My favorite books on workplace social justice with true stories and interesting stats, that are informative and fun

Enemy of All Mankind is entertaining, and fun to read and it actually debunked a lot of things I thought I knew about pirates. First and foremost I was surprised to learn that pirates were the epitome of social justice – for real. The captain was chosen by the crew democratically and could be demoted (not beheaded) if they didn't deliver enough bounty. But it was how bounty was divided that blew me away. The captain share, in most cases, was only about twice as much as a regular seaman. That's it! In today's market CEOs get slightly more – about 270 times more than their average employee. 

Accountable is a highly researched book filled with case studies and interesting stats to help make the author's case – that Capitalism needs some adjustments. It's especially important for people who don't fully buy into the modern rhetoric and abundant lip service of large companies regarding their "good doing" and self-stated "care" for communities, employees, and stakeholders. It grants an eye-opening perspective regarding the real motivations of business leaders and the incredible power their corporations wield. The many case studies of large and global companies convincingly demonstrate the danger we all face if that power is left unchecked and its wielders are left unaccountable to the globe we live in and the people that inhabit it. 

Switch is built around great real-life stories and counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change or in other words – succeed at changing the things in our lives we deem worth of change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, one you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your weight.

Other than being a fun book to read, Switch points out the importance of feelings and emotions when driving change in ourselves or in others, and I believe that emotions play a huge role in our business lives and are both highly important and highly neglected by so many. 

Three thousand years ago, on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then, the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. 

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

As a devout believer in the power of underdogs – this choice was a no-brainer for me. Plus Gladwell writes well and is always enjoyable to read.

We are primed to measure things against the yardstick of averages, judged according to how closely we come to it or how far we deviate from it. It affects our own self-confidence, how we view and grade our performance and worth.

The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average--like GPAs, personality test results, and performance review ratings--reveal something meaningful about our potential is so ingrained in our consciousness that we don't even question it. That assumption is spectacularly—and scientifically—wrong. 

Together with great stories about the folly of averages (the one about pilot chairs really got me) and many research facts and stats it conveys a very important message about how we view the world.