Tag: Workplace Culture

Weekly Book Roundup: Essential Reads on Global Expansion and Risk Management

This week’s spotlight on business books for leaders. Photos: Barnes & Noble

Books of the Week: Scale Across Cultures, Personal Security, and the NASA Way

Welcome to this week’s roundup of essential business and leadership reads. Whether you’re expanding your company across international borders, looking to navigate risk with the precision of an intelligence officer, or seeking to build a high-performance team using lessons from space exploration, I spotlight three standout books to elevate your strategy.

1. Mind The Gap: Scaling Businesses Across Cultures

By Vincent Lauria and Stefano Pellegrino

“Your global expansion isn’t failing because of your strategy; it’s failing because you don’t see the cultural gap.”

Have you ever done everything right, built a strong product, crafted a solid pitch, and entered a promising market, only to watch deals fall apart and partnerships stall? (Barnes & Noble, 2026)

Written by global venture capitalist Vincent Lauria and international operator Stefano Pellegrino, Mind The Gap is not another generic business guide filled with one-size-fits-all frameworks. It’s a real-world playbook built from decades of experience scaling companies across continents, exploring the human layer that most books ignore.

  • What You Will Learn: How to walk into any new market with confidence, instantly read the room, build trust faster than your competitors, and close deals that once seemed impossible.
  • Key Takeaway: Each chapter delivers clear, usable takeaways you can implement right away, acting like a seasoned global advisor guiding your every move.

About the Authors

  • Vinnie Lauria is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned venture capitalist who has spent over 15 years helping founders build companies across high-growth innovation markets in Asia, the US, and the Middle East. As founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures, he has invested in over 100 companies across 15+ countries.
  • Stefano Pellegrino is an attorney qualified in New York and Italy, holding an LL.M. from UC Berkeley and a PhD from the University of Pavia. His book is based on conversations with more than 50 global founders, executives, and investors from the world’s top technology companies.

2. Understanding Personal Security and Risk

By Charles E. Goslin

Blending decades of global intelligence and security experience with time-tested principles, this book delivers a powerful, practical framework for personal safety and risk awareness. (Barnes & Noble, 2026)

Updated to reflect today’s realities, Understanding Personal Security and Risk equips readers, especially those traveling or operating in high-risk environments, to recognize threats, understand adversarial behavior, and make informed, rapid decisions under pressure.

  • Who It’s For: Professionals managing global security programs, travelers, and individuals navigating an increasingly unpredictable world. It uniquely addresses vulnerabilities faced by women, children, the elderly, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, missionaries, and university students.

About the Author

  • Charles E. Goslin is a retired intelligence officer who actively consults, writes, and travels. With a lifetime spent analyzing risk and threat across corporate operations and government matters, he has developed executive management curriculum and security tradecraft for universities and foreign governments worldwide.

3. Building Culture the NASA Way: Mission-Critical Principles For Creating Any Organization’s Culture

By Brady Pyle

What does it take to build a culture where people perform under pressure, pursue an impossible mission, and show up every single day fully committed? Ask NASA. (Barnes & Noble, 2026)

For thirty years, Brady Pyle worked inside one of the most extraordinary organizations on earth, shaping the culture of an agency where the stakes couldn’t be higher. Through compelling firsthand stories of the people and decisions that defined the agency’s culture, Pyle brings to life what it feels like to work alongside astronauts and engineers.

  • The NASA Framework: Using the Navigate, Assess and Adapt, Strengthen Leadership, and Activate Inclusion and Innovation (NASA) model, Pyle delivers a clear playbook for building cultures of trust, performance, and purpose—whether you lead a team of five or an organization of fifty thousand.

About the Author

  • Brady Pyle is the Chief Human Resources and Inclusion Officer at Space Center Houston, a two-time recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and the 2024 HRO Today Learning and Development Executive of the Year for Lifetime Achievement.

Book Spotlight: ‘Uncommon Sense’ by Mel Blackwell

‘Uncommon Sense’ by Mel Blackwell features battle-tested culture secrets from a former EOS Integrator. Photo: Barnes & Noble

Book Spotlight: Uncommon Sense: The Fight to Fix Your Workplace Culture in the Wild West of Business

By Mel Blackwell

Does your business look successful on the outside but feel chaotic on the inside?

Are you stuck in constant firefighting, watching the same problems repeat while people dodge responsibility and culture slowly erodes? Is your culture just dysfunctional enough that everyone’s comfortably miserable, too afraid of the change that actually removes the root obstacles? (Barnes & Noble, 2026)

You don’t need another trendy leadership theory. You need something that actually works. Fix your culture, and all metrics improve immeasurably.

The Synopsis

After more than 35 years leading startups, turnarounds, and large organizations, former EOS Integrator Mel Blackwell has seen what really breaks businesses, and what actually fixes them. He’s led from the shop floor to the C-suite, rebuilt broken teams, and helped leaders move from chaos to clarity when pressure was real and payroll was due.

Uncommon Sense: The Fight to Fix Your Workplace Culture in the Wild West of Business is built on battle-tested leadership, not buzzwords. Through gritty stories, plainspoken wisdom, and practical tools, Mel shows you how to build a culture that can take a hit, solve problems fast, and keep moving forward.

This book doesn’t sell theory. It gives you a roadmap.

What You’ll Learn inside:

  • Problem-Solving over Complaining: How to build a solution-oriented culture.
  • Leverage & Traction: How to build winning momentum directly into your company culture.
  • Structure First: Why structure must come before people, and how to get it right.
  • True Accountability: How to lead with ownership, not excuses.
  • The Toxicity Antidote: A system for eliminating toxic behavior that attracts, empowers, and develops good people.
  • The Best Pledge™: How to get the absolute best from your team (because people at their worst self will never deliver best practices).
  • Alignment & Execution: How to align your team around a unified vision and stellar execution.
  • The Two Visions: Why every organization needs two visions—and exactly how to use them.
  • Courageous Leadership: How to lead with courage and win when pressure hits.

Plus, you’ll discover why most leaders are “worshipping problems” instead of solving them, why not everyone belongs in every role, and how real leadership shows up when things get tough.

Why This Book is Different

This book doesn’t read like a consultant talking at you. It’s written by a mentor walking beside you, telling the truth, sharing the scars, and showing you what works in the trenches.

When you apply what’s inside, leadership gets clearer. Problems get smaller. Teams get stronger. You gain leverage, and your business becomes something that can survive storms instead of being wrecked by them.

If you’re tired of drifting, guessing, and putting out fires, it is time to lead with clarity, courage, and confidence.

👉 Buy Uncommon Sense Today and Start Building a Culture That Actually Works!

About the Author

Mel Blackwell

Senior Executive Mel Blackwell is a visionary renowned for driving extraordinary results and fostering high-performing cultures using the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). With over three decades of unparalleled expertise in operations, sales, and marketing, Mel’s diverse experience spans industries from forestry and wood products to global trade shows, 3D agency marketing, telecom, and software, leading organizations from startups to billion-dollar enterprises.

Holding a BS in Marketing from Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business and an MA in Management from The University of Alabama’s Manderson Graduate School of Business, he masterfully combines academic rigor with real-world mastery.

As a dynamic public speaker, storyteller, and thought leader, Mel captivates audiences with his sharp insights, infectious energy, vivid metaphors, and plain-spoken humor. Attendees leave his talks not only entertained, but equipped with actionable tools to drive success in their organizations.

Mo Rousso’s AI for Small Businesses: The Ultimate Leadership Roadmap

‘How to Build an AI-Powered Business’ is Book 2 in the AI for Small Businesses series of books by Mo Rousso. Photo: Amazon

📚Book Spotlight: How to Build an AI-Powered Business Without Losing Control, Trust, or Your Mind (AI for Small Businesses Book 2)

By Mo Rousso

AI is already changing how decisions are made inside your business, often without your explicit consent.

Teams are using artificial intelligence to draft plans, analyze data, shape customer communication, and move faster than ever. While productivity might be up, accountability is becoming less clear. Many leaders feel pressure, noise, and a creeping loss of control, even when results look fine on the surface.

This book explains why.

How to Build an AI-Powered Business Without Losing Control, Trust, or Your Mind is a practical leadership guide for executives, founders, and managers navigating artificial intelligence in real organizations. This is not a technical manual; it’s a leadership and management book focused on decision rights, accountability, trust, and organizational discipline.

In this fully revised Second Edition, Mo Rousso shows leaders how to use AI as a business tool without surrendering judgment or culture.

What You’ll Learn

Each chapter includes real-world business case examples that show how AI adoption succeeds—or fails—in everyday companies, from operations and sales to leadership teams and customer service. By reading this guide, you will learn how to:

  • Define clear decision-making authority between humans and AI
  • Prevent artificial intelligence from quietly eroding accountability
  • Build guardrails that scale across teams and departments
  • Improve operational throughput instead of creating more noise
  • Protect customer trust while increasing speed and efficiency
  • Lead calmly and decisively in an AI-driven business environment

This Book Is Ideal For:

  • Business leaders and executives looking for strategic direction
  • Founders and entrepreneurs scaling their companies
  • Managers responsible for AI adoption and implementation
  • Organizations integrating AI into daily operations
  • Anyone interested in the intersection of artificial intelligence, leadership, and management

AI will continue to accelerate. Tools will keep changing. Leadership responsibility does not disappear. This book helps you stay in control when AI is everywhere.

Get your copy today!

About the Author: Mo Rousso

Mo Rousso’s clients know him as the catalyst for change, transforming potential into measurable growth. During his journey as a founder and CEO, he’s faced the same scaling challenges you’re grappling with. He doesn’t just talk about overcoming obstacles, he helps you break through them using proven business frameworks and a relentless commitment to building exceptional teams and cultures.

Having built and scaled multiple companies, Mo understands the roadblocks and frustrations firsthand. He’s leveraged frameworks like Scaling Up and Metronomics to create a business acceleration system that delivers exponential growth and lasting transformation. His journey is proof that when leadership, teamwork, and culture are aligned, businesses not only overcome obstacles, they thrive.

His business books will give you the clarity, confidence, and strategy to embrace AI without fear or confusion. He strips away the tech jargon and delivers real-world insights through engaging storytelling and practical, step-by-step guidance. Whether you’re a skeptical traditionalist or a forward-thinking entrepreneur, Mo shows you how AI can streamline operations, boost efficiency, and drive growth, all without losing the personal touch that makes your business unique.

If you want to stay competitive, work smarter, and future-proof your company, this series is your ultimate roadmap to success.

Also in the AI for Small Businesses Series:

  1. Let AI Do It
  2. How to Build an AI-Powered Business Without Losing Control, Trust, or Your Mind
  3. Freedom Machine
  4. Zero to AI Hero

How to Thrive in the Corporate Environment: A Roadmap to Peak Performance

‘The Success Guide’ is the new book by Edward Bjustrom on building a trust-based workplace culture. Photo: Amazon

Leading with Purpose: A Roadmap to Corporate Excellence

Success in business is not just about what you achieve; it’s about how you lead. In today’s fast-paced, highly regulated corporate world, the bridge between a good leader and a great one is often built on trust, emotional intelligence, and operational clarity. Today’s book spotlight features a guide designed to help you navigate those exact complexities.

Book Spotlight

The Success Guide: How to Thrive in the Corporate Environment A Focused Roadmap for Achieving Peak Performance, Leadership Excellence, and Building a Trust-Based Culture by Edward Bjurstrom

Overview

Drawing on over forty years of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, Edward Bjurstrom provides proven, actionable strategies that apply across any high-stakes business environment. (Amazon, 2026)

Whether you’re stepping into your first leadership role or guiding a large organization through massive growth, this book equips you to lead with clarity, integrity, and influence.

What You’ll Discover Inside:

  • Leadership Presence: Cultivate emotional intelligence and self-awareness.
  • High-Performing Teams: Learn to build a foundation of trust and accountability.
  • Navigating Complexity: Manage regulatory and operational hurdles without compromising results.
  • Strategic Alignment: Sync your vision, mission, and culture for sustained success.

Perfect for readers of Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, and Atomic Habits by James Clear.

About the Author: Edward Bjurstrom

Edward Bjurstrom brings over 40 years of biopharmaceutical leadership to his writing, coaching, and consulting. His career has been dedicated to operational excellence in producing life-saving medicines.

  • The Amgen Years: A chemical engineer by trade, Edward spent 18 years helping Amgen grow from a promising startup into a global pharmaceutical leader.
  • The Gilead Chapter: Following a successful stint as a consultant for small biotech firms, he took on a senior leadership role at Gilead Sciences, overseeing Southern California manufacturing operations.
  • A New Legacy: After retiring in 2023, he launched a consultancy dedicated to supporting leaders in highly regulated industries, where the weight of compliance often amplifies the pressures of leadership.

Take Control of Your Career

Don’t just manage, lead. It’s time to create a legacy built on trust, performance, and purpose.

Are you ready to elevate your leadership? Grab your copy of The Success Guide today and start transforming your organization.

‘The AI-Ready Human:’ Paul Slater’s Roadmap to Future-Proofing Your Career

‘The AI-Ready Human’ is the new business developement book by Paul Slater. Photo: Barnes & Noble

New Book Spotlight: The AI-Ready Human

Your 90-Day Program to Stay Relevant as Technology Transforms Work

By Paul Slater

In a world of seismic technology change, AI is rewriting what it means to be “good” at your job. The professionals who thrive won’t just be the ones who know how to code; they will be the ones who sharpen the capabilities that make technology actually useful: judgment, adaptability, resilience, and clear thinking.

Part Book, Part 90-Day “Brain Workout”

The AI-Ready Human replaces traditional chapters with 90 concepts (days) that build on each other to make you AI-Ready.

Every daily concept includes:

  • Clear Explanation: No jargon, just the facts.
  • Career Impact: Why this specific concept matters for your professional future.
  • Practical Exercises: Tangible steps you can take to grow.
  • Reflection Prompts: Tools to help lock in behavior change and new habits.

Who Is This Book For?

The short answer: If you work, and you are human, it’s for you. However, it is particularly essential for:

  • Executives: Who must understand the impact of AI on employees and customers.
  • Working Professionals: Who are concerned about staying relevant as their industry transforms.
  • Managers: Who are tasked with leading their teams through unprecedented change.

The Research Behind the Program

This isn’t just theory. Paul Slater’s 90-day program is built on interviews with over 200 professionals who are sustainably effective with AI every day.

Slater draws on over 30 years at the intersection of advanced technology and personal development, including a decade at Microsoft leading global strategy and contributing to AI think tanks at Harvard, Duke, and Arizona State University.

About the Author: Paul Slater

Paul Slater helps professionals and organizations navigate the “human side” of AI transformation. As the host of the Humanity Working podcast and author of The AI-Ready Human, he focuses on what it actually takes to thrive as intelligent machines reshape our world.

Paul equips professionals to build the human capabilities AI can’t replace—judgment, adaptability, resilience, and meaningful connection.

A Proven Track Record

  • Microsoft Veteran: Spent nearly two decades leading global digital transformation and authoring over 20 books for senior technologists.
  • C-Suite Advisor: Has delivered briefings to Fortune 500 executives and national governments worldwide.
  • Entrepreneur: Co-founded BillionMinds (a Techstars company), creating programs to help employees thrive in the age of emerging tech.
  • Academic Contributor: Served on AI-focused think tanks at some of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Book Review: ‘Mattering’ by Jennifer Wallace and Why Feeling Valued Is Essential to Well-Being

‘Mattering’ by Jennifer Wallace explains the mental health crisis we’re living in. Photo: Penguin Random House

Related Post: What It Means to Matter and Why It’s Essential for a Meaningful Life

Book Review: Mattering by Jennifer Wallace

In Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose, Jennifer Wallace delivers a profound and timely wake-up call. She argues that today’s mental health crisis isn’t simply the result of digital burnout or political strife, but a symptom of something deeper: what she calls an “erosion of mattering.”

Drawing on psychology, sociology, and real-world stories, Wallace makes a compelling case that mattering—knowing we are valued and that our contributions have meaning—is not a luxury. It is a basic human need, as essential as food or water. When that need goes unmet, the consequences ripple outward, fueling anxiety, depression, loneliness, and social fragmentation.

What’s Inside the Book

Wallace explores mattering through a series of thoughtful, accessible chapters, including:

  • Connect to Your Impact
  • The Good Kind of Weight
  • Mattering Too Much
  • Everyone Needs (to Be) a Cornerman
  • Tuning In
  • When the Rug Gets Pulled: Coping with Life’s Transitions
  • How We Spend Our Days: Mattering at Work
  • Be an Architect: Mattering Spaces

Key Highlights

Chapter 2: The Good Kind of Weight

This chapter focuses on using our strengths to meet the needs around us. Wallace emphasizes the importance of asking, rather than assuming, what others need. As she writes, “To add value, find a need in the world and apply your strengths.” Sometimes, mattering starts with the simple but courageous question: “What can I do to help?”

Chapter 3: Mattering Too Much

While feeling needed is essential, Wallace warns against imbalance. When we prioritize others at the expense of ourselves, the weight of responsibility can become crushing. “By treating yourself as a priority,” she notes, “you also create space for the relationships in your life to become more authentic.”

The Mattering Core

The focus is Wallace’s “mattering core,” a framework built on four essential pillars:

  • Recognition: Seeing and acknowledging your own impact
  • Reliance: Being needed by others—in healthy balance
  • Prioritization: Feeling like a priority to those who matter most
  • Investment: Being truly known and supported

Through stories of grieving individuals, exhausted caregivers, and everyday people quietly struggling, Wallace shows how the absence of mattering can dismantle one’s sense of self.

Final Thoughts

Warm, humane, and deeply practical, Mattering doesn’t just diagnose a societal ill, it offers a roadmap forward. Wallace shows how small, intentional acts of recognition and care can rebuild connection in families, schools, workplaces, and communities.

Clear-eyed yet hopeful, Mattering challenges readers to rethink success, connection, and what it truly means to live well, together. It’s a must-read for anyone feeling lost in the shuffle of modern life.

“We live in a time marked by division across politics, race, gender, and class. But gaps don’t close through argument. They narrow from feeling heard or being seen.”

Rating: 4 out of 5.

*Thank you to Angela Baggetta Communications for the gifted copy for review consideration. I haven’t been compensated for this review and all views and opinions expressed are my own.

How Daniel Patrick Forrester’s ‘Consider’ Challenges Conventional Thinking

‘Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization’ by Daniel Patrick Forrester

Daniel Patrick Forrester founded THRUUE, Inc., an expert consultancy that supports leaders and boards bridge the gap between strategy and culture. With the explosion of data and hyperconnectivity, Daniel’s curiosity led him to research how leaders responded to the onslaught of available data and to publish his first book, “Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization.” It centers around the role reflection can play in dramatically improving corporate outcomes. As a top nonfiction leadership book, it has impacted the lives and work habits of small and large organizations from around the world. (Amazon, 2024)

“Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization”

“STOP, THINK, AND DON’T DO SOMETHING STUPID!” This is the warning Dr. Robert Bea drills into his Civil and Environmental Engineering students at the University of California in Berkeley. Bea wants to dramatize what he terms the inevitable “oh shit” moments that present themselves—before an actual engineering calamity like the Deepwater Horizon/BP disaster happens.

There’s an intangible and invisible marketplace within our lives today where the products traded are four fold: attention, distraction, data and meaning.

The stories and examples within “Consider” demonstrate that the best decisions, insights, ideas and outcomes result when we take sufficient time to think and reflect. While technology allows us to act and react more quickly than ever before, we are taking increasingly less time to consider our decisions before we make them. Reflection supplies an arsenal of ideas and solutions to the right problems. Including interviews with leaders such as General David Petraeus, attorney Brooksley Born and global investor Kyle Bass, Forrester shows us that taking time and giving ourselves the mental space for reflection can mean the difference between total success and total failure.

Review:
This book is an insightful exploration into how reflective thinking can revolutionize organizational dynamics and decision-making. Forrester suggests that the ability to pause, reflect, and engage in deep thinking is essential for encouraging innovation and strategic clarity in today’s fast-paced business environments.

It is organized around practical strategies and real-world examples, demonstrating how reflective practices can be systematically integrated into organizational cultures. He explains that reflection is not necessarily a passive activity but an active, intentional process that can lead to more informed and creative decision-making. By introducing concepts such as “reflective leadership” and “strategic pauses,” Forrester provides actionable tools for leaders seeking to cultivate a reflective culture within their teams. One term that stands out is “plastic time,” what people are now experiencing when they are in “a constant state of interruption and movement between many different tasks.”

It is divided as follows:

Introduction: The Space between Data and Meaning
1. The Human Need for Think Time
2. Forcing Think Time
3. Thinking Out Loud
4. Promoting Think Time
5. Taking a Step Back
6. Too Big to Think?
7. Rapid Contemplation
8 .Outside the Day-to-Day
9 .Reflection and Extreme Situations
10. The Future of Think Time and Reflection

By combining theoretical insights and practical advice, the information is accessible to both senior executives and mid-level managers. Forrester’s writing is clear and engaging, with a focus on real-world applications rather than abstract theories.

Overall, “Consider” is a valuable resource for leaders looking to harness the power of reflection to drive organizational growth and resilience. It is recommended for readers interested in books on workplace culture and leadership/motivation.

“I do not wish to suggest that being alone and thinking always leads the mind to positive and beneficial outcomes… Alone time and reflection when one’s mental model of the world is perverse can give rise to the unimaginable.”

*The author received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.

Rating: 4 out of 5.