George Bernard Shaw once said that to learn something at first feels like losing something. For Indian educators, these recommended books are sure to inspire, excite and even nudge them out of comfort zones.

Freek Vermeulen, Business Exposed

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Freek Vermeulen, Associate Professor at London Business School, has hit headlines across the world with a groundbreaking new book that challenges common perceptions in the industry and delves into treading the unknown areas in business study. The book tackles critical themes relating to business management fads and trends, more commonly known as ‘corporate flu,’ tackles the collective inertia of middle management and challenges the reluctance of CEOs to stand out from the crowd as well as the obsession of most businesses with ‘numbers and measuring everything possible.’ The other themes that are explored in this book include the mystery of top executives’ salary having no resemblance to the performance of the firms they represent.

The author strongly argues that many of the methods incorporated by managers endanger the firms involved. Everything in the book is backed-up with factual research that is derived from some of the world's leading academics.

The book is a must-read as it is a wake-up call of sorts for those who have to deal with diverse areas of management, as is the case for top Directors, Deans and educators. Also, the book explores the age-old theme pertaining to employee motivation, and debates on whether long term incentive plans really work.

Gopalaswamy Ramesh & Mahadevan Ramesh, The Ace of Soft Skills

Publisher: Pearson

In the words of Bala Balachandran, J.L.Kellogg Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Accounting and Management, Northwestern University, USA, and Founder and Dean, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, “The book addresses a broad spectrum of topics relating to soft skills – a positive attitude towards oneself and towards the group, taking ownership, dealing with tough situations and so on…This book, which includes the full range of communication scenarios in a business environment – starting from resume writing to interviews to meeting management and proposal writing – would be useful to everyone regardless of which stage of their career they are in.”

The book has a separate section on the “Visits of Foreign Counterparts,” and also explains the little details that make a big difference culturally when meeting with foreign counterparts and concluding meetings with them. It has a detailed section to identify and enhance the quality of feedbacks that are given. It provides practical tips on separating social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter from the professional sphere. The book also provides an anatomy of what to do when there are distortions in communication and mistakes in status reports, which are areas of interest for educators and thought leaders.

In a nutshell, it covers everything that is important to become a strong and positive communicator in today’s world.