A friend asked me last night what the best books were I’d read about business and leadership. Here are a few of my favorites, just about all of which I’d recommend to both adults and students. I’ve grouped them by categories.
Personal Development
Now, Discover Your Strengths
Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.
What would it be like if you spent less time trying to fix your weaknesses and more time getting better at what you naturally do well? The book comes with a code to an online test you can take to identify your strengths. I’ve recommended it to over a dozen people and not one has come back with anything but a raving review.
Marketing
Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends, And Friends Into Customers
Seth Godin
You’ll never want to spam again.
First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
If you’re in any kind of supervisory role, this book will give you great ideas about how to manage the group and get the best out of each person. Works equally well for adults and high school students.
12: The Elements of Great Managing
Rod Wagner and James K. Harter Ph.D.
The follow-up to First, Break All the Rules, it’s much denser and I found harder to get through than its predecessor. Best reserved for people who really buy into the methods in the first book and want to dig deeper about how to apply them in all levels of an organization.
Leadership
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t
Jim Collins
Collins is a professor at Stanford Business School who based this book on his exhaustive study of great companies and the leaders behind them. Some of the findings are surprising, like the fact that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset for a leader, and that spending time and energy trying to motivate people is a waste of effort–if you have the right people, they will be motivated as long as you don’t de-motivate them.
The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success
Marcus Buckingham
Leadership and management are not the same thing. They require very different kinds of skills, and Buckingham explains how to do both. He’s also got a surprisingly simple secret for personal success that involves quitting. It’s a good read.
Small Business
Rework
Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson
Straight and to-the-point, it’s full of smart advice about how to run a small business and be more effective at work. Getting things done, selling, hiring, managing–it’s all here.
Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service
Ari Weinzweig
Zingerman’s is a deli in Michigan that has millions of dollars in revenue every year. Nope, it’s not a national chain. Just one deli. They don’t do it with splashy marketing or advertising. Their products and customer service generate thousands of loyal fans who come back over and over, and who tell their friends.
Selling
To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Dan Pink
Forget your vision of the used car salesman. That’s not what sales is today. You’re in sales. In fact, we all are, whether you’re a teacher selling kids on chemistry, a CEO selling the board on a new acquisition, or a parent selling your kids on the merits of being organized. This isn’t a book about being salesy. It’s about how to make a presentation, argument or pitch that will move people.
Writing
Revising Prose (5th Edition)
Richard A. Lanham
Still the best book I’ve read on the subject. It gives you a short list of rules to make sure every sentence you write is as clear and concise as possible.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Lynne Truss
Any book that can teach punctuation and make me laugh gets a recommendation. It’s both hilarious and instructive.
Heather says
Further proof that Collegewise is in my future. I adored Eats, Shoots, and Leaves! I’m an unabashed supporter of the Oxford comma.