new edition of the author’s principles for solving problems.

10. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Methods for reducing stress and increasing performance.

A long time ago, in a land where network television ruled and all phones had a cord, the rules of mass communication were simple. Building influence, improving your reputation, and earning customers’ trust required lots of money, talent, and time to get your message out to the masses. Today, in less than two minutes you (or your unhappy customer or irate employees) can set up a Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace account at no cost and build your own mass audience. And your friends or followers can spread your message to their audience with just the click of a mouse.

Now your employees, customers, and competitors can talk about you both good and ill without your permission and knowledge and completely erode your influence, reputation, and trustworthiness.

How do you navigate this brave new world while maintaining your influence and good reputation? Chris Brogan and Julien Smith say it’s by doing the things that have always made you appear trustworthy but you have to do it using new tools in a new medium.

In their book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, Brogan and Smith argue that there are six fundamentals you need to master in the online world: (1) make your own game, (2) be “one of us,” (3) learn how to leverage your connections in a way that benefits them and you, (4) be “agent zero” who connects other people, (5) be a human artist, and (6) build armies.

This is NOT a “how to” book on social media and social networking. It’s a book that explores the human aspect of social interaction online that is often ignored in favor of technical mumbo jumbo and promises of quick fame or money. It’s refreshing to be reminded that communication is about talking with other human beings, not at them. You have to become what Brogan and Smith call a trust agent.

Trust may be one of the scarcest commodities out there today. Who or what do you trust? Do you trust the advertising or marketing messages you see on everything from TVs to gas pumps? If someone tries to push their product or service on you do you feel like you have no other option than to say “yes”? Probably not. People are highly suspicious of the motives of obvious advertising and marketing. As Brogan and Smith argue, trust agents are people who focus on building other people and themselves up without tearing other people down and making a hard sell.

Trust agents have established themselves as being non-sales-oriented, non-high-pressure marketers. Instead, they are digital natives using the Web to be genuine and to humanize their business. They’re interested in people (prospective customers, employees, colleagues, and more) and they have realized that these tools that enable more unique, robust communication also allow more business opportunities for everyone. (p. 15)

I found myself nodding my head in agreement with much of what I read in the book. While you won’t come away from this book with a checklist of what you need to do to become a trust agent in the digital age, it will help you understand why you need to do this and how it is different from communication in the past. And it will reassure you that, fundamentally, communicating is what it was before the Internet came along - developing relationships and trust one person at a time. I highly recommend this book.

Wendi Watts is the Web content specialist at M. Lee Smith Publishers and editor of HR Hero Line. Before moving to the online world at HRHero.com, Wendi worked as an editor for the state Employment Law Letters. She has worked as an editorial assistant for the IT Division at Middle Tennessee State University, was the school and community liaison for Rutherford County Schools in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and was a journalist at two Middle Tennessee newspapers.

1. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. The author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future says the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today’s world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

2. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. The author targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. When the instructional tale is over, Lencioni discusses the “five dysfunctions” (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results) and provides a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings.

3. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, and David Meerman Scott. Traditional “outbound” marketing methods like cold-calling, email blasts, advertising, and direct mail are increasingly less effective. People are getting better at blocking these interruptions out using Caller ID, spam protection, TiVo, etc. People are now increasingly turning to Google, social media, and blogs to find products and services. Inbound Marketing helps you take advantage of this change by showing you how to get found by customers online.

4. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk. Vaynerchuk took over his father’s local liquor store, building it from a $4 million business to a $50 million one, created the wine-tasting blog Wine Library TV, and discovered the power of the Internet for driving sales. This book shares his experience and step-by-step advice for using Twitter, Facebook, etc., and suggestions for monetizing an online persona, reiterating that the Internet makes it possible for anyone to make serious cash by turning what they love most into their personal brand.

5. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins. The author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Collins concludes that it is possible for a good company to become a great company, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11–including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo–and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success.

6. Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It edited by Karl Weber. A companion to the documentary of the same name, this book contains a series of challenging essays by leading experts and thinkers.

7. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition by David Meerman Scott. This book shows you how to leverage the potential that Web-based communication offers your business, allowing you to speak directly to customers and buyers, establishing a personal link with the people who make your business work.

8. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Bruce M. Patton, William L. Ury, and Roger Fisher. A simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations.

9. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson. Ferguson reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history, arguing that the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization.

10. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed. It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person’s or government’s control.  Ahamed argues that it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of that economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.

I just finished reading Gung Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles (the authors that brought you Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service).  The book recounts the story of a plant called Walton Works #2, and the imminent plant closure and layoffs of its 1500 employees.  Desperate to save the factory, General Manager Peggy Sinclair learns a new technique, called “Gung Ho,” from finishing department manager Andy Longclaw.  As Peggy learns the technique, she applies it to Walton Works #2, ultimately resulting in saving the factory, increasing productivity, and creating unbelievable enthusiasm amongst the employees.

This is a very quick read –  only 164 pages of large type, and while entertaining, you can’t help but feel as though you are being told a bedtime story.  The book attempts to be the next Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results or Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life and exists as another parable about workplace dynamics/high morale/motivating a highly productive workforce. Despite a creative effort, it falls short, and doesn’t live up to its tagline of “Increase Productivity, Profits, and Your Own Prosperity.”

The Gung Ho philosophy is based on three principles:

• The Spirit of the Squirrel – employees must know that they are doing worthwhile work, and that their jobs serve a higher purpose than units sold or widgets made. Employees work towards a shared goal, and values create the framework in which we operate on a daily basis.

• The Way of the Beaver – employees must be in control of achieving the goal.  Individual empowerment is the most efficient and effective way to achieve goals, but that also means that workers must be challenged, provided with a framework of goals and values, and supported by management.

• The Gift of the Goose – we must cheer each other on.  Congratulations must be genuine and timely, and when done correctly, motivates employees to do better.  This enthusiasm for each other is the result of a worthwhile goal (mission), cash, and congratulations.

Now, I won’t spoil the stories behind why the principles are named after squirrels, beavers and geese, but I will say that the principles are essentially an inverted Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  It is a repackaging of an old tale, and most of the knowledge contained in the book is common sense.  Gung Ho suggests that management focus on the following items, in order, to create the thriving, enthusiastic environment we see in places like Zappos and Google:

• Meaning & Inner Purpose (Maslow self-actualization level)

• Confidence, Control, Respect of Others (Maslow self-esteem level)

• Money, Connectedness, Achievement (Maslow safety & security, love & belonging, and self-esteem levels)

I’m sure Mr. Maslow would disagree with the order of the priorities, but the sentiments are the same. Employees have fundamental needs, and it is our job as supervisors, managers, and creators of culture to nurture those needs into success.

Aside from the fact that the Gung Ho philosophy is a version of something we’ve all heard before, there are a few good lessons that can be gleaned:

• When developing job descriptions and on-boarding processes, think about each position in terms of human impact.  The book gives a great example of a dishwasher at a college cafeteria: that dishwasher, while seemingly insignificant, is making sure that the trays and utensils used to feed college students are free of dirt and disease.  That dishwasher is literally feeding the minds of tomorrow’s doctors, astrophysicists and teachers!  If you can teach a new employee why their job matters, think of how much more excited they will be to come to work each day.
• Consult your workers on a regular basis about the best way to do things.  As workers improve in their job functions, they will inevitably think of ways to do things that will be more efficient, save clients’ time or money, and be more productive.  Find those ideas, implement them, and reward the employee.
• If you see something good, say something.  Recognition half a year later at a company banquet does not motivate people – it is the spontaneous, heart-felt praise that engenders pride in your work, and motivates you to do better.

Gung Ho could be valuable to young HR professionals and managers, but seasoned veterans will find the material a little on the juvenile side.  At the center of the book is the Golden Rule — treat your workers as you want to be treated. A valuable lesson, no matter how much experience you have.

Sarah Hulsey is the Talent Manager for Rising Medical Solutions, Inc., a national medical cost-containment and care management organization that services the auto, workers’ compensation, and liability insurance markets.  For more information about Rising Medical Solutions, go to www.risingms.com.

1. On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System by Henry M. Paulson Jr. The book contains all the decisive moments in the economic crisis, including the pivotal meetings with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Paulson’s personal recollections of and conversations with President Bush, President Obama, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. As well as detailing the major decisions taken during the height of the crisis, Paulson will also put forth the policies he believes need to be implemented to take us securely into the future.

2. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths by Tom Rath. Are you unsure where your true talents lie? Do you feel that you are both a person who gets things done and someone who offers penetrating analysis? Well, you can discover whether you are truly an “achiever” or an “analytical” by completing the online quiz. Then, the book will give you “ideas for action” and tips for how best you can work with others. More of a patiencetester than Strengthsfinder, the quiz/book is probably best for those who have lots of time on their hands.

3. Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith. In his follow-up to the New York Times bestseller What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, executive coach Goldsmith shares the ways in which to get–and keep–our Mojo. Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are?), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are–and what have you’ve done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change–and when do you need to just “let it go”?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming.

4. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. By examining how people respond to incentives, the authors of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) show the world for what it really is – good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

5. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. The author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future says everything we think we know about what motivates us is wrong. He pits the latest scientific discoveries about the mind against the outmoded wisdom that claims people can only be motivated by the hope of gain and the fear of loss. Instead, Pink argues that what motivates us once our basic survival needs are met is the ability to grow and develop, to realize our fullest potential.

6. SHIFT: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times by Gary Keller. Based on years of research, the book taps into a wealth of proven tactics to help readers thrive in the midst of one of the most challenging real estate markets ever.

7. The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It by Scott Patterson. The author tells the inside story of what the kings of Wall Street thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize – and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.

8. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The 2008 financial implosion on Wall Street and in Washington, by a New York Times reporter and columnist.

9. The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey. Debt reduction and fiscal fitness for families, by the radio talk-show host.

10. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. The author of bestsellers such as Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable–Includes new bonus chapter and Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us argues that there used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. He says Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

11. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni. The author targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. When the instructional tale is over, Lencioni discusses the “five dysfunctions” (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results) and provides a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings.

12. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss.  Ferriss isn’t shy about tooting his own horn: He says he “speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a world-record holder in tango, a national champion in kickboxing, and an actor in a hit television series in Hong Kong.” Is this the sort of person you really want to be taking advice from? Anyway, Ferris offers recommendations and resources for everything from eliminating wasted time to oursourcing your job and getting cheap airfare.

13. Get Motivated!: Overcome Any Obstacle, Achieve Any Goal and Accelerate Your Success with Motivational DNA by Tamara Lowe. Decode your “motivational DNA,” says business-seminar leader Lowe, and you will be able to overcome any obstacle. But is it true that we are all hardwired differently when it comes to finding inspiration and getting revved up? Lowe’s lessons draw upon the life experiences of such high achievers as Colin Powell, Joe Montana and…Mother Teresa?

14. Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz.  An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawed response, and the implications for the world’s future prosperity.

15. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins. The author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies examines the question “How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?”

1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. hy some people succeed — it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent — from the author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

2. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. A scholar and a journalist apply economic thinking to everything: the sequel.

3. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. What really motivates people is the quest for autonomy, mastery and purpose, not external rewards.

4. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. Because life isn’t all about work.

5. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The 2008 financial implosion on Wall Street and in Washington, by a New York Times reporter and columnist.

6. The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey. Debt reduction and fiscal fitness for families, by the radio talk-show host.

7. Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz. A Nobel Prize-winning economist criticizes the Obama administration’s economic policy from the left.

8. Strengths-Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. Three keys to being a more effective leader.

9. Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk. How the Web can help turn your passion into a business.

10. Jim Cramer’s Getting Back to Even by James J. Cramer with Cliff Mason. The “Mad Money” host offers advice for investing in a changed market.

11. Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singe. Amid the turmoil in the Middle East, Israel’s economy continues to thrive.

12. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Analyses of centuries of financial blunders.

13. How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins. Companies fail in stages, and their decline can be detected and reversed.

14. Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta.  A comprehensive study on how Google became media’s premier digital company.

15. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid. How other industrialized democracies provide health care for all at a reasonable cost.

I’ve been reading an interesting book, The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It by Christine Pearson and Christine Porath. It’s a good read, and I recommend it.

Pearson and Porath note that a lot of incivility is caused by how employment relationships are now structured. They aren’t long-term relationships, but transaction-based ones, lasting for a limited time and then ― poof! ― they’re over. Employees therefore ask themselves: If my job is going to change, why should I expend the energy to be polite and decent? In a transaction-based workplace, civility takes time, and time is in short supply. Today’s colleague is tomorrow’s competitor. Move on.

Even in more permanent employment relationships, incivility festers. That was really brought home for me not long ago. A good friend of mine said she told her bosses that her husband was very ill, he might lose his hearing, and she would need to be away from work. She’s in a managerial position, so the company would be affected. I ran into her a few weeks ago at the grocery store. She said that the two bosses she mentioned her husband’s illness to never asked her about him. Not, “How’s he doing?” or “Is there anything we can do to help?” Not a single word. Total indifference, complete radio silence. To them, she’s just a fungible economic unit. That should be fixed ― because it’s the human thing to do, and it’s also good business.

Pearson and Porath argue that the small things about civility matter, and they matter a lot. They cite an experiment in which two groups were asked to unscramble words. The words in one group all related to politeness, while the words in the second group all related to rudeness. The conduct of the participants was monitored. Guess what? The subjects required to unscramble words in the “polite” group acted politely, and those who had to unscramble words in the “rude” group acted rudely. In other words, people can be primed to act in certain ways, and that priming is up to us as managers and as employees. We can create a civil workplace or an uncivil one.

And remember, if you’re rude, an apology goes a long way. Duke professor of behavioral economics Dan Ariely ran an interesting experiment. An actor meets with two groups of people chosen at random from a coffee shop. The people in each group receive a piece of paper with letters on it and are told to find matching pairs. There’s a monetary prize for completing the task, and they’ll sign a receipt when they get the money. But there’s a twist.

One group is the “no-annoyance” group, and the other is the “annoyance” group. With the annoyance group, the actor interrupts his explanation of the project by talking on his cell phone with a “friend,” and he makes no apologies for the interruption. The group members are then overpaid by several dollars. Only 14 percent returned the extra money. The no-annoyance group got the explanation without an interruption, and 45 percent of them returned the money.

But Ariely adds yet another twist, having a third group to whom the actor apologizes for the interruption. The percentage of people in the annoyance group (with apology) returning the money? Forty-five percent, just like in the no-annoyance group. Treat your employees rudely, and not only will they be rude, but they also will be tempted to steal from you in a variety of ways. Apologize quickly for your rudeness, and they’re much less likely to hurt you back.

If you’d like to keep up in the area of cognitive psychology, there’s a great website that I like to visit at www.scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily. Some of the articles relate directly to employment law and HR; they’re worth a read.

Michael Maslanka is the managing partner of Ford & Harrison LLP’s Dallas, Texas, office. He has 20 years of experience in litigation and trial of employment law cases and has served as Adjunct Counsel to a Fortune 10 company where he provided multi-state counseling on employment matters. He has also served as a Field Attorney for the National Labor Relations Board.

Mike is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and was selected as a “Texas Super Lawyer”  by Texas Monthly and Law & Politics Magazine in 2003. He was also selected as one of the best lawyers in Dallas by “D” Magazine in 2003. Mike has served as the Chief Author and Editor of the Texas Employment Law Letter since 1990. He also authors the “Work Matters” column for Texas Lawyer.

You can reach him at mmaslanka@fordharrison.com.

1. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Dangerously ill when he finished his climbing the world’s second tallest mountain, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town’s first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls.

2. Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman. How women can achieve financial security.

3.  Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers by Lois P. Frankel. The author identifies ingrained habits women learn as girls that may be holding them back, such as couching statements in a question, smiling inappropriately, tilting the head while speaking, and others. Only by overcoming these self-defeating behaviors will the ‘nice girl’ learn to leverage her power in the workplace-and claim the corner office she so richly deserves.

4. Start Late, Finish Rich: A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age (Finish Rich Book Series) by David Bach. Bach takes theThe Finish Rich Workbook: Creating a Personalized Plan for a Richer Future (Get out of debt, Put your dreams in action and achieve Financial Freedom wisdom and tailors it specifically to all of us who forgot to save, procrastinated, or got sidetracked by life’s unexpected challenges.

5. Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham. Using stories and examples from real women, the book describes paradox of modern life for women and offers a guide for how how to live your strongest life.

6. Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire: Business Sense & Sensibility by Mireille Guiliano. As a senior executive and spokesperson for Veuve Clicquot, the author took the Champagne to the top of the luxury market, using her distinctive French woman’s philosophy and style. Drawing on her experiences at the front lines, she gives women the practical advice they need to make the most of work without skimping on all the other good things in life.

7.Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. Each year, millions of women leave third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor results in an odd displacement, in which the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones-easing a ‘care deficit’ in rich countries, while creating one back home.

8. How Remarkable Women Lead: The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life by Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston. The authors establish the links between joy, happiness, and distinctive performance with the model of Centered Leadership.

9. The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman. The author of You’ve Earned It, Don’t Lose It : Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make When You Retire goes beyond the nuts and bolts of managing money to explore the psychological, even spiritual, power money has in our lives. Before we can get control of our finances, we must get control of our attitudes about money, feelings that were shaped by our earliest experiences with it.

10. Live a Little!: Breaking the Rules Won’t Break Your Health by Susan M. Love and Alice Domar. Breaking down the prevailing health “musts” in six areas—sleep, stress, preventive care, exercise, nutrition, and personal relationships—these doctors, with a little help from the other experts of BeWell, cut to the heart of these topics and give us realistic guidelines for living a healthy enough life, one that also includes laughter, relaxation, and a commonsense attitude about being pretty healthy.

1.In CHEAP We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue by Lauren Weber. This history of frugality in America–why it’s been stigmatized and whether there’s a sustainable alternative to a purely consumption-based economy–is consistently surprising and clever. A very worthwhile indulgence.

2. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by Adam L. Penenberg. No book better explains the rocket-ship growth of a service like Facebook or Twitter and how their rapid spread through the culture isn’t accidental but carefully baked into the product.

3. Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World by Tyler Cowen. At first glance, our time communicating with friends on Facebook, Googling, organizing photos on Flickr, and other social activity seems like a waste of time. But Cowen, an economist, provocatively argues that they are all forms of economic activity and we need to account for the internal production inside our minds.

4. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America gleefully pops the positive-thinking bubble that, she argues, has propped up everything from banks’ belief in complex derivatives to the pink-ribboned industry surrounding breast cancer. Amazingly, she’ll make you laugh, albeit ruefully, as she presents how society’s relentless focus on being upbeat has eroded our ability to ask–and heed–the kind of uncomfortable questions that could have fended off economic disaster.

5. Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta. Hardly a week goes by without someone describing Google as “the most important company in the history of the world.” Veteran media reporter and New Yorker writer Ken Auletta has the inside scoop on how Google reached such heights in such short order, and he explores its relentless ambitions and the impact that insatiability has across the rest of the media landscape.

6. Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown by Edmund Andrews. The “innovations” that led to the housing crisis and economic meltdown are made concrete–and all the more damning–when told through the personal story of the author, who bought too much house for all the wrong reasons and found himself on the wrong side of the American dream.

7. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown.The CEO of the uber design-firm Ideo takes us on a journey through the flexibility and power of design thinking that also serves as a primer on Ideo’s evolving larger ambitions. Brown convincingly depicts how design can be used to improve the every day utility of objects we might take for granted, but more important, how it can address larger societal issues such as health care, education, and economic opportunity in the developing world.

8. Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet by James Othmer.State-of-the-industry advertising manifestos are usually written by titans of the business, not former mid-level creatives who bounced around a number of large agencies. Yet this unlikely guide is the perfect one to take us through the apocalypse current roiling Adland. Othmer shows us what’s wrong about the old model by telling war stories with a jaundiced eye, and he then uses that same eye to look in on the cutting-edge, next-generation “don’t call us an ad agency” creative shops defining the future.

9. In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman. The West Coast burger chain with an international cult of fans is a paragon of simplicity, from its menu of burgers, fries, and shakes to how it slowly grows its business. Perman constructs the building blocks of In-N-Out’s success and presents them in stark relief to the rest of the fast-food industry, depicting how strong values-based businesses can trump their peers on their own terms. And as In-N-Out’s story also shows, abiding principles can even overcome the most lurid behind-the-scenes drama.

10. Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto by Adam Werbach. The noted environmentalist lays out his green business ideas, formed by working with the likes of Sierra Club and Wal-Mart, for how corporations can be a force for good on the planet.