Aren’t you glad 2020 is finally over? The pandemic may not be behind us yet but there’s finally a glimmer of hope. 2021 is looking up already with the world getting ready for the vaccine. That’s not all there is to look forward to this year. The book world is also buzzing with many exciting releases lined up this year. Here’s a peek into three books released this year that have been creating a buzz. Stay tuned for more over the coming months.
Changing your mind can be tough. Once you’ve settled into your comfort zone, you don’t want to step out of it. Your ways of thinking become habits and old routines are easier to follow.
But in a rapidly changing world, you need to rethink your old ways occasionally. Having an open mind is a valuable skill for success.
Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant encourages people to rethink their assumptions in Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, his latest book on the benefit of the doubt and embracing the unknown.
The bestselling author of Give and Take says the book is “is an invitation to let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well, and to anchor your sense of self in flexibility, rather than consistency”.
Think Again reveals that we don't have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. Grant explains how to develop the necessary qualities to learn rethinking as a skill.
At the end of the day, learning to rethink and question your opinions as well as open other people’s minds is the secret to success at work and wisdom in life. Still stuck in your old ways? Think again.
The average lifespan of a company today is less than 20 years, while a person’s career usually spans 30 years. In a recent interview, management thinker and long-serving CEO Shiv Shivakumar said that he realized this means the average individual’s career span is now longer than the average corporate entity’s life span.
No matter what their field, people face some dilemmas when navigating their careers: Should money be the primary factor in picking a job? Should one switch industries to move ahead? Is it okay to rejoin an organization that one has quit some time ago? Should one take a sabbatical? What is the right time to pursue an MBA or a second MBA?
Shivakumar shares his perspective on 10 common career dilemmas like these in his first-ever book The Right Choice: Resolving 10 Career Dilemmas for Extraordinary Success. For each dilemma, he shares takeaways from conversations with others who have faced that dilemma and offers five tips to handle it. All in all, the book contains insights and perspectives from 24 experienced professionals as well as Shivakumar’s insights.
As the Group Executive President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Aditya Birla Group and former CEO of PepsiCo India and Nokia in India, Shivakumar has invaluable insights and wisdom to offer professionals on making career decisions and getting ahead.
A raging pandemic, a dearth of life-saving equipment, and 90 days to manufacture a world-class ventilator.
On 24 March 2020, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed in India in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing shortage of life-saving equipment and personnel was stark and dangerous.
In response to the imminent crisis, an IIT Kanpur professor, Amitabha Bandyopadhyay, and Srikant Sastri, Chairman of I3G Advisory Network and our very own Harappa faculty, formed the IIT Kanpur ventilator Consortium. This was a task force to assist a young startup, Nocca Robotics, in building affordable, high-quality ventilators for India’s cash-strapped hospitals. This book tells the incredible story of its conception, creation and success.
Inspiring and riveting, The Ventilator Project also offers an unmatched blueprint for businesses in the post-COVID era through first-hand lessons gleaned during the task force’s phenomenal 90-day run.
(Image courtesy: Penguin Random House, Penguin Random House India, Pan Macmillan)