
Results
Winner
Spilling the Beans: Leadership Lessons About Clarity, Accountability, Conflict, and the Strange Things Humans Do at Work
Marlene D Chism
Spilling the Beans helps leaders and employees alike pause, reflect, and make wiser choices in the moments that shape their work and relationships. Through 52 concise lessons and thought-provoking questions, readers learn to recognize drama, challenge assumptions, communicate more clearly, take personal responsibility, and approach conflict with greater courage.
Created to address serious workplace patterns with both humor and humanity, the book contains 52 “beans," one for each week of the year. Each pairs a short narrative with a simple truth and an executive insight that can be used for individual reflection, coaching, team meetings, retreats, or leadership conversations. Readers can absorb one idea at a time, discuss it with others, and immediately apply it. The result is an approachable path to clearer communication, stronger accountability, healthier workplace relationships, and more courageous leadership.
Winner
Customer Success Mindset
Jyo Shukla
Every business knows how to win customers. Very few know how to keep them, and fewer still know how to turn them into advocates who grow the business for you. Customer Success Mindset is built on a philosophy that takes the well-known concept of a growth mindset and applies it to how businesses grow. It shows that when every person in a business genuinely believes in delivering value to customers, those customers stay longer, spend more, and refer others naturally. It translates that philosophy into practical, easy-to-follow frameworks that help business owners put customers at the centre of everything they do, not just in one team or function but across the entire organisation.
For founders and owners of scaling businesses, it replaces the costly cycle of constant customer acquisition with a smarter, more sustainable path to growth. For the people leading that work inside those businesses, it gives them the tools and confidence to get every team, product, sales, and marketing, movi
Winner
Secrets for Success in Business: How Entrepreneurs Gain Clarity, Improve Judgement, and Make Better Decisions in an Overwhelming Business World
Nader Zadi
Secrets for Success in Business helps entrepreneurs and business leaders cut through mental overload, strengthen judgment, and make better decisions under pressure. Readers consistently point to its usefulness in clarifying priorities, navigating uncertainty, and seeing business challenges from a fresh perspective. One reader described the book as especially helpful for “constant decisions and competing priorities,” while others highlighted its practical treatment of clarity, judgment, and decision-making. Its frameworks help readers distinguish urgency from importance, recognize the forces that distort judgment, and focus attention on what matters most. The result is not simply more information, but clearer thinking, stronger prioritization, and greater confidence when facing consequential business decisions.
Finalist
The Black Book of Reshoring: The Essential Guide to America's New Manufacturing Boom
Douglas Brown
The Black Book of Reshoring helps readers succeed in a changing global economy by turning reshoring from a political slogan into a practical business strategy. It helps companies save money by uncovering the real costs of offshoring, improve resilience by reducing supply-chain risk, and grow more effectively by aligning production closer to customers, talent, and innovation. Beyond corporate performance, the book helps policymakers, workers, and communities understand how reshoring can drive job creation, rebuild industrial capability, and strengthen long-term economic competitiveness.
Finalist
Corporate Trauma: The toxic legacy of a crisis
John Oliver
"Corporate Trauma: The toxic legacy of a crisis" provides a groundbreaking "Big Idea" that shifts the blame for organizational failure away from individual leaders and toward the hidden scars left by a past crisis. By introducing the concept of "Corporate Epigenetics," Prof. John Oliver helps leaders and employees understand how a single traumatic event - such as a hostile takeover, a pandemic, or a massive PR scandal - can embed dysfunctional patterns into a company’s "DNA" that persist for generations. This book helps others by providing a vocabulary and a diagnostic framework for "unresolved organizational trauma" allowing CEOs to stop fighting symptoms and start healing the root cause of low morale and stagnant productivity. Ultimately, Prof. Oliver’s work empowers the global business community to break the cycle of "toxic legacies," fostering healthier, more resilient workplaces where trust can finally be restored.
Finalist
The Ripple Effect: How Social Sector Leaders Build Networks That Transform Culture
Elizabeth Scott
The Ripple Effect helps leaders understand why traditional approaches to organizational change often fall short and how relationships can become a powerful driver of culture, collaboration, and performance. Dr. Scott provides practical, research-backed strategies for identifying influential networks, breaking down silos, strengthening trust, engaging informal leaders, and creating lasting cultural change. Through real-world examples and actionable frameworks—including a practical 90-day plan—readers can move beyond simply recognizing that relationships matter to intentionally building the connections that help organizations thrive. The book is especially valuable for nonprofit and mission-driven leaders, but its lessons apply broadly to anyone leading teams through change.




