The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right

Gorick Ng

Harvard Business Review Press, 288 pp., $26

Navigating workplace politics doesn't come easily for everyone, and the secrets of success are rarely, if ever, explained to newcomers. That's where The Unspoken Rules comes in. This book offers a crash course on how to succeed as a top performer in the working world. The information is based on hundreds of interviews Ng conducted with interns, new professionals, and workplace leaders from around the world. This book is a compilation of practical advice, concepts, guidelines, and other helpful material that provides a springboard for new and early-career professionals joining the workforce.

ALIEN Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas

Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade

PublicAffairs, 304 pp., $28

Harnessing energy that yields creative, innovative, and breakthrough thinking is a skill that everyone can develop using the ALIEN—attention, levitation, imagination, experimentation, navigation—framework. The authors, who are business school professors, say the model helps unshackle individuals from cognitive blocks and biases that don't serve innovative or imaginative thinking. They relay stories of how individuals have employed this seemingly unorthodox mindset in various real-life situations. The book is geared toward managers and professionals as well as anyone who wants strategies on how to summon original thinking and fast-track fresh ideas.