By Insigniam

April 03, 2023 | minute read

Extreme Crisis Leadership: A Handbook for Leading Through the Unpredictable

By Dr. Charles A. Casto, Routledge (January 17, 2023)

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Charles A. Casto—recipient of both the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Award and the U.S. Meritorious Rank Award—served as an international extreme crisis leader at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Having led international response teams during and after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Dr. Casto has innate experience as a crisis leader amid the most extreme circumstances.

In Extreme Crisis Leadership: A Handbook for Leading Through the Unpredictable, Dr. Casto theorizes that our current leadership paradigm is often ineffective amid large-scale, global events where multiple governments and nations must converge to face an extreme crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; which no single leader can master.

His book is presented as a workable resource based on research and experience to effectively handle crises and mitigate repercussions. With diagnostic tools that explore crisis types and leadership roles, Extreme Crisis Leadership presents a matrix framework that allows readers to focus on the specific example-based section that best fits their role and the kind of crisis they face.

 

What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You: Adapting to Change with the Science of Behavioral Economics 

by Melina Palmer, Mango (November 4, 2022)

Although difficult for many, our ability to adapt to change is often seen as a barometer for success and resilience in life. From a scientific point of view, researchers are largely unsure how to make the human brain more receptive to change. Taking that into consideration, author and behavioral economist Melina Palmer posits that, in a corporate setting, employees often have difficulty adapting to change and many leaders struggle to enroll teams in large-scale change management initiatives because of our cognitive unpinning.

In her previous book, What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You, Palmer applied the science of behavioral economics—which marries elements of psychology and economics to understand human behavior in the real world. In her latest follow-up, What Your Employees Need and Can’t Tell You, Palmer offers actionable steps for executives spearheading organizational change.

From how the brain reacts when faced with change to insights into biases the subconscious mind uses to make decisions, Palmer lays out a roadmap for how to begin applying what can be learned immediately, presented in a way that can actually be used to get results.

 

The Data Mindset Playbook: A book about data for people who don’t want to read about data

by Gam Dias & Bernardo Crespo, Gam Dias (October 22, 2022)

Experts say it takes about 10,000 hours to become a master or expert in a given field. In aggregate, that equates to 400+ days—which can be a prohibitive barrier for many who don’t have the time or resources to devote to mastery of a new skill.

In The Data Mindset Playbook: A Book about data for people who don’t want to read about data, authors Gam Dias and Bernardo Crespo—professors at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain—seek to expedite that process by tapping into the people who have devoted hundreds of thousands of hours on a variety of topics, and share their insights with an anthology of thought-provoking stories and anecdotes from data experts across geographies and industries.

Presented as an approachable starting point for those unfamiliar with data science, the authors forgo complex tech jargon and emphasize simplicity, with linear passages to help readers begin to create a data mindset. According to Dias and Crespo, The Data Mindset Playbook provides a lens to clearly see the forest and the trees in your data landscape.