Books to Give Your Employees
Eight books worth giving your team at the holidays or the end of the year, which kind of team each one suits, and how to give a book so it gets read instead of shelved.
The best books to give your employees are Atomic Habits by James Clear, You Are Capable of More by Chris Sund, Make Your Bed by Admiral William McRaven, The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon, Fish! by Stephen Lundin, Essentialism by Greg McKeown, Mindset by Carol Dweck, and The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
Why a book beats another gift card
Every December I watch good companies hand out gift cards, and I understand why, because they are easy and nobody is ever offended by one. The trouble is that a gift card is forgotten by February, and it says thank you without saying anything about the person receiving it. A book with one handwritten line inside it, telling someone why you thought of them, does both of those things for about the same money.
It also says something a gift card cannot, which is that you believe the person in front of you is still growing and that you would like to be part of that. Most people rarely hear that from the place they spend forty hours a week, and they remember it when they do.
The gift is not really the book. It is the line you write inside it.
One
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Best for a mixed team
The safest single choice for a group where you do not know everyone’s taste. Clear’s idea that small improvements of about one percent compound into large changes is useful at work and at home, and the book never reads as a comment on someone’s performance, which matters when it comes from their employer.
If you are buying one title for forty people from the front desk to the warehouse, this is the one least likely to miss.
You Are Capable of More by Chris Sund
Best for a team you want to grow together
This is my book, so weigh what I say about it accordingly. I wrote it for exactly the people who usually get left off the development list, the ones doing good work every day who have quietly stopped believing there is much more in them. In a survey I ran for the book, 92 percent of working adults said they were capable of more than they were doing, and most of what stops them is not skill but self-doubt and comfort.
Where it works as a gift is when you want the whole team reading the same thing. Each chapter is one principle with a short exercise, so it holds up as a ten-week book club or a single lunch conversation, and there are free guides for running either. It won the How-To category at the 2026 Paris Book Festival, and I sign bulk orders myself if you want each copy to carry a name.
Three
Make Your Bed by Admiral William McRaven
Best for people who do not read much
Short enough to finish on a weekend, built from a commencement speech McRaven gave about the small lessons of Navy SEAL training. Each chapter is one simple idea, starting with the one in the title, and it is written for people who would never pick up a business book.
A good choice for frontline crews, shift workers and anyone you suspect will be honest with you that they have not finished a book in years.
Four
The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
Best for a team that has had a hard year
A short fable about a man whose life and job are falling apart and the bus driver who helps him see how much of the problem is the energy he brings. It is simple on purpose, and that simplicity is why so many teams have read it together.
Right for a group coming off a stretch of turnover, cuts or burnout, where the gift needs to feel hopeful more than instructive.
Five
Fish! by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen
Best for customer-facing teams
Built around the fishmongers at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, who turned a cold, repetitive job into something people travel to watch. The ideas, choosing your attitude, playing, being present and making someone’s day, are easy to remember on a busy shift.
A natural fit for retail, restaurants, healthcare front desks and call centers, anywhere the work is repetitive and the customer can tell how you feel about it.
Six
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Best for a stretched, busy team
McKeown’s argument is that doing fewer things better beats doing everything halfway, and he gives people permission to say no to work that does not matter. It lands hardest with the people who are always the ones saying yes.
Give it to a team you know is overloaded, and be ready for them to take it seriously, because the best gift you can pair with it is permission to drop something.
Seven
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Best for a team learning something new
The book that made the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset widely known, built on Dweck’s research at Stanford. It explains why some people treat a hard problem as proof they are not good enough while others treat it as the point.
Useful during a big change, a new system or a new role, when everyone is about to be bad at something for a while.
Eight
The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
Best for a resilient, driven team
Holiday brings the Stoic thinking of Marcus Aurelius into plain modern stories about people who used their setbacks rather than being stopped by them. It reads quickly and gives people a way to think about the things they cannot control.
A strong pick for sales teams, athletes and anyone in a job where setbacks are part of the week.
A gift card says thanks.
A book with a note says
I see more in you.
Match the book to your team
| If your team is | Give them | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A mix of everyone | Atomic Habits | Useful to anyone, never feels pointed |
| Ready to grow together | You Are Capable of More | Built to be read as a group, with free guides |
| Not big readers | Make Your Bed | Short, plain, finished in a weekend |
| Coming off a hard year | The Energy Bus | Hopeful without being preachy |
| Facing customers all day | Fish! | Easy to remember on a busy shift |
| Stretched too thin | Essentialism | Permission to do less, better |
| In the middle of a big change | Mindset | Makes being new at something normal |
| Driven and competitive | The Obstacle Is the Way | A way to use setbacks |
How to give a book so it gets read
Most books given at work end up on a shelf, and it is rarely because the book was wrong. It is because nothing about the gift told the person why it mattered or gave them a reason to open it. Three small things change that.
Write one line inside
Not a paragraph. One sentence on why you thought of them. It is the part they keep.
Set one date
A single lunch in January to talk about it. A date turns a gift into a plan.
Read it yourself
The fastest way to get a team to read a book is for them to see their manager reading it.
If you want help with that lunch, the Lunch and Learn guide is a free hour-long session you can run with any group, and How to Run a Book Club at Work covers the longer version.
Common questions
What is a good book to give employees?
Atomic Habits is the safest choice for a mixed group, because it is useful in work and in life and nobody reads it as a comment on their performance. For a team you want to grow together, a book about personal potential gives everyone a shared language to use afterward.
Is a book a good holiday gift for employees?
Yes, if it is chosen for the person and given with a short note about why. A book with a handwritten line from their manager is remembered far longer than a gift card, and it costs about the same.
Should every employee get the same book?
If you want the gift to change how the team works together, yes. One shared book gives people something to talk about. If the gift is purely a thank you, matching a book to each person is more personal.
How do you give a book so employees actually read it?
Write one line inside about why you chose it for them, and give the group a reason to come back to it, such as a single lunch discussion in the new year. A book with no follow-up usually ends up on a shelf.
Can I order books in bulk for my team?
Yes. Most books can be ordered in bulk through a local bookstore, and You Are Capable of More can be ordered directly through the bulk orders page, signed or personalized, with free discussion guides included.
Pick one book for the team you actually have, write one honest line inside each copy, and set a date to talk about it. That turns a holiday gift into the start of something.
Signed copies
for every desk.
Order You Are Capable of More in bulk, signed or personalized with each person’s name, with free guides for a lunch session or a ten-week book club. Chris replies personally within one business day.
You Are Capable of More
Ten principles and a no-excuses playbook for becoming the person you know you’re capable of being. Available now in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle.