2025
Co-winners: Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi, published by Harper Business; Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath, published by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Judging Comments: Make Work Fair is an extraordinarily timely book at a moment when diversity efforts are under attack. The authors explain that requiring more human-resources training won’t give us fairer workplaces. They argue persuasively that what’s really needed are fundamental redesigns of organizational processes to achieve greater effectiveness as well as equity.’
The co-winner, Reset, is timely and compellingly written. Every manager should read this book, which presents fruitful ideas with widespread applicability across industries.
2024
Winner: Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy C. Edmondson, published by Simon Element/Simon Acumen
Judging Comments: This book is an engaging combination of theory and case studies, The Right Kind of Wrong breaks down the different kinds of failures, how they happen and what we can learn from them. It offers smart, actionable guidance for companies, managers and individuals to “fail well.”
Finalist: The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now by Hilke Schellmann, published by Hatchette Books
2023
Winner: Credible: The Power of Expert Leaders by Amanda Goodall, published by PublicAffairs won in this category
Judging Comments: The winner is a deeply-researched and passionately-argued case for selecting corporate leaders who are experts in their chosen fields rather than hubristic MBAs who think they can run any organization.
Finalists: Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism by Rick Wartzman, published by PublicAffairs; How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between by Brent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, published by Currency, Penguin Random House
