Summer Reading

1. Summer Reading

2. Books can transform your thinking, confirm your approach, inform, inspire, and/or make you aware of something new. What are you reading?

3. A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger Innovation expert Berger shows how asking the best question is both an art and a science, and it can lead to the best answer.   “Last summer, my admin team read this book as part of a retreat facilitated by Leadership + Design.  The idea of asking powerful questions as a way of operating as a team in more generative and strategic ways was transformative for us.” – Brad Weaver, Sonoma Country Day School (CA)

4. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, manage fear and doubt, nurture originality in children, and build cultures that welcome dissent. • “Grant makes the point that creativity is never just about the idea, it’s all about execution — originals take their novel idea and make it a reality. Our work at NAIS, led by our newly formed Innovation Team, is designed to do just that — help you execute on that grand idea.” – Donna Orem, NAIS

5. Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan The authors make the case that understanding customers does not drive innovation success. The key is understanding customers’ “jobs to be done.” “The book is chock full of case studies on how organizations gain deep insight into customers’ needs by employing the theory and, by so doing, ensure that their innovations’ chances of success are far more predictable.”– Donna Orem, NAIS

6. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organizationby Robert Kegan and Lisa LaskowLahey What if an organization did everything in its power to create a culture in which everyone — not just select “high potentials” — could overcome their own internal barriers to change and use errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for growth? “This book focuses on the possibility of creating cultures that much more fully optimize personal and company/ institutional growth. It got me thinking about how I give feedback, use meetings, define roles, etc.” – Mike Hanas, San Francisco Friends School (CA)

7. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin Goodwin illuminates the political genius of the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer who rose from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals to become president. “So often heads of schools encounter people who oppose us, undermine us, publicly challenge us… and through it all, heads must be diplomats and statesmen. This account of how Lincoln interfaced with his political opponents is an inspirational story about tolerance, forgiveness, patience, humility, and magnanimity.” – James Hickey, Austin Preparatory School (MA)

8. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt As America descends deeper into polar-ization, social psychologist Haidt challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to everyone on the political spectrum. “This book talks about the moral foundation of our thinking and beliefs. It challenges typical conservative/liberal dichotomies and makes you understand the current political reality. Most incredible to me and most unexpected is that Haidt changed my thinking on religion.”  – Mo Copeland, Oregon Episcopal School (OR)

9. How Stella Saved the Farm: A Tale abut Making Innovation Happen byVijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble A business parable inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm about managing change and making innovation happen. “This is a simple parable but it has been a great help to our administrative team in regards to thinking about ‘bold initiatives’ in conjunction with all of the work that needs to be done each year.”- Brent Bell, Darlington School (GA)

10. The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness by Todd Rose This book tackles the assumption — which is so ingrained in our consciousness that we rarely question it — that it is meaningful to make comparisons to what is average, through such yardsticks as GPAs, personality tests, and annual performance reviews. “This book offers a thought-provoking way to think about learning and the value of the individual.” – Brent Bell, Darlington School (GA )

11. Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki In any interaction with customers, the concept of “enchantment” is about more than persuading. It involves creating an emotional and experiential connection that transforms situations and relationships and builds loyalty to a product or brand. This book makes the case for this concept and steps to achieve enchantment. “This is a great read for leaders starting a campaign or strategic plan.” – Brad Weaver, Sonoma Country Day School (CA)

12. The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Natureby David George Haskell Haskell, a biologist, reveals the secret world hidden in a single square meter of Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. “A brilliant and lyrical examination of the life that happened in one square meter of forest observed daily over the course of a year. Thoreau beseeched us to examine our own back yards; Haskell unveils it for us so compellingly that it may well forever change how you look at the world – and yourself. It did me.” – Ned Murray, Episcopal Day School (GA)

13. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson As a young lawyer, Stevenson defended a man sentenced to die for a murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The layers of political and legal corruption and entanglements that were revealed transformed the author’s understanding of mercy and justice. “I knew that systemic racism still pervaded our country… but truly had no idea of how deeply and to what effect. Stevenson demonstrates how undeniably unjust our ‘justice’ system remains. In doing so, he also… unfolds a heroic story that humbles, inspires, and challenges any of us who want to do good in the world.” – Ned Murray, Episcopal Day School (GA)

14. Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal Gen. McChrystal describes how — to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq — he and his colleagues created a “team of teams,” a network of thousands of people on three continents that used transparent communication and decentralized decision-making, broke down silos, built out best practices that were happening in the smallest units, and used technology to establish “oneness.” “This book deals with how organizations can adapt to an age of irreducible complexity.”– Christian Talbot, Malvern Preparatory School (PA)

15. Deep Diversity:Overcoming Us vs. Them by Shakil Choudhury This book explores our interactions with those different from us, and argues that “us vs. them” is an unfortunate but normal part of the human experience due to both nature and nurture. “Anyone with an open mind and heart will find value in this exploration of racism and systemic discrimination. It bids readers to examine the ways four dynamics — emotion, bias, tribe, and power— influence their own beliefs, thoughts, and behavior as a precursor to understanding the habituated mindsets and practices we all learn that replicate racial, ethnic, and cultural disparity and oppression.” – Caroline Blackwell, NAIS

16. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisisby J.D. Vance As he describes his rise from a chaotic home in Ohio's Rust Belt to Yale Law School, Vance considers the economic changes that make people poor — and the personal failings that can keep them that way.    “His people – ‘hillbillies’ – have a story worth hearing.” – Marilyn Geewax, NPR Business Desk

17. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead In this novel, instead of being a metaphor, the Underground Railroad was an actual train running through a network of tunnels dug by slaves. “Mr. Whitehead communicates the horrors of slavery and its toxic legacy.... At the same time, he memorializes the yearning for freedom that spurs one generation after another to persevere in the search for justice — despite threats and intimidation…. He has told a story essential to our understanding of the American past and the American present.” – The New York Times Book Review

18. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed This memoir describes Strayed’s 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Coast Trail in 1995 as a journey of self-discovery. “In the context of discussing the book, we asked important questions of ourselves: What does it mean to be brave? How can we trust ourselves and the paths we choose? How will we tell our own stories?”– NAIS staff book club

19. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted Worldby Cal Newport This book explains how multitasking can make us cognitively less efficient and provides advice on how to focus on a task to get it done, and done well. “Without scolding — he gets that we’re all busy — Newport guides readers through a training regimen to strengthen focus and become more effective and better at our work by immersing ourselves in what we’re doing instead of flitting from one task to another.” – Gwen Moran, Fast Company

20. Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica Robinson argues for an end to our outmoded industrial educational system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach that draws on today’s unprecedented technological and professional resources to engage all students, develop their love of learning, and enable them to face the real challenges of the 21st century. “I love books that will be relevant for decades and this is one of them.” – Peter DeWitt, EdWeek

21. Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith Two leading experts sound an urgent call for the radical reimagining of American education so we can equip students for the realities of the twenty-first-century economy. “Alas, the wholesale, systematic change that Wagner and Dintersmith call for in this excellent book is clearly more than our country could hope to pull off any time soon. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth thinking about.” – John Carpenter, Chicago Tribune

22. More “Buzzworthy” Titles and Lists • 13 Reasons Why, by Jay Asher • The Second Machine Age, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee • The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond • SwingTime, by Zadie Smith • Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich • Imagine Me Gone, by Adam Haslett • Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant • Chronicles, Volume One, by Bob Dylan • Brown is the New White, by Steve Phillips • Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions, Book by Tom Griffiths • Designing the New American University, by Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars • David Bowie’s favorite 100 books • Barack Obama’s reading list (2016) • Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2017