BusinessWeek: Paperbacks for Balmy Days

The
new issue of of BusinessWeek provides a diverse set of recommendations of Paperbacks
for Balmy Days, and they were kind enough to include a recommendation for Weird
Ideas That Work:

"Now, his 2002 book, Weird Ideas That Work: How to Build a Creative Company,
is finally out in paperback (Free Press, $14). Among its offbeat notions:
Reward both success and failure, but punish inaction. Encourage people to
ignore and defy authority. And "find some happy people and get them to
fight"—meaning you should hire upbeat staff and foster sharp conflict over
their competing ideas. Each of Sutton’s 11 1/2 maxims is the subject of its own
chapter. The author’s wit and erudition make Weird
Ideas That Work a pleasure to read."

There are two other great books
that they recommend. The first is Toxic
Emotions at Work by the late Peter J. Frost, which does compelling job of
showing how negative emotions and people can do damage, and does an especially
good job of showing how "toxic enablers" often unwittingly allow
toxic people to do their dirty work — and often to their own detriment. The
second is Louis Uchitelle’s The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their
Consequences, which makes a compelling evidence-based argument that
downsizing causes far more damage — to both people and profits — than most
decision-makers and management consultants realize (indeed, on that point, see
this interesting Bain study).