There is no shortage of books on how the IT revolution and related phenomena will change the way we work. Gary Bolles’ The Next Rules of Work is among the best of them.

As someone who has worked in this space since the dawn of the technological revolution, Bolles has seen it first hand and realized both that the changes playing themselves out in front of us are not inevitable and that  we are not slaves to the them however they unfold. Humans created Silicon Valley and everything it stands for, and humans can choose how we respond to it. As he sees it, we can shape that future to the degree that we empower people to be effective, enable sustainable growth, ensure that there are ways for everyone to be engaged, and encourage alignment around common goals when ever possible. Key here is what he and many others call the mindsets we bring to our problems, although in this case he focuses on what we might think of as an organization’s culture rather than an individual’s. Whether individual or organizational, the future belongs to problem solvers who are adaptive and creative because they have the empathetic ability to work well with their work teams.

Taken together, Gary leaves us with the acronym PACE to describe the toolkit we’ll all need.

This is a great book. Bolles draws on the core literature in the tech/startup field and, more importantly, he also builds on his own experience working in and near Silicon Valley since the 1980s without losing his own way in the midst of bro culture or the pursuit of 10X return on investment.

And, it is fun to read.