Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data

Rishad Tobaccowala

Harper Collins Leadership, 256 pp., $24.99

Many leaders have adopted the belief that data should be the center of all decisions. If it makes good business sense, the data will back it up, right? But wait—are you also providing adequate weight to the human touch? Companies that make decisions based on data alone do so with risk. Machines, robots, and algorithms cannot replicate human emotion or intuition. It's the human elements of storytelling, culture, and purpose that can contextualize data in a powerful way. In this book are seven keys for staying human in a data-centric age, a discussion on common mistakes of operating in a spreadsheet-only mentality, and more. By all means, monitor the data and do the math, posits Tobaccowala—but do so with meaning.

Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Breakthrough Growth

Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz

Harvard Business Review Press, 224 pp., $30

There is a big difference between leading to the future and leading from the future. In this book, Johnson and Suskewicz describe the power of long-term planning and illuminate the blind spots that result from a present-forward-only strategy. Both present-forward and future-back thinking have their purposes. Vision, however, is the fruit harvested from future thinking. The authors explain how to take that vision and turn it into an actionable strategy. By providing easy-to-understand discussions on how to incorporate future-back strategizing into an overarching business plan, the authors make the case as to why leading from the future is essential to sustaining organizations.