Consider, for instance, the sine qua non of governance–communications. We all do it, all the time, but imperfectly. Sociologist Daniel Yankelovich’s The Magic of Dialogue offers clues on how to improve this fundamental function; how to listen, the importance of body language, tone, and the like.

Before you rush up to the podium, bone up on the best use of the platform by flipping through political scientist George C. Edwards, On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. Pre-empt those who are second guessing the very concept of boards by taking notes from Harvard MBA Professor Jay Lorsch’s Back To The Drawing Board in which he suggests how boards can re-invent themselves to better cope with today’s stifling agendas of new responsibilities.

Rebuttals to pundits targeting CEOs, such as Matthew Stewart in The Management Myth, can be gleaned from Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management offering not pat solutions but raising provocative questions sure to stir the mind.

Steve Forbes, chief of the Forbes media empire, builds on John Bogle’s The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism with his pragmatic thesis How Capitalism Will Save Us, which also neutralizes U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner’s A Failure of Capitalism as he effectively rebuts the most egregious raps against our economic process.

On the lighter side, former Coca-Cola President Donald Keough’s The Ten Commandments For Business Failure will give you titillating material for potential op-eds, interviews or conference small talk at coffee breaks.

Finally, if you’re most comfortable with the heavy stuff, leaf through Restoring Trust In American Business by a cast of scholars, gurus and assorted cognescenti gathered up by the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John F. Budd Jr., chairman and CEO of Omega Group, originally published this article in a year-end letter to readers of his newsletter “Observations.”