Sylvie's Summer Reading List
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One of my favourite rituals at this time of year is stacking up a small-but-mighty pile of books that I’m saving for summer. Not skimmed between meetings. Not half-read with notes scribbled in the margins while multitasking. But properly read, slow mornings, quiet evenings, and a bit of mental space to let good ideas settle.
This summer, three business books are sitting patiently on my bedside table. They’ve been coming up repeatedly in conversations about leadership, work, and the future of organizations, and each promises a different lens on how we think about performance and people. Here’s what’s waiting for me.
Never Lead Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
Why it’s on my list:
Keith’s books are always a must read – at least for me. I’ve long been interested in how leadership is evolving away from heroic individuals and toward genuinely shared responsibility. Ferrazzi’s latest work pushes that idea further with what he calls “teamship”, a move beyond traditional hierarchies toward mutual accountability, candour, and co-ownership of results.
What intrigues me most is that this isn’t framed as “be nicer at work.” It’s about performance, how teams get better outcomes when leadership is distributed rather than concentrated at the top. I’m particularly curious to see how practical this book is and whether its ideas scale across different organizational contexts.
This feels like a strong summer read because it challenges long-held assumptions without sounding like it’s yelling at you to “change everything immediately.”
The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt
Why it’s on my list:
Everywhere I turn, AI is either framed as magic or menace. What I’m hoping for here is something more grounded.
The Thinking Machine tells the story behind the rise of modern AI through the lens of infrastructure, chips, compute power, and the strategic decisions that shaped the current moment. That approach appeals to me because it helps explain how we got here, not just what we should think about it.
I suspect this will be less about tools and more about patterns: how organizations spot inflection points early, how technological shifts reorganize power, and how leaders can think more clearly when the hype is loud and constant. This is exactly the kind of big-picture book I prefer to read when I have time to think.
Make Work Fair by Iris Bohnet & Siri Chilazi
Why it’s on my list:
I’m drawn to books that move beyond values statements and into systems design. Make Work Fair promises a research-based look at how small, practical changes in processes, hiring, evaluation, promotion, can lead to better outcomes for both people and organizations.
What I appreciate about this framing is that it doesn’t rely on individual goodwill alone. Instead, it asks better structural questions:
• Where do our systems unintentionally disadvantage people?
• How can fairness improve decision quality and performance?
This feels like a thoughtful, evidence-driven book that rewards slower reading and reflection, perfect for summer.
I don’t expect these three books to give me neat, final answers. What I do expect is a refreshed way of thinking about leadership, technology, and organizational design as I head into the fall.
As I work through them, I’ll share what resonates, what challenges me, and which ideas stick longer than the beach sand inevitably will. You never know, one of these may end up as a future blog post for What is Sylvie Reading or as a book raffled at one of our Buzz meetings. For now, they’re waiting, quietly, optimistically, for summer to begin.
What’s on your summer business reading list?
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