Fav Business Books

Back in my marketing career I used to wander into the manager's office and check the book du jour on his desk and get a copy (and charge it to the company). At least I knew what shit he was going to drop on us that month .
The best was when he started reading 'The One Minute Manager".  The local bookstore a week later had 'The 59 Second Employee- coping with thd One Minute Manager'.
He didn't stand a chance...

Brio said:

Back in my marketing career I used to wander into the manager's office and check the book du jour on his desk and get a copy (and charge it to the company). At least I knew what shit he was going to drop on us that month .
The best was when he started reading 'The One Minute Manager".  The local bookstore a week later had 'The 59 Second Employee- coping with thd One Minute Manager'.
He didn't stand a chance...

^ this is excellent advice, not to follow the theory/ hyperbole, but to see when the boss is talking it / ……it

Charles Handy, “The Age of Unreason” is good Imho

also, the Wisdom of Teams 

sev112 said:

Brio said:

Back in my marketing career I used to wander into the manager's office and check the book du jour on his desk and get a copy (and charge it to the company). At least I knew what shit he was going to drop on us that month .
The best was when he started reading 'The One Minute Manager".  The local bookstore a week later had 'The 59 Second Employee- coping with thd One Minute Manager'.
He didn't stand a chance...

^ this is excellent advice, not to follow the theory/ hyperbole, but to see when the boss is talking it / ……it

I'm reading the books for my own benefit. I'm not worried about what my boss is doing.

sev112 said:

Brio said:

Back in my marketing career I used to wander into the manager's office and check the book du jour on his desk and get a copy (and charge it to the company). At least I knew what shit he was going to drop on us that month .
The best was when he started reading 'The One Minute Manager".  The local bookstore a week later had 'The 59 Second Employee- coping with thd One Minute Manager'.
He didn't stand a chance...

^ this is excellent advice, not to follow the theory/ hyperbole, but to see when the boss is talking it / ……it

And on that basis “who moved my cheese”

its actually a valuable read and got me into one of my boss’s mindset. 

The Goal

viz said:

The Goal

… and by the same author: CriticalChain.

Who moved my cheese

Revolutions said:

viz said:

The Goal

monquixote said:

Revolutions said:

I loved that book but apparently his conclusions aren't supported by the data.

I can’t think of many business or pop science books that are supported by actual rigorous data.

Revolutions said:

monquixote said:

Revolutions said:

I loved that book but apparently his conclusions aren't supported by the data.

I can’t think of many business or pop science books that are supported by actual rigorous data.

Sun Tzu's "Art Of War", more useful to me than any business book I've read.

Not strictly a business book, but in the similar self help mode...

F**k it, the ultimate spiritual way

Business secrets of the Pharaohs is quite good apparently 

I learnt all I have ever needed from The Dilbert books. 

monquixote said:

I'm starting a new job soon (technology delivery) and have a bit of time off so I'm reading a few business books.

Interested to know peoples favs.

I've enjoyed

How to win friends and influence people

7 habits

Radical candor

Turn the ship around

The managers path

No rules rules

The hard thing about hard things

Zero to one

The personal MBA

Any more I should try?

I like 7 Habits a lot
TTSA is ace - the audiobook is narrated by the author and is especially good 
Radical Candor is one is forgotten I’d read and agree it’s a good one

I detest HTWFAIP - you can spot people ‘doing’ it a mile off 

Good To Great is one I think is genuinely great. 

But if you’re going in to a Product/Delivery role then The Lean Startup has to be worth a read. 

The Art of the Con.
I think it's by Donald Trump. 

Also The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap both by Michael Bungay Stanier 

TimmyO said:

But if you’re going in to a Product/Delivery role then The Lean Startup has to be worth a read. 

I should have added that to the list. Love that one!

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely - really interesting insight into how we make decisions and how eye actually not very good at making them. Also, anything by William Ury (even the videos of talks he’s given at Google and Microsoft are good)

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

I'm starting a new job soon (technology delivery) and have a bit of time off so I'm reading a few business books.

Interested to know peoples favs.

I've enjoyed

How to win friends and influence people

7 habits

Radical candor

Turn the ship around

The managers path

No rules rules

The hard thing about hard things

Zero to one

The personal MBA

Any more I should try?

I like 7 Habits a lot
TTSA is ace - the audiobook is narrated by the author and is especially good 
Radical Candor is one is forgotten I’d read and agree it’s a good one

I detest HTWFAIP - you can spot people ‘doing’ it a mile off 

Good To Great is one I think is genuinely great. 

Also:
The Culture Code
Drive 
Mindset by Carol Dweck - this one particularly because it’s the origin of the phrase and a long way away from the ‘mindset as woo woo’ common useage - it’s the research behind growth vs fixed mindset and underpins some solid educational practice these days 

monquixote said:

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

I'm starting a new job soon (technology delivery) and have a bit of time off so I'm reading a few business books.

Interested to know peoples favs.

I've enjoyed

How to win friends and influence people

7 habits

Radical candor

Turn the ship around

The managers path

No rules rules

The hard thing about hard things

Zero to one

The personal MBA

Any more I should try?

I like 7 Habits a lot
TTSA is ace - the audiobook is narrated by the author and is especially good 
Radical Candor is one is forgotten I’d read and agree it’s a good one

I detest HTWFAIP - you can spot people ‘doing’ it a mile off 

Good To Great is one I think is genuinely great. 

Also:
The Culture Code
Drive 
Mindset by Carol Dweck - this one particularly because it’s the origin of the phrase and a long way away from the ‘mindset as woo woo’ common useage - it’s the research behind growth vs fixed mindset and underpins some solid educational practice these days 

Interested by what you mean by "doing" HTWFAIP.

I've taken onboard some of the advice and found it really useful but I don't feel like I'm "doing it"

<opens eyes wide, makes eye contact, nods slowly but continually> well you see monxiote, the reason I say that, <nods more> monxiote, as you know, <nods> monxiote…” 

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

Interested by what you mean by "doing" HTWFAIP.

I've taken onboard some of the advice and found it really useful but I don't feel like I'm "doing it"

<opens eyes wide, makes eye contact, nods slowly but continually> well you see monxiote, the reason I say that, <nods more> monxiote, as you know, <nods> monxiote…” 

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

I'm starting a new job soon (technology delivery) and have a bit of time off so I'm reading a few business books.

Interested to know peoples favs.

I've enjoyed

How to win friends and influence people

7 habits

Radical candor

Turn the ship around

The managers path

No rules rules

The hard thing about hard things

Zero to one

The personal MBA

Any more I should try?

I like 7 Habits a lot
TTSA is ace - the audiobook is narrated by the author and is especially good 
Radical Candor is one is forgotten I’d read and agree it’s a good one

I detest HTWFAIP - you can spot people ‘doing’ it a mile off 

Good To Great is one I think is genuinely great. 

Also:
The Culture Code
Drive 
Mindset by Carol Dweck - this one particularly because it’s the origin of the phrase and a long way away from the ‘mindset as woo woo’ common useage - it’s the research behind growth vs fixed mindset and underpins some solid educational practice these days 

Interested by what you mean by "doing" HTWFAIP.

I've taken onboard some of the advice and found it really useful but I don't feel like I'm "doing it"

<opens eyes wide, makes eye contact, nods slowly but continually> well you see monxiote, the reason I say that, <nods more> monxiote, as you know, <nods> monxiote…” 

My brother was a huge fan of HTWFAIP (I think via his MBA) and it just seems to have reinforced in him the need to be a patronising twat and that description does sound like him. Sort of Jedi mind trick on vulnerable people. He did reasonably okay work wise, maybe it works. 
I can't remember any of the book titles from my CMI diploma. We did quite a lot on herding cats but there are several management books with this theme so I don't know what source we actually used; essentially if you are over seeing the work of other professionals you need a different approach than traditional management processes. I rarely found anything relatable or pragmatically helpful. I remember Alex Ferguson's book a bit partly because it gave examples I could understand and also interesting that he saw himself as a manager with stakeholders,etc, and not as a football coach (the 'hairdryer' doesn't get recommended). 

monquixote said:

TimmyO said:

But if you’re going in to a Product/Delivery role then The Lean Startup has to be worth a read. 

I should have added that to the list. Love that one!

I actually rebuilt my team’s entire approach to consulting and film & digital content production after reading Lean Startup. Borrowed from Scrum by Jeff Sutherland & another book about pair programming. Pretty proud of that, and I think it still exists nearly 15 years later. It eventually got called adaptive agile.

Funnily enough, a few years later I realised I was just over-complicating the double-diamond approach so I adopted that & 5d as a far simpler way to describe stuff to clients.


Remembered I had an list of books saved in a draft email for anyone in my team who was interested in managing & doing things differently:

monquixote said:

TimmyO said:

monquixote said:

Interested by what you mean by "doing" HTWFAIP.

I've taken onboard some of the advice and found it really useful but I don't feel like I'm "doing it"

<opens eyes wide, makes eye contact, nods slowly but continually> well you see monxiote, the reason I say that, <nods more> monxiote, as you know, <nods> monxiote…” 

Oh yeah I hate that too!

I don’t do that but there is loads of other great advice in there. 

Admitting mistakes, trying to understand before being understood, getting people to think an idea was theirs, ask questions rather than giving instructions, etc. Lots of good stuff.

I’ve just never jived with the overall theme of it which, to me, seems like ‘influence’ could be replaced with ‘manipulate’ in the title and still fit.

Agree re asking and listening - but they can happen without already having and end game in mind to bend things to. 

The Leadership Secrets Of Ghengis Khan

More for the effect seeing you read it has on others.