Marketers from Disney, TSB and Three share their top summer reading picks – Marketing Week

The First 90 Days by Michael D Watkins

This is a topical book given I’m seven months in at Zoopla and with a significant percentage of my team also being new. The title in my mind is misleading but the content isn’t. This is much more around starting quickly and being effective than bound to 90 days. A must read for any person with ambition.

The Art of Making Sh!t Up: Using the Principles of Improv to Become an Unstoppable Powerhouse by Norm Laviolette

This is a great book about how to use the skills from improvised comedy to be more creative and dynamic at work. It’s packed full of great insights, real-life examples and, with short chapters, it’s very snackable and easy to read on holiday too. Highly recommended.

How improv helped TSB’s CMO be creative under pressure at work

Radio Heaven, One Women’s Road to Grace by Dr Sam Collins

Radio Heaven isn’t your traditional business read. It doesn’t feature flow charts or fancy acronyms. Instead it serves up digestible bite-size chunks of advice that give invaluable food for thought for anyone that wants to succeed in the business world. It’s a life lesson in learning to design your own destiny rather than waiting for everyone else to determine it for you.

The Joy of Work by Bruce Daisley

Bruce gives a fresh perspective on how to get the most out of work, making it fun, and reinvigorating the culture around you. In an age of head down, work every hour God sends and death by email, he brings in simple and sensible ways to get out of the ruts we so often find ourselves in.

Through simple and practical advice, it allows for a rethinking of how to be (more) productive, instil joy and laughter in the office, and fall in love (again) with work. It’s a business book without the business jargon, and is an enjoyable read from start to finish.

The Glass Wall: Success Strategies for Women at Work and Businesses that Mean Business by Sue Unerman and Kathryn Jacobs

Sue and Kathryn are well known in our industry. Their book is essential reading, not just for women looking to reach their full potential, but also the men and women who lead them, detailing what each can do create a fairer, more gender-balanced workplace.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things are Better than You Think by Hans Rowling, with Ola Rowling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund

It is easy to think we are all going to hell in a handcart, but this book gives us a healthy dose of perspective. Using data to great effect, this book debunks some strong held beliefs about the state of the world. As a marketeers we constantly need to question received wisdom and see the world through a different lens. This book will give you the courage to do that and make you feel a little bit better about our world.

The Joy of Work by Bruce Daisley

Looking at personal, team and environment aspects of modern workplaces, Bruce outlines a number of practical and workable solutions to make work more enjoyable (and inclusive). From simple tweaks like walking meetings, embracing headphones (within reason) and sharing secrets of energised teams, he challenges a lot of entrenched thinking about how we are ‘supposed’ to work, in an extension of his very digestible podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat