Book Reviews: Professional and Workplace Communication
Topics: Communication practices within technical organizations and teams, including project communication strategies and work/life balance
Alive Inside: Unlock Your Leadership Advantage in the Age of AI
Emmanuel Gobillot. New York, NY: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). 2026. 292 pages, including index.
Index Terms: Artificial intelligence, ethical leadership, human-centered leadership, professional communication, technology and society
Reviewed by Ravi Teja Reddy Mandala, IEEE Senior Member (rteja7799@gmail.com)
Review published 15 April 2026
In Alive Inside: Unlock Your Leadership Advantage in the Age of AI, Emmanuel Gobillot argues that effective leadership in an artificial intelligence (AI)-saturated workplace depends not on outperforming machines but on reclaiming irreducibly human qualities such as presence, moral judgment, intuition, compassion, and storytelling. The book proposes a leadership framework designed to help managers lead with energy and meaning rather than fear and mechanical efficiency. Written primarily for practitioners working alongside AI and automated systems, the book positions itself as a corrective to leadership models that overvalue optimization, speed, and predictability. Overall, Alive Inside largely succeeds in its purpose by offering a coherent, example-driven framework for human-centered leadership, though it occasionally suffers from repetition and structural redundancy.
The primary audience for this book is emerging and experienced leaders, managers, and decision-makers operating in AI-enabled environments. While the book does not assume deep technical AI expertise, it expects readers to be familiar with organizational dynamics, leadership responsibilities, and the growing influence of automated systems. The book is particularly relevant for practitioners in technology-driven organizations, but educators and students in professional and technical communication may also find value in its emphasis on meaning-making, ethical judgment, and narrative coherence. In most cases, the book successfully addresses the needs of this audience by translating abstract leadership principles into accessible concepts supported by illustrative examples.
Gobillot organized this book into an introductory chapter followed by three major parts with each part structured around a set of leadership principles. Across the book, the author presents seven principles with each principle explored through five short chapters. These chapters typically introduce a concept, develop it through examples, and conclude with a practical reflection chapter intended to help readers apply the ideas. While this structure provides consistency and reinforces key themes, it also contributes to redundancy, as similar ideas are repeated across chapters.
The introductory chapter establishes the book’s central argument: although AI can convincingly mimic human behavior, it cannot think, care, or exercise moral judgment. Drawing on a statement attributed to Sam Altman: “If you can’t tell the difference, how much do you care?,” (p. 2) the chapter highlights the distinction between imitation and genuine presence Gobillot identifies qualities such as values, nuance, courage, ethical judgment, and meaning-making as uniquely human capabilities that AI cannot replace.
One of the chapter’s key contributions is its critique of leadership styles shaped by predictability, rigid deadlines, and machine-like efficiency in an inherently probabilistic world. The chapter effectively frames the book’s overall framework and previews the seven leadership principles that follow. Its strengths lie in its clear organization and attention-grabbing narrative. However, the decision to organize the book metaphorically around “paperclips” feels unnecessary as several ideas are reiterated using different phrasing, reducing concision.
Part I, Obnoxious Paperclips, focuses on the over-automation dangers and introduces three leadership principles: Authenticity over Automation, Moral Courage over Mere Compliance, and Intuition over Instruction.
Under the first principle, Gobillot uses the example of Microsoft’s Clippy to illustrate how automation can unintentionally erode authenticity. The chapters argue that leaders should resist the perceived inevitability of adopting AI uncritically and instead ask whether a given technology genuinely serves human needs. One chapter contrasts AI’s “ABC” (artifacts, blueprint, composition) with human “ABC” (awareness, bodies, cultures) reinforcing the idea that machines cannot replicate human experience. The discussion of leaders mimicking AI perfection explains how overly polished, machine-like leadership narratives can alienate followers. While the principle is well developed and supported by examples, Gobillot could have reduced the repetition by consolidating five chapters into one.
Moral Courage over Mere Compliance, the second principle, is one of the strongest sections. These chapters explore the limits of data-driven decision-making and argue that ethical judgment cannot be outsourced to machines. Gobillot effectively explains how data reflects human biases and priorities, making blind reliance on AI ethically risky. The discussion of ethical issues—consent, transparency, accountability, bias, and oversight—is clear and oriented. The emphasis on leaders taking principled stands, even at personal or organizational cost, reinforces the book’s central claim that leadership is inseparable from moral responsibility.
The third principle, Intuition over Instruction, examines decision-making in conditions of uncertainty. Gobillot argues that intuition, developed through lived experience and emotional memory, becomes critical when data is insufficient. While the topic is highly relevant, this section is less cohesive. Some chapters suffer from unclear organization, abrupt transitions, and dense vocabulary. The discussion of “messy leadership” (pp. 101-106) and improvisation introduces valuable ideas, but their relationship to intuition and ambiguity is not always clearly articulated. Nonetheless, the exploration of introspection, regret, and accountability usefully distinguishes human judgment from algorithmic outputs.
Part II, Demonic Paperclips, addresses the unintended consequences of AI systems optimized for efficiency without ethical or contextual boundaries. It introduces essential leadership principles of Curiosity over Certainty and Compassion over Calculation.
The chapters on curiosity argue that effective leadership requires knowing when to pause and ask the right questions. Gobillot persuasively contends that AI lacks epistemic sensitivity and cannot recognize when something meaningful is missing. The discussion of creativity, confusion, and unlearning is particularly strong, emphasizing that innovation often emerges from disorder rather than structure. The introduction of frameworks, such as PACE (Perceive, Attend, Contain, Execute) (pp. 150-151), provides practical value without overwhelming the reader.
TheCompassion over Calculation principle highlights emotions that AI cannot replicate, such as genuine care, connection, and biological cues of safety. Gobillot carefully distinguishes sympathy, empathy, and compassion, and argues for integrating compassion as a systemic strength rather than treating it as a soft skill. While some chapters repeat earlier arguments, the REAL (Restore, Empathize, Align, Listen) (pp. 188-189) framework for building connection offers a concrete and actionable contribution. This section is especially relevant to professional communication, as it emphasizes responsiveness to individuals rather than abstract systems.
The final part of the book, Heroic Paperclips, introduces Presence over Performance and Stories over Structures, focusing on communication, attention, and meaning-making.
The chapters on presence argue that a leader’s most critical resource is attention. Drawing on neuroscience and organizational examples, Gobillot explains how presence shapes culture, emotional energy, and collective focus. While some repetition occurs, the emphasis on calm presence over dominance is a valuable counterpoint to performance-driven leadership models.
Stories over Structures is the final principle that reinforces the importance of narrative in leadership. Gobillot argues that stories grounded in lived experience provide coherence, clarity, and motivation. The discussion of language shaping thought, metaphors guiding culture, and repetition reducing uncertainty is aligned with professional communication. Although some chapters repeat central claims, the four-part narrative framework effectively links intention, language, and action.
Across the book, terminology and frameworks remain consistent, and the balance between theory and practice is well maintained. However, redundancy is a recurring issue, with several chapters restating similar ideas. While Gobillot claims the book can be read in any order, this assertion is misleading; later chapters frequently reference earlier concepts, making sequential reading more effective.
The book’s primary strength lies in its use of examples and narratives to illustrate abstract leadership concepts. Each chapter builds on previous discussions, reinforcing learning through repetition and reference. However, this repetition also constitutes the book’s main limitation, as several sections could be condensed without sacrificing clarity.
Alive Inside contributes to professional communication by reframing leadership as a communicative practice grounded in ethics, presence, and meaning-making rather than optimization alone. Practitioners in technology-driven organizations, leadership educators, and readers interested in the human implications of AI will find this book to be of value. Despite structural redundancies, the book offers a timely, thoughtful framework for leading with humanity in the automation age.
The Art of Less: How to Focus on What Really Matters at Work
Mats Alvesson and André Spicer. London, UK: Bloomsbury Business. 2025. 250 pages, including index.
Index terms — Bureaucracy, organizational behavior, organizational efficiency, productivity, workplace design
Reviewed by Yogiraj Awati, IEEE Senior Member, Independent Researcher (yogirajawati@gmail.com).
Review published 11 March 2026
In The Art of Less: How to Focus on What Really Matters at Work, Mats Alvesson and André Spicer address a pervasive, widely felt problem in contemporary organizations: the buildup of rules, procedures, systems, and well‑meaning initiatives that eventually make it harder to conduct meaningful work. They refer to this accumulation as organizational sludge. This book was written for managers, technical professionals, organizational leaders, and scholars who care about the design and practical functioning of work systems. Engineers and project managers will find the authors’ analysis relevant to the daily operational challenges that arise when processes expand beyond their original purpose. Alvesson and Spicer aim to explain what sludge is, why it spreads, and how individuals and leaders can reduce it. They succeed in offering a clear, well‑supported framework that is grounded in examples across several industries.
The authors divide this book into three parts. The first part defines sludge and illustrates how it develops. Examples from healthcare, policing, education, and private companies show how sludge often begins with reasonable intentions—improving safety, ensuring quality, or standardizing work—but becomes counterproductive as layers accumulate. Alvesson and Spicer show that sludge is not limited to the public sector; many large private firms struggle with slow decision cycles, lengthy approval chains, and complex compliance processes. For professionals in technical environments, the discussions of documentation requirements, digital reporting tools, and organizational routines will feel familiar. These examples demonstrate how even minor procedural frictions, when multiplied across teams and projects, reduce efficiency and dilute attention from core work.
The second part analyzes the deeper causes of sludge. The authors describe several societal and organizational trends that contribute to overload: growing expectations from employees and customers, expanding regulatory requirements, fear of mistakes, the rise of specialized knowledge workers, imitation of fashionable organizational practices, and an institutional desire to appear modern and forward‑thinking. What stands out in this section is the argument that sludge rarely emerges from bad intentions. Instead, it appears when organizations try to respond to too many pressures at once, without a clear hierarchy of priorities. For readers engaged in professional communication, the authors help explain why certain systems become overloaded with information, why coordination mechanisms expand faster than needed, and how ambiguous expectations create more documentation rather than better clarity.
The third part focuses on solutions. Alvesson and Spicer open with a set of survival strategies that individuals naturally use to navigate excessive procedures, such as selective compliance, avoiding unnecessary meetings, and reframing tasks to maintain focus. These strategies describe how workers cope in high‑friction systems but are not presented as a replacement for structural change. The authors then outline organizational methods for reducing sludge. These include creating filters to prevent low‑value initiatives from entering the system, simplifying or removing existing processes, and ensuring that the organization does not push unnecessary burdens on customers or colleagues. The examples provided, such as the reduction of quality indicators in hospital units that resulted in better workflow without harming outcomes, show that subtracting tasks can sometimes be more effective than adding new ones.
A notable strength of the book is its discussion of leadership. Alvesson and Spicer argue that many organizations need leaders who act less like visionaries and more like plumbers. These leaders work to identify blockages, simplify systems, and protect their teams’ time and attention. This perspective aligns closely with engineering and systems‑thinking principles, where improving a process often requires removing constraints or reducing complexity rather than adding new controls. The emphasis on prioritizing core tasks and avoiding unnecessary initiatives offers a practical framework for technical managers who regularly balance operational demands with compliance, safety, and communication requirements.
The Art of Less also highlights the importance of clarity about organizational purpose. Institutions often expand their activities in response to external pressures or internal ambitions, which can blur their mission and make it harder for employees to focus. For IEEE readers, this emphasis on purpose connects directly to designing clear workflows, supporting effective communication, and ensuring that systems enable rather than hinder core technical work.
If there is one area where readers may want more detail, it is in evaluating the long‑term impact of sludge‑reduction efforts. While Alvesson and Spicer offer strong examples of simplification, organizations in highly regulated or safety‑critical industries may require additional guidance on sustaining these improvements. This is a minor limitation and does not detract from the book’s overall value. It points instead to an opportunity for further applied research and experimentation in technical settings.
The Art of Less offers at least two compelling reasons for scholars and practitioners to read it. First, it provides a clear vocabulary for discussing a problem that many employees experience but cannot easily articulate. Naming sludge allows teams to examine their processes more critically. Second, the book offers practical approaches that can be implemented in real organizations, making it useful for leaders who want to streamline workflows and help teams focus on meaningful work. The combination of conceptual clarity and practical guidance makes the book particularly well suited to technical fields where efficiency and communication are essential.
Overall, The Art of Less is a thoughtful, well‑constructed analysis of how organizations lose focus and what can be done to restore it. It provides insights that will resonate with engineers, managers, and scholars who seek to reduce unnecessary burdens and improve the design of work systems. The book is a valuable resource for anyone responsible for shaping how work is organized, communicated, and supported within complex institutions.
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Personal Branding for Introverts
Goldie Chan. New York, NY: Basic Venture. 2025. 256 pages, including index.
Index Terms: Branding, business, introversion, marketing, self-help, social media
Reviewed by Josh Anderson, an Information Architect at Paligo (josh.anderson@paligo.net).
Review published 21 Feb 2026
The idea of establishing a strong “personal brand” can feel like something limited to those who are outgoing, extroverted, and talkative. Personal Branding for Introverts argues that even those of us who don’t thrive in people-heavy, socially dense environments have the capacity to make a name for ourselves and be recognized as leaders in our professions.
This is especially true for those who are willing to take advantage of social media and commit to consistently creating useful, visible online content. Goldie Chan writes about how she posted 800 consecutive daily videos on LinkedIn, which then led to further professional opportunities. This exhortation to create, create, and create some more is what I found most memorable. After reading this book, I felt inspired to update my blog and post on LinkedIn, which I had been ignoring for months.
Apart from the obvious but helpful reminder that volume and consistency are your best shot at getting noticed by your peers, I found much of the book’s advice familiar, albeit presented in a straightforward and easy-to-read manner. Those who are early in their careers or who have not yet spent much time considering how to establish a presence in their field beyond their immediate daily workplace may learn more from this book than I did. I’m not sure you even need to be an introvert to glean wisdom from this book since much of its advice struck me as applicable to anyone. For example, I see no reason why extroverts cannot also leverage technology and establish content calendars for themselves. Chan shares tips for the introvert to do things like schedule breaks when we go to public events or feel confident to turn down requests so that we can avoid burnout. As a self-described introvert who is already years into a professional career, much of this insight I had already figured out for myself.
Chan insists that introverts do not need to change themselves into extroverts to find professional success, which I agree with, but as a result I questioned a couple of her examples of successful introverts named in the book. Marilyn Monroe is described as someone who completely reinvented herself—changing her name, altering her appearance, and even training herself to speak in a breathy voice—to find stardom. Mike Tyson is quoted as regarding himself as a normally “shy and introverted guy” who then adopts an “extreme super extrovert” persona when he’s in the boxing ring (p. 46). I found it tough to reconcile Chan’s advice to both be genuine but also “transform strategically” (p. 52). I know there is a difference between introversion and social anxiety, but it is not uncommon to see an overlap between the two, so the suggestion that we simply be more like Monroe or Tyson struck me as overambitious and unlikely to be put into practice by any normal introvert reading the book.
Personal Branding for Introverts is most valuable when it emphasizes sustainable habits—consistent creation, clear goals, and intentional boundaries—rather than dramatic reinvention. Those who are just beginning to think about their own professional visibility may find motivation in these pages, while more established introverted professionals will more likely interpret this advice as confirmation.
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The Price of Nice: Why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck—and 4 Actions for Real Change
Amira Barger. Oakland, CA. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 2025. 208 pages, including index.
Index terms: Business communication, change agents, organizational change
Reviewed by Joanne M. DeVoir
Review published 21 Feb 2026
The Price of Nice: Why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck and 4 Actions for Real Change is an action-oriented examination of how niceness is a social, organizational construct that often preserves comfort over meaningful change. Amira Barger explores the historical, social, and psychological underpinnings of niceness and argues that habits often labeled as polite, supportive, or conflict-avoidant frequently function to maintain norms. The book’s purpose is to help readers recognize these patterns and replace them with deliberate behaviors that promote accountability, clarity, and progress. The book achieves this purpose well by combining personal narrative, cultural critique, and structured actions that readers can apply in their own personal and professional lives.
Professional communicators who want to enable positive change are the primary audience for The Price of Nice. This book will also interest organizational leaders, managers, and any professionals who want to learn how to be more courageous, authentic, and impactful. If you sometimes think, “If I speak up, will they think I’m not nice?” (p. xi), I recommend this book. Academics will appreciate this book for its clear framing of niceness as a socially reinforced behavior that can limit both individual and social progress. The author also provides a useful lens for examining power, silence, and accountability in organizational communication, making this book relevant for both teaching and scholarship in professional communication, business, and related fields.
Barger defines in the introduction what she means by “nice” and why it is problematic. Niceness is not kindness or empathy, but it is a pattern of behavior that is reinforced from childhood, which prioritizes comfort over truth. She contends that niceness often masquerades as professionalism while discouraging honesty, reinforcing power imbalances, and protecting the status quo. This framing establishes the book’s central idea that niceness can be personally and organizationally costly.
Barger organizes the book into four sections that align with actions for change: Think, Feel, Do, and Revisit. This framework, rooted in social psychology and widely used in professional communications, reinforces the book’s central claim that change requires cognitive awareness, emotional engagement, behavioral action, and sustained reflection.
The Think section describes mental models and how society and institutions reward niceness. In Barger’s view, the opposite of nice is nerve. Nerve is resilience, standing up for your beliefs, maintaining boundaries, and speaking up for yourself and others even when it is uncomfortable. She challenges readers to examine how words and our assumptions affect how we think about the world and dives into how niceness has been used as a control tool and a way to maintain norms throughout history. Barger also discusses social conditioning and explains the psychological and sociological underpinnings of niceness. “At its core, the drive to be nice stems from a fundamental human need for belonging…To feel accepted, people often suppress their true feelings and desires, aligning with group norms” (p. 63).
In the Feel section, Barger discusses how emotional intelligence supports the capacity to act with greater nerve. “By looking at things differently, we can rethink our reactions, grow, and turn tough moments into opportunities for real change” (p. 111). She identifies four characteristics of niceness that impede progress—lack of awareness, accountability, agency, and adaptability—and reinforces these concepts with clear, easy-to-scan tables that contrast “nice” and “nerve” behaviors. Barger encourages the use of journaling to surface assumptions and patterns and emphasizes the importance of becoming comfortable with discomfort as a necessary condition for change.
Barger discusses in the Do section the concrete behaviors to move from nice to nerve, stressing that “change requires us to communicate with intention, clarity, and courage” (p. 127). She provides examples of change agents throughout history, explores how to communicate with nerve in both your professional and personal life, and calls out the seemingly small, everyday “nice” behaviors that keep us stuck and reviews the power dynamics that are often in play in the workplace. Barber also explains how leaders can use balance, strength, flexibility, and endurance to ensure that growth opportunities are available for everyone in an organization.
Part 4, Revisit, contains one chapter that explores how to sustain change. Barger encourages readers to revisit assumptions, reflect on outcomes, and recalibrate actions as contexts evolve. “Revisiting is a commitment to show up again and again—not perfectly, but purposefully” (p. 158).
Throughout the book, Barger includes “promising practices” that offer practical guidance for translating the book’s concepts into action. She also provides a comprehensive daily reflection checklist that integrates the book’s core ideas and encourages application as well as a list of references for further reading.
The author relies heavily on narrative, reflection, and behavioral examples rather than empirical studies. For some readers, especially those in highly regulated or data-driven environments, this may leave open questions about measurement and scalability. However, this choice also makes the book accessible and adaptable across industries and roles.
Overall, The Price of Nice is a compelling, practical guide for anyone who believes that politeness can sometimes undermine progress. Barger offers language, insight, and actionable guidance for replacing comfort-driven habits with intentional communication, accountability, and action. The book’s clear structure, relatable examples, and focus on everyday behavior make it a useful resource for professionals who want to lead, communicate, and collaborate more honestly, bravely, and effectively.