Following are the starting group we elected for the title of this page. Our aim is to grow this list to 100 titles with the help of Infohatch.com friends. Please nominate your suggestions to topmanagementbooks@infohatch.com.
Without further due, here are the first 51 in alphabetical order: (Click on title for an excerpt or review)
What Got You Here Won't Get You There - Marshall Goldsmith
The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
Excerpt/Review:Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges. Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting), and much more. This isn't a quick-tips-start-tomorrow kind of book. The concepts are sometimes intricate, and you'll want to study this book, not skim it. When you finish, you'll probably have Post-it notes or hand-written annotations in every chapter, and you'll feel like you've taken a powerful seminar by Covey.
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
Excerpt/Review: Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field. These are (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that will they follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshalling of the army in its proper subdivisions.
The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki
Excerpt/Review:What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers. The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz. At Apple, Kawasaki helped turn ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his iconoclastic ideas on real- world start-ups. And as an irrepressible columnist for Forbes, he has honed his best thinking about The Art of the Start.
Barbarians at the Gate - Brian Burrough and John Elyar
Excerpt/Review: The leveraged buyout of the RJR Nabisco Corporation for $25 billion is a landmark in American business history, a story of avarice on an epic scale. Burrough and Helyar are clearly fascinated with the personalities of the players in the deal and with the trappings of corporate wealth. The restless, flamboyant personality of Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR Nabisco, is portrayed as the key to the events that were to unfold. This book is both the biography of CEO Ross Johnson and an analysis of why the planned LBO (leveraged buyout) went awry. Johnson initiated the LBO as a cheap way to consolidate his standing-and lost everything. Barbarians at the Gate addresses both the financial and human aspects of investment banking.
Be Quick; But Don't Hurry - Andrew Hill and John Wooden
Excerpt/Review:John Wooden was named ESPN's Coach of the Century for the way he led his UCLA basketball team to the top of the sporting world in the 1960s and '70s. Andrew Hill was a rebellious and sparingly used reserve on the squad before becoming a successful television executive. While it's doubtful that either would have predicted it at the time, the lessons imparted on the court by Wooden eventually helped Hill reach the top of his profession. And in Be Quick--but Don't Hurry, named for one of the legendary coach's ubiquitous aphorisms, the now-grateful protégé translates that sage advice into 21 "secrets" that may help others realize similar accomplishments. Like the title, the counsel can usually be boiled down into short expressions that are deceptively simple. Examples include "Focus on effort, not winning," "Balance is EVERYTHING," "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail," and "The team with the best players almost always wins." To show their relevance and power, Hill fleshes them out with solid examples from the hardwood as well as the business world. And with the track record Wooden has compiled, who are we not to take them seriously? --Howard Rothman
Built to Last - James Collins and Jerry I. Porras
Excerpt/Review:Built to Last became an instant business classic. They set out to determine what's special about "visionary" companies--the Disneys, Wal-Marts, and Mercks, companies at the very top of their game that have demonstrated longevity and great brand image. The authors compare 18 "visionary" picks to a control group of "successful-but-second-rank" companies. Thus Disney is compared to Columbia Pictures, Ford to GM, and so on. A central myth, according to the authors, is that visionary companies start with a great product and are pushed into the future by charismatic leaders. Usually false, Collins and Porras find. Much more important, and a much more telling line of demarcation between a wild success like 3M and an also-ran like Norton, is flexibility. 3M had no master plan, little structure, and no prima donnas. Instead it had an atmosphere in which bright people were not afraid to "try a lot of stuff and keep what works."
Capital - Karl Marx
Excerpt/Review:Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, was the product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode of production in England, the most advanced industrial society of his day. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to be completed and edited by Marx himself, avoids some of the mistakes that have marred earlier versions and seeks to do justice to the literary qualities of the work. The introduction is by Ernest Mandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensive attempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital.
Competitive Strategy - Michael Porter
Excerpt/Review: Now nearing its 60th printing in English and translated into nineteen languages, Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world. Electrifying in its simplicity -- like all great breakthroughs -- Porter's analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies -- lowest cost, differentiation, and focus -- which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. In the almost two decades since publication, Porter's framework for predicting competitor behavior has transformed the way in which companies look at their rivals and has given rise to the new discipline of competitor assessment.
Creativity in Business
- Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers
Excerpt/Review:No enterprise can prosper solely on
efficiency; it must also have that magic spark of creativity and innovation. The
problem, of course, is how to nurture and capture that elusive element. In the
1970s Stanford professor Michael Ray pondered the enigma of human creativity and
decided to take a sabbatical to India to contemplate the question. He concluded
during his quest that creativity emanates from deep inside the human spirit and
that all people have an innate capacity to be creative. Upon his return he
teamed up with Rochelle Myers to create a truly revolutionary course on
creativity at Stanford Business School.
Diffusion of Innovations
- Everett M. Rogers
Excerpt/Review: Rogers presents the definitive exploration of how
new innovations become adopted by the general public, why some superior
innovations fail to become adopted while inferior innovations become standards,
and why some innovations take decades to proliferate while others spread
seemingly overnight. Many entrepreneurs make the fatal mistake of jumping
directly to a mass market with an innovation. They fail to grasp the central
dynamic of innovation adoption: most people respond not to the superiority of an
idea but to whether other people are using the innovation.
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
Excerpt/Review: This book challenges traditional thinking, which claims that a high IQ is essential for success. It provides examples of people with high IQs and considerable academic achievement who have failed in business and in life, and, conversely, of those who, though apparently less gifted intellectually, were able to manage and harness their emotional intelligence in order to succeed. The Western cultures esteem analytical skills measured by IQ tests: but there is clearly more to success and happiness, even in technological societies, than IQ alone. Goleman has written one of the best books on the nature and importance of other kinds of intelligence besides our perhaps overly beloved IQ.
The Fifth Discipline - Peter Senge
Excerpt/Review: As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only
sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster
than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many
ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical
when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways
of seeing the world and their managerial practices. In The Fifth Discipline,
Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities”
that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of
learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are
nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning
how to create results they truly desire. The updated and revised Currency
edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material
based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever,
Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World
Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with
learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on
Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and
Frontiers for the Future.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni
Excerpt/Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining,
quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and
implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled
Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school
manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years
earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as
a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to re-establish that essential
conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can
elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful
leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence
of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and
inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in
evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome
these common shortcomings.
Getting Things Done - David Allen
Getting to Yes - Roger Fisher
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don't - Jim Collins
The Greatest Salesman in the World - Og Mandino
Guerrilla Marketing - Jay Conrad Levinson
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
The Human Side of Enterprise
- Douglas McGregor
Excerpt/Review: This masterwork has had a profound effect on the
trajectory of management thinking and is as relevant today as when it was
written, more than 35 years ago. McGregor set forth the foundations of
humanistic management and argued that how well an organization performs is
directly proportional to its ability to tap human potential. That ability, in
turn, relies on rejecting the Theory X view of people and embracing the Theory Y
view of people.
Innovation in Marketing - Theodore Levitt
In Search of Excellence - Tom Peters and Robert Waterman
Excerpt/Review: The "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury
UK), In Search of Excellence has long been a must-have for the boardroom,
business school, and bedside table. Based on a study of forty-three of America's
best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of
Excellence describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating,
people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices -- that made these organizations
successful.
It's Your Ship: Management Techniques From the Best Damn Ship in the Navy - Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
Leading Change - John P. Kotter
Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis
Made in Japan - Akio Morita
The Magic of Thinking Big - David J. Schwartz
Managing - Harold Geneen
Motivation and Personality - Abraham Maslow
Never Eat Alone - Keith Ferrazzi
No Logo - Naomi Klein
The One Minute Manager - Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Only the Paranoid Survive - Andrew S. Grove
Out of the Crisis - W. Edward Deming
Excerpt/Review: Deming, the man, probably had greater influence than
his book. Most people gained exposure to his ideas by reading about his work or
by hearing him talk, not by reading his work directly. That's unfortunate
because Out of the Crisis is one of the two key texts of the quality movement
(the other being J.M. Juran's Juran on Planning for Quality, 1988) and is also
as an eminently readable book full of vivid examples that bring powerful ideas
to life. Although the techniques of statistical quality control originated in
the West, Deming's perspective reflects a more Eastern habit of mind. In the
Western world, we seek to affix blame and reward to individuals. Deming teaches
that we must reject that lens and look instead at the system in which
individuals operate. To improve quality, fix the system, where 95% of the
problems lie.
The Peter Principle - Laurence Peter
Planning for Quality - Joseph Juran
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries and Jack Trout
The Practice of Management - Peter Drucker
Excerpt/Review: Drucker stands as the most significant management
thinker of the 20th century. Enlightened and, above all, effective management is
to him the central skill needed in all parts of a free society. Effective
management dispersed throughout society—in business, in nonprofits, in
education, in local government—made the triumph of the free world and the end of
the Cold War possible and is the only workable alternative to a resurgence of
tyranny or dictatorship. Drucker's goal is to make society more productive and
more humane. He strives to lift us to a higher standard, not merely to help us
be successful or amass wealth.
The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
The Principles of Scientific Management - Frederick W. Taylor
Reengineering the Corporation - James Champy
The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning - Henry Mintzberg
The Social Psychology of
Organizing -
Karl E. Weick
Excerpt/Review:
Entrepreneurs wrestling with the problems of growth would do well to embrace
Weick's insight that organizations are by their very nature messy and that all
attempts to impose complete order and predictability will ultimately fail.
Learn, adapt, change, evolve, grow, but don't ever expect to have things under
control or to know fully where you're going. "It's ok to not know where you are
going," writes Weick, "as long as you are going somewhere. Sooner or later,
you'll find out where that somewhere is."
The Soul of a New Machine
- Tracy Kidder
Excerpt/Review: Kidder's book portrays
the dynamics of high-performance work teams and of Theory Y management at its
best by telling the true story of a project team working with limited resources
to design a new computer in less than a year. The challenge of a difficult task,
the pursuit of a clear and compelling goal, personal responsibility for a
significant contribution to the overall effort, and individual freedom in the
pursuit of one's work—those elements provided the primary fuel and source of
commitment. The individuals in Kidder's story had to come through; they could
not let their comrades down.
The Third Wave - Alvin Toffler
Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
Trump Never Give Up - Donald J. Trump
What Got You Here Won't Get You There - Marshall Goldsmith
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