Dealing with the COVID pandemic for the past few years has put a lot of stress on both employers and employees. Leaders have had to add a layer of flexibility and creativity to their daily routines just to keep their workers connected and collaborating. And employees have had to step up to the plate as well by learning new technologies and working more independently.
But as the calendar turns to 2022, the business world is in the beginning phases of resembling pre-Pandemic working conditions. To get a full read on what skills will be prioritized in the year ahead, we conducted some in-depth research of the business books that have recently been published plus those slated for release later this year. We wanted to see if there were any trends in topic areas that were consistently being addressed. We were not disappointed. There were some very interesting findings that we’ll elaborate on in future posts, but the big takeaway we discovered was the emphasis on six key areas. We’re calling them the 6 most in-demand business skills for 2022.
We’ve taken the liberty of identifying one important book that best encapsulates each of these six trending business skills. Enjoy the list!
STRATEGIC PLANNING
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
by Chris McChesney, Jim Huling & Sean Covey
The 4 Disciplines of Execution offers a simple, repeatable, and proven formula for executing your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind. The original book sold more than 500,000 copies; in this revised and updated edition, the authors have refined 4DX based on 4,000 implementations, with content targeted to leaders’ roles. By following the 4 Disciplines, leaders can produce breakthrough results, even when executing the strategy requires a significant change in behavior from their teams.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Multipliers
How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
by Liz Wiseman
In this revised and updated edition of the best-seller Multipliers, leadership expert Liz Wiseman explores two leadership styles, showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations. With two new chapters, this revered classic proves better than ever how the five disciplines of Multipliers are skills that everyone can learn to use. Just imagine what you could accomplish if you could harness all the energy and intelligence around you. Multipliers will show you how.
CREATIVITY
The Creativity Leap
Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work
by Natalie Nixon
Creativity is the key to developing breakthrough products and services. In The Creativity Leap, Natalie Nixon writes that since humans are hardwired to be creative, it is a competency that anyone can develop. Innovative people in any field can apply a combination of inquiry, improvisation, and intuition to the ways they think through problems and work with others to continually increase their creative competency. Drawing on interviews with 56 people from diverse backgrounds, Nixon offers inspiring examples and techniques to unleash the creativity within all of us.
DECISION MAKING
Game-Time Decision Making
High-Scoring Business Strategies from the Biggest Names in Sports
by David Meltzer
Game-Time Decision Making provides everything you need to improve your decision-making game and build a championship-level business. It takes you step by step through the process of putting together an all-pro team with diverse skillsets, building a positive mindset that will overwhelm the competition, developing a keen awareness of “the playing field,” creating both offensive and defensive strategies for brand and marketing, and more.
COMMUNICATION
Communicate with Mastery
Speak with Conviction and Write for Impace
by JD Schramm
Communication expert JD Schramm offers actionable advice to leaders at all levels of experience and confidence on how to deliver better presentations, effectively motivate teams, draft clear and concise emails, and ultimately become an influential speaker, a compelling writer, and a more effective communicator. Learn how to tailor your communication to any goal, setting, or audience and make it count. Communicate with Mastery shows you how.
COLLABORATION
Unstoppable Teams
The Four Essential Actions of High-Performance Leadership
by Alden Mills
SEALs and civilians operate in extremely different environments, but what makes both kinds of teams excel comes down to the same thing: service to others, trust, empathy, and a caring environment. Unstoppable Teams shows managers at every level, at both large and small organizations, how to inspire, motivate, and lead the people around them. It’s the handbook for how to build care-based teams that will push people to achieve more than they ever thought possible.
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