7 Professional Development Books That Will Jingle Your Bells

It’s that time of the year again: time to bundle up, eat delicious food, celebrate with family, and check off all the items on your present list! The only thing better than the gift of a book is purchasing a book about professional development so you can get ahead in 2021. Count down to the holidays with GovLoop and NextGen and find out which professional development reads will make your future career days merry and bright.

1. On the first day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me….

The Gift of Focus:

In Master Your Focus: A Practical Guide to Stop Chasing the Next Thing and Focus on What Matters Until It’s Done, Thibaut Meurisse teaches you the meaning of productivity and how to master it. You will learn how to work efficiently and will no longer become distracted while multitasking.

2. On the second day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…….

More Changes?

Just when you thought there could not be any more changes, there’s one more. And this time it’s in literary form. In CHANGES: The Busy Professional’s Guide to Reducing Stress, Accomplishing Goals and Mastering Adaptability, Michael Diettrich-Chastain has found the key to helping you accomplish the goals that you have failed to achieve in the past. You will learn how to adapt to the uncontrollable circumstances around you and reduce the stress in your life.

3. On the third day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…..

Invaluability!

If you want to challenge yourself and bring success to your organization, Maya Grossman’s Invaluable: Master the 10 Skills You Need to Skyrocket Your Career can teach you a thing… or ten. In addition to learning the 10 soft skills that will enhance your career, Grossman will also show you how she received 10 promotions in 15 years, “strategically leveling up from an individual contributor to a VP.”

4. On the fourth day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…..

Agile Advice.

Darrel Rigby, Sarah Elk, and Steve Berez work to highlight the strengths and demystify the misconceptions surrounding Agile in the workplace in Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos. Agile’s benefit to the workplace is lost when it is not utilized properly. Rigby and his colleagues will show you how to create the right balance, allowing your team to implement Agile most effectively.

5. On the fifth day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…..

Working from home strategies.

While many of us have worked remotely throughout 2020, it is still beneficial to study the elements that make a remote team successful. Invest in How to Make Virtual Teams Work: Manage and Empower a Virtual Team That Thrives While Working from Home. Leading a remote office for over ten years, Robert Glazer writes a guide that will highlight the strengths and solve the challenges of remote work.

6. On the sixth day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…..

The nerve to communicate effectively.

After a long career in law and politics, Trey Gowdy wants to help you communicate persuasively by asking questions and understanding your audience and objective. Reading Doesn’t Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade will make work easier for you, whether you are proposing a new idea to your team or speaking to a literal jury.

7. On the seventh day of the holidays, GovLoop and NextGen introduced to me…..

Advice on managing emotions professionally.

We all experience a wide range of emotions, especially during these turbulent times. In No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, authors Liz Fosslein and Mollie West Duffy will teach you when to express and when to subdue your emotions in a work environment. The insightful advice, cute illustrations, and light humor will remind you that you’re human, so there’s no reason to treat yourself like a machine.