There’s a certain urgency to the new book by Mitch Joel, Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It. Its sentiment has also been expressed by authors such as Gary Vaynerchuk: Business is changing and if you don’t keep up, you’ll be left behind. And that’s putting it nicely.

What Joel is saying is that if we don’t change, our companies will go out of business, and we ourselves will become unemployable. Scary stuff, yes, but the good news is the book has the answers to avoid these problems. Both Joel (and authors like Vaynerchuk) tell us what we already know and see around us, but might not understand the intricacies of: Technology is moving at a very fast rate. For instance, we acquire and learn one device, master one platform, just in time for it to be outdated, and as we scramble to keep up, there are others, millions actually, who are ahead of the curve, and are participating in what they see on the platforms, sites, and devices they have. Some companies are prepared to communicate with people on whatever the cutting edge is, but others aren’t, and the size of each platform or device’s audience depends on how fast tech know-how and innovation move together, and how communication savvy both sides are.

Joel explains:

Whether it’s a corporate head office or a massive retailer, where you put that physical entity has a direct correlation to your success. Here’s a new spin on that theory: With people spending more and more of their time looking, reviewing, and shopping online, the new real estate is whatever screen is in front of the consumer.

How great does a brand have to be to earn a coveted place on the home screen of a consumer’s iPhone? Recent data and research do not speak kindly to how well brands are integrating into these new neighborhoods and communities. In the Digiday news item “Saving Abandoned Brand Mobile Apps” (March 29, 2012), Giselle Abramovich reports that one in four mobile apps are never used again after being downloaded and that 26 percent of apps aren’t used more than once. Do you think it is because are branded apps? Probably not. The likely (and brutally honest) answer is this: Most branded apps suck.

Now think about this on an individual level. Just as companies are challenged to stay relevant, so are our individual skills, experiences, and understanding about how business and people currently work. Think about what these things were to you 5 years ago. Now think about how they’ve changed. That process, according to Joel, will only increase. Resting too much on what we’ve done in the past might make it difficult to adapt to what is expected now. Without adaptability, we might slow processes down, become the weak link in the team, and may not even be hired.

According to Joel, the answer is to get “squiggly,” which is sort of an intuitive, improvisatory sense. He states:

You will have to adapt to a world where your career can (and should) get squiggly. You wind up seeing, reading, and listening to a lot of content (both online and in traditional publications) that speaks to the coming years and what businesses should expect in terms of disruptions, predictions, new channels, and shinier and brighter objects. It’s almost easier to say that everything we have known about business continues to change and that the only constant in our lives will be change. Fine. Dandy. Now what? The true adaptation for you (and your business) will not be about how smart you are with your marketing or whether or not you’re doing clever things in spaces like Twitter or Facebook. True adaptation will come from how well you can get over what I call “the lazy” and move to a place where squiggly becomes your friend.

This book is an important reminder to look at the world, business, and ourselves in ways we might not be. Keeping up with changes is challenging, but with books like this, it becomes much easier.

When we talk about breakthrough simplicity, we mean an interaction that cuts through the clutter. This is a standard that should be applied to everything a company puts out into the world, from the product to the ads down to the smallest piece of correspondence: It should do its job quickly, clearly, simply. People just don’t have the time or the interest to wade through corporate rhetoric and jargon to figure out what you’re trying to tell them. Through clarity of thought and presentation, it’s possible for a business to rise above the cacophony of today’s marketplace.

This quote from the new book, Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn, is about as explanatory as it gets. Be it cleverness, verbosity, poor design, or perhaps even a company’s own confusion with what its focus and purpose are, there’s a lot of complexity in how some companies appear to the world. And it doesn’t end there. Taking a step beyond the doors of many organizations and you’ll possibly find many other layers of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and missed opportunity. Siegel and Etzkorn have spent decades helping business leaders and their companies edit out the unimportant stuff and communicate clearly – both in word and design – and the results were profound.

This book tells those stories: where the companies came from, what the change process was like, and what the results were. The irony is that the process in not necessarily easy. As the authors found, opinions, egos, and conversation often get in the way of simplicity. After all, the more communication, the better the understanding, right? According to the authors and their findings: Not at all. Through a process of empathizing, distilling, and clarifying, the authors explain how organizations can satisfy their leader’s feelings and opinions and help their customers better understand and connect with them in more productive ways.

Here’s another statement from the book to give you an idea of what’s within:

Ideally, everything a company puts out there – from its products and services to its website to every letter or invoice sent to customers – should reflect its commitment to considering the customer’s point of view. We’re all looking for that in our interactions with organizations and companies – the sense that someone there is aware of us as human beings. This can be expressed in the most minor exchanges and in mundane forms of communication. From clear instruction manuals to statements and invoices that are easy to read and understand, there are many ways to signal to customers that you’re a company that understands and respects them.

It’s a fascinating read, clearly written and full of interesting stories and logic. It’s as much about communication and design as it is about customer service and marketing. It’s a book every business leader should read and adapt. In fact, any member of a team can implement ideas from the book into their respective role, improve their own process, and stand out within their team.

It’s easy to share something you love with someone else, particularly when you know that person likes the same things you do. It’s exciting to be the one to introduce them to something you know they’ll flip over. But what if you gushed enthusiastically about something to someone and their response was, “Why would anyone want that?”

Kelly McDonald’s new book, Crafting the Customer Experience For People Not Like You: How to Delight and Engage the Customers Your Competitors Don’t Understand looks at the above scenario from a customer service standpoint. To her, most customer service today is a “one size fits all” approach, satisfying some and turning away others. Those others are whom McDonald wants to help us serve better. Likely, they are not like us, with different ages, genders, ethnicities, and possibly even different moods than what we’re in on a given day. Here is one example she cites:

Someone who lives in a major metropolitan area is different from someone who lives in a small, rural community. Imagine the customer service implications of each scenario. The city dweller may appreciate speed and efficiency above all else. Super busy and rushed all the time, the city dweller has to spend valuable time fighting traffic just to get where he or she wants to go and has to fight crowds everywhere. If you were a merchant catering to this customer, perhaps the greatest customer service experience you could provide would be one that saves time and reduces hassles.

But the rural customer may have none of those same issues. He or she may enjoy, above all else, the friendly, personal interaction received from someone considered to be a neighbor.

In essence everyone is different, so why would we treat that complexity with an approach designed for only ourselves? Clearly, we shouldn’t, and McDonald addresses this in terms of communication, technology, empathy, and more, each geared toward helping us understand how to make customers comfortable, interested, and willing to buy. The book is full of information that can help us understand people and their buying habits better, and it also keeps us focused on providing excellent service overall. Here are a sampling of McDonald’s tips:

1. Make the right hires. Look for people who share your passion for great customer service and hire them. You can always teach them your business, but you can’t teach someone how to empathize and put the customer first.

2. Train them on the importance of catering to diverse customer segments. Actively engage them in conversations and role-playing with different scenarios.

3. Be attuned to nuances. Mannerisms, expressions, and attitude can be clues to what customers really need from you, whether they voice it or not.

4. Be gracious. No matter what. Don’t ever laugh at customers, embarrass them, or humiliate them. Be kind and solution-oriented, and you will win their loyalty.

As I prepare to write a baccalaureate speech for a local high school, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to communicate an inspiring message to a large group of individuals. After all, everyone is different, and at a ceremony like this, everyone is about to start their own path in a big way. How can I cover what each person needs in a way that will speak to them personally?

The speech has also made me think about times where other paths appear – job changes, moving to different cities, or simply dissatisfaction and the need for change. Robert Steven Kaplan’s new book, What You’re Really Meant to Do: A Roadmap For Reaching Your Unique Potential addresses the issues one might face in any of these scenarios. Finding purpose isn’t just for the young. We can all analyze what we’re doing, its effectiveness, and level of fulfillment at any point in our lives. Kaplan describes one scenario:

After a great many of these discussions, I began to wonder why many highly capable people were dissatisfied, felt as if they were underachieving, or were unfulfilled in their professional careers and in their lives. I empathized with them, because, at times, I had experienced some of the same feelings. I had also been raised to believe that monetary rewards and professional accomplishments made people happier. Yet many of the people I was speaking with were describing a feeling of emptiness despite some level of material success and impressive professional credentials.

Depending on one’s age, this can be an incredibly difficult realization to have, which Kaplan says can range from confusion and uncertainty, to worse, bitterness and anger.

So, similar to the situation I’m in with the speech, Kaplan has written a book, which will be read by a wide range of individuals, each with their own situation, path, and feelings about how right that path is. How does he approach it? Like many Harvard Business Review Press books, there’s a strategy behind it. Kaplan discusses systems to identify your strengths and weaknesses, discovering what tasks align with your passion, understanding who you are as a person, how to maximize opportunities, and how to build a road map, no matter what step in the process you find yourself at.

This is a book for anyone, even those who think they have it all figured out. And even if they do, the book provides great insight and tips for improving the process of achieving one’s purpose. By preparing now, you can avoid many decisions and situations that might end up having a disastrous effect on your life and career. Don’t put this off.

Nolan Bushnell and Gene Stone’s new book, Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Hire, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent tackles a daunting quest, but then again, Bushnell’s not an ordinary guy himself. Having started both Atari Games and Chuck E. Cheese, Bushnell knows creativity, innovation, user experience (and fun!). In fact, he met Jobs while at Atari. These early experiences provide some interesting stories about how Jobs worked, thought, and lived. The traits that Jobs had clearly helped propel him to the levels he reached, and those are the characteristics that Bushnell describes here, so that business leaders of today can seek them out, know them when they find them, and hire them. Bushnell did the same, and it’s what helped make his companies so successful.

Also, the book is on Tim Sanders‘ new publishing imprint NetMinds. Sanders himself is a successful author and speaker, and his foray into the publishing realm is as innovative as some of the stories described in the book, making this an all around interesting read. Sanders’ approach to publishing, Bushnell’s experience with his companies, and Jobs’ own quest for changing the world, share a common theme – reinvention: Try stuff, try stuff, try stuff.

Here’s a sampling of Bushnell’s insight from the book to consider:

Many successful companies went out of business because they were not able to change with the times. Other companies, however, have been able to completely reinvent themselves — and prosper as a result. For example, jeweler Tiffany started out as a stationary store. Telephone maker Nokia was once a paper mill. Conglomerate-holding Berkshire Hathaway began as a textile manufacturer. Kutol Products was a Cincinnati-based soap company that manufactured a wallpaper cleaner as well; the cleaner business began to fade, so the company turned the product into a cute little toy, which they eventually called Play-Doh (which has sold over two billion cans). Then there’s the 3M company in Minnesota (which began life as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, selling the mineral corundum), which has designed and brought 55,000 different products to market. The company basically reinvents itself every decade or so: About one-third of the company’s annual revenue is derived from products that are less than five years old.

After reading the book, I sent Bushnell some questions about his experience with Steve Jobs, his companies, and how other companies can succeed at innovation:

You seem to have admired Steve for sharing some of the same qualities of your own. What about him resonated with you?

Steve had a very, very intense desire to do big things, to be important, to do important things. He saw his role in the personal computer business almost as the cult leader. He wanted to create this cult of people who are enabled and made more productive. I like that.

I remember the Chuck E. Cheese of my youth as a total positive experience. Like entering another world. What were some of things your company considered to create such a profound experience for customers?

We wanted to take a no-holds-barred attitude to make it fun for kids. We felt that most of the restaurants that they were dragged to were totally focused on the parents. If you looked at a typical kid in a parent’s restaurant, they were miserable. Having to sit still, they couldn’t spring and shout. They didn’t have anything to do. They were massively bored.

I said, “Okay, if we can get something where the kids choose, we want to be chosen a hundred percent of the time.” Parents aren’t going to go a hundred percent, but we wanted a total no-holds-barred kid experience. We just said, “What do the kids like? Kids like pizza. Okay, our pizza is going to be great. Kids like a lot of noise. We’re going to be okay with noise. Kids like a lot of games. Then we’re going to be okay with games.”

It just went on and on and on.

In your opinion, what could Steve Jobs have done better?

I believe that there was a vacuum in the people that he gave credit to. Early on, it was very clear who the Macintosh team was. Then it stopped.

What characteristics can companies look for in employees that point towards Steve’s abilities, and how can they work on developing those?

The most important thing is to look for the intensity, the passion. If you have passionate people, they will come up with ideas that are very important. Also, be willing to hire people that are a little bit strange. If you want out-of-the-box thinking, you want it to come from out-of-the-box people. But then nurture the creatives, give them scope. Let them work on ideas that are maybe a little stranger than you normally would. Google works 20 percent of the time on weird products, anything they want. At least do 5 or 10 percent.

What was something Atari did that was missing from other technology manufacturing companies? How might companies use this practice today?

We really empowered the individual. We tried to say, “We don’t care when you work, how long you work, what you do, just get the job done and we’ll be happy.” We call that the total meritocracy. That led to no dress code, no time clock; a whole bunch of things that ultimately have been the hallmark of Silicon Valley.

When I started Atari, everybody, all the engineers were expected to come in a coat and tie. Engineers never should have had to do that and we got rid of that almost immediately.

Beyond helping find the next genius innovator, what is the biggest thing you hope people and companies learn from the experiences you share in the book?

To say yes and to do more little projects that can turn into huge ones.

I sat in a meeting once where an enthusiastic new employee shared ideas and input within a discussion on how to increase sales. While he talked, another sales rep rolled her eyes, and when he finished, she loudly declared, “None of that is going to work. I’m so tired of new people coming in here and acting like they have it all figured out. What we need is a real professional to run this department, get us good leads, and stop wasting our time with all these things that don’t work.” The new employee was stunned. Not only were his feelings hurt, but he was not even in a leadership position, so the attack seemed completely misdirected.

He had just gotten his first taste of a major complainer and energy drainer.

Have you ever worked with someone like this? Navigating these relationships can take a lot out of you, and to add to it, there’s all the work to do that you’ve been hired for. Over time, each move you make becomes shadowed by the assumed words of the complainer: “That’s stupid.”

Most people just end up quitting and moving on, which is unfortunate, for the company, the projects, and ourselves. We weren’t the bad ones, why did we have to go?

We don’t, but it takes some work. Linda Swindling’s new book Stop Complainers and Energy Drainers: How to Negotiate Work Drama to Get More Done is filled with a variety of examples that help us identify what toxic work behavior is, how it affects us, and how we can avoid the drama altogether. Swindling’s stories about intentional complicators, whiners, prima donnas, and how they drain our energy can easily resonate with us, but she is smart enough to point out tips that help us identify if we ourselves might be the complainer and energy drainer in our group. In fact, we all might dip into that pool occasionally, and that, the author points out, is a natural effect of energy drain. But identifying that behavior early on, and remembering that we don’t like it when we’re on the other side, can help us get back on track.

All in all this is a very “how-to” book that keeps its stories short and it’s tips constant, which is just what you need when you feel you’re drowning in a negative environment. I’ll close with a positive comment from Swindling about addressing complainers:

Consider your Complainers at work. They may be providing helpful information, but just not presenting it well. Review the feedback they give and look for nuggets of truth. In some cases, your Complainers may be an early warning system and a more vocal representation of your own workforce. Step back and think about their complaints in a broader context.

Now then, can’t we all just get along?