Our Favorite Books of 2021

Here at Orr Group, we stay curious and are always hungry to learn more. Beyond conversations with our teammates and partners, we often turn to books to help us better understand and improve the world we live in. As 2021 comes to a close, our Senior Leadership Team is sharing some of their favorite reads they’ve enjoyed over the past year. We hope these recommendations will inspire you to pick up a book (perhaps one of these!) and expand your mind.

Interested in purchasing one of these books? Consider supporting one of your local bookstores!

• Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty, Patrick Lencioni
• How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert
• Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, Simon Sinek
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert
• Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, Robert Kolker
• Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
• Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam

• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Adrienne Maree Brown
• American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, Bryce G. Hoffman
• Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, Thomas Gryta

• Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy during Jim Crow, Tyrone McKinley Freeman
• The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Nikole Hannah-Jones
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni

• Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, Rita Gunther McGrath

• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
• Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty, Patrick Lencioni
• Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), Chade-Meng Tan

• Impact Players, Liz Wiseman
• Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, Therese Huston
• No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora, Saraciea J. Fennell
• The Upside of Being Down: How Mental Health Struggles Led to My Greatest Successes in Work and Life, Jen Gotch

• Are You Really Listening?: Keys to Successful Communication, Paul Donoghue and Mary E. Siegel
• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott
• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, Daniel Coyle
• Leading While Female: A Culturally Proficient Response for Gender Equity, Trudy Tuttle Arriaga, Stacie Lynn Stanley, and Delores B. Lindsey
• Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green

• Never Eat Alone, And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, Keith Ferrazzi
• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek
• Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, Sydney Finkelstein

• Pick Three: You Can Have it All (Just Not Every Day), Randi Zuckerberg

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., Brene Brown
• Say It Louder!: Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy, Tiffany Cross
• A Promised Land, Barack Obama
• Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race – Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Designing your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans