Fuel For The Brain

A number of business books have come out over the past ten to fifteen years that have guided me in a number of different areas. I love to read about leadership; personal, self-improvement or spiritual growth, and lastly general business books I will not touch on the first two groups of books in this post, but will instead focus on what I believe are some of the best business books and where I have learned the most valuable lessons.

The first book (in chronological order of release) is Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. This was the first marketing book that pointed out that the old ways of marketing high technology products no longer work. Geoffrey proposed a “New Technology Adoption Life Cycle”, which explained why most high tech products fail to become mainstream; Moore asserts that they fall into the “chasm” defined as being between the early adopters and the majority market; he calls it “the pragmatic herd”. This book is a step by step guide on how to get technology products past the early adopters (risk takers) and into the pragmatic majority.

The second recommendation is The Discipline of Market Leaders by Treacy & Wiersema. This was eye opening for me as it’s thesis is that key for successful organizations (the “market leaders”) to excel in delivering a particular kind of value to their customers is focus. The authors speculate that market leaders choose a single “value discipline” such as best total cost, best product or best solution, and then build their organizations around it. This great book offers understanding and examples of the three disciplines that a company must select from and follow in order to be successful. First, is the discipline of Operational Excellence, second is the discipline of Product Leadership, and third is the discipline of Customer Intimacy.

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson is my next suggestion. It is an amazing parable of four characters that live in a “maze” and look for “cheese” to nourish themselves and make them happy. Cheese is a metaphor for what you want in life and the maze represents where you look for what you want. The book is primarily about change: how we can embrace change and enjoy less stress. It shows us that in many cases, change can be good, and can lead to a better life, love, career, money.
In our businesses today, change is constant. I learned from this book not to fear change, but rather to embrace it as an opportunity.

The next great book for business is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This is about rapid cognition, the kind that happens in the blink of an eye. When you are confronted with a new situation or a new person, usually your first two seconds of processing yields the correct perspective. Blink is about how powerful those first two seconds can be and how to recognize them.

Another favorite is Good to Great by Jim Collins. This seminal book is about why some companies move to greatness and why most do not. It explains what Level 5 Leadership is all about, the Hedgehog Concept, and the Culture of Discipline. Level 5 Leaders build a company to survive long after they’re gone. Once gone, the level 5 leader wants their company to grow and thrive, not suffer and wallow.

The last business book I would like to suggest is The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This is an incredible view of the world today and how it is truly without borders from a business standpoint. This isn’t just about manufacturing jobs moving to China and India, it’s about US accountants sending tax returns to India for processing and radiologists getting x-rays read at night in India and analysis sent back by morning. The flattening world is about the triple convergence: New Players (China & India), a New Playing Field (internet) and New Processes for Horizontal Collaboration (eBay, Dell, Wal-Mart).

What books have you read that you would recommend to this blog’s readers?