We've gathered insightful books, helpful articles, engaging blogs and podcasts—all designed to help you lead with curiosity, creativity and success. o whether you're just starting out as a design leader or you're an experienced pro, these resources will provide you with valuable insights and guidance to help you drive innovation and success within your team or organisation.👇
By Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios)
This book explores how Pixar achieved revolutionary success in animation by focusing on storytelling, inventive plots, and emotional authenticity. It also serves as a guide to building and sustaining a creative culture, offering insights and examples from Pixar’s experience.
By Kim Scott
Radical Candour is a guide for managers, offering actionable advice on building better relationships with employees. It highlights the importance of making interactions personal, getting things done, and understanding why they matter—all while helping employees develop their skills and define their paths to success. This book provides guidance on how to lead effectively while maintaining integrity and humanity.
By Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates—the most successful hedge fund in history—shares the unconventional principles he has used to achieve success. These principles, centred around "radical truth" and "radical transparency," include tools such as "baseball cards" to assess strengths and weaknesses and computerised decision-making systems.
By Erin Meyer & Reed Hastings
Netflix Chairman and CEO Reed Hastings, along with INSEAD professor Erin Meyer, explores the unique leadership philosophy behind the company’s success. The book challenges conventional workplace norms with unorthodox policies like unlimited holidays and the elimination of financial approvals. It offers insights into the creativity, productivity, and innovation fostered by Netflix’s culture.
By Will Guidara
This book chronicles the transformation of Eleven Madison Park from a struggling brasserie into the world’s best restaurant through radical acts of generosity and service. It showcases how seemingly over-the-top gestures—such as creating an impromptu winter wonderland for guests—reflect a deeper philosophy that hospitality is about human connection, not just transactions.
By Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell investigates how our minds make split-second decisions, revealing that experts can often make better judgements in an instant than through lengthy analysis. He introduces "thin-slicing"—our ability to find meaningful patterns in very narrow windows of experience—and demonstrates how it enables marriage counsellors to predict divorce in minutes and art experts to spot forgeries at a glance.
By Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson
This book overturns conventional sales wisdom by proving that relationship-building isn't the key to success. Dixon and Adamson’s research shows that top-performing salespeople follow a "Challenger" approach: they teach customers new insights, tailor messages precisely, and control sales discussions by constructively challenging customer assumptions.
By Erin Meyer
This book breaks down how different cultures approach business communication and relationships—from the indirect feedback style of Americans to the directness of Germans and the hierarchical structures of Asian cultures. Meyer’s framework helps readers navigate these cultural differences and turn potential conflicts into successful international collaborations.
Hosted by Ekaterina Solomeina
A podcast series by Future London Academy, featuring interviews with design leaders and innovators from around the world. Guests include Don Norman, Stefan Sagmeister, Chief Design Officers from Zoom, CitizenM, JPMorgan Chase and Cisco, Marina Willer from Pentagram, and many more.
Hosted by Reid Hoffman
LinkedIn co-founder and legendary Silicon Valley investor Reid Hoffman shares award-winning business advice. Featuring iconic CEOs from Nike to Netflix, Starbucks to Slack, this podcast uncovers the strategies that helped start-ups grow into global brands—and how they navigated crises.
Adam Grant hosts lively discussions with some of the world’s most interesting thinkers, creators, and leaders—including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brené Brown, Mark Cuban, Olympic medallists, Nobel laureates, and Oscar winners. By diving into their minds, he uncovers bold insights and shares surprising science that can make us all a little smarter.
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts, providing concrete, actionable advice on building, launching, and scaling products.
Every Tuesday and Friday, journalist Kara Swisher and NYU Professor Scott Galloway offer sharp, unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics. They make bold predictions, pick winners and losers, and bicker and banter like no one else. After all, with great power comes great scrutiny.
Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with inspiring guests across many creative fields, to help you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration. Whether you're design curious or a design pro, Design Better is guaranteed to inspire and inform. Vanity Fair calls Design Better, "sharp, to the point, and full of incredibly valuable information for anyone looking to better understand how to build a more innovative
The article covers the process of building a design team for an early-stage startup. It covers key elements of the hiring and interview process, including ideas for a performance-based hiring model, as well as tips for providing clarity, compensation, and closing the deal.
Check Designer Fund Articles for more in-depth insights on different topics like Career Guidance, Craft, Culture, Design Leadership, Tips for founders and articles about Women in Design.
Future London Academy is your one-stop destination for the latest and greatest design leadership and webinar content. They bring you interviews with top companies from around the world and in-depth discussions with the most influential minds in design. Whether you're a creative professional looking to level up your career, a student looking to explore the latest trends in design, or a business leader looking to stay ahead of the game, Future London Academy has something for everyone.
The Diary Of A CEO is a unique podcast that provides an unfiltered glimpse into the lives of some of the world's most influential people, experts and thinkers. Host Steven sits down with guests to discuss untold truths and unlearned lessons in an emotionally raw and honest setting.
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