I often get asked by students or friends for recommendations on good books for anyone interested in how business function. There are of course countless excellent books on any number of topics in business, but I tried to curate what I considered the seminal or foundational books on how business operate; or more to the point, how they should operate. I also included some authors whose work has impacted my own thinking, and also have thrown in a few “fun reads”. For a number of these, I list both the book as well as the article which serves as the foundation of the book. So here are some light readings recommendations for the summer (and more).
1) Michael Hammer is one of the seminal writers on business process reengineering. He really set the state for the next several decades.
Hammer, M. (1990). Reengineering work: Don’t automate, obliterate. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 104-112.
Hammer, M., Hershman, L. W. (2010). Faster cheaper better: The 9 levels for transforming how work gets done. New York, NY: Random House.
2) John Kotter is probably the most read authors on the topics of organizational change. I consider it basic education for anyone working at almost any level of an organization.
Kotter, J. P. (2007). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 85(1), 96-103.
Kotter, J.P. 1996. Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press
3) Edgar Schein is a prolific writer on culture, leadership, and change. This is his book which I personally found very insightful. It’s a very easy read and provides some powerful insights into organizational culture and change.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
4) Michael Porter is the preeminent author on competitive advantage. Even if there have been scores of models which have advantages in one way or another, an understanding of his work is considered basic business education.
Porter, M. E. (1998). The competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. NY: Free Press.
5) Eliyahu Goldratt’s “The Goal” is a classic on process improvement and rethinking problems and objectives. A quick read told as an allegory.
Goldratt, E. M., Cox, J. (2014). The goal: A process of ongoing improvement. Great Barrington, MA.: North River Press.
6) Clay Christensen is one of those writers who you want to read pretty much everything they put out because of how they push our boundaries and think outside the box. He is probably best known for coining the term “disruptive innovation”
Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard Business School Press.
7) Alec Sharp is one of the world experts on business process and data modeling. I am a bit biased as I’ve gotten to know him over the years and consider him a good friends, but I think I can say in an unbiased fashion that his way of approaching complex business problems is very refreshing. He has led some of the most complex organizational and process design efforts across the global.
Sharp, A., McDermott, P. (2009). Workflow modeling: Tools for process improvement and development (2nd ed.). Norwood, MA: Artech House, Inc.
8) Roger Tregear is another business process expert, but with a very different view of it than Alec. His horizontal-vertical model of organizations is so simple, but explains so many of the complex issues in organizations that I find his book to be an important read. In full disclosure, I have helped edit and contribute to some of Roger’s work.
Tregear, R. (2016). Reimagining management: Putting process at the center of business management. San Francisco, CA: Blurb.
9) Geoffrey Moore is an important read for anyone working in product development and innovation. He is most well-known for expanding diffusion of innovation and technical adoption lifecycle models.
Moore, G. A. (2014). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling high-tech products to mainstream customers (3rd ed.) New York, NY: HarperCollins.
10) Joseph Grenny and company’s book Influencer is one of the more popular book on influencing change. The focus of the book is on how individuals at any level can use various means to influence change in their organization.
Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
11) For any entrepreneur out there, Michael Gerber’s book is a must read.
Gerber, M. (1990). The E-myth revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it (3rd ed.). New York, NY: HarperBusiness.
12) Another great read in the process improvement space (yes, my bias is showing) is Geary Rummler and Alan Brache’s Improving performance. This helps bridge the gap between strategy and the organization itself.
Rummler, G. A., Brache, A. P. (2012). Improving performance: How to manage the white space on the organization chart (3rd ed.). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
And just to prove that the business world can be pretty funny, and disturbing, here are a few of my favorite business “novels”.
1) Barbarians at the Gate is the book that made me give up fiction and realize the real world is more interesting than any fantasy. It provides an amazing inside look at how business operations occur at the highest level. It was also made into a movie which I’ve not seen, but heard good things about.
Burrough, B. (2009). Barbarians at the gate: The fall of RJR Nabisco (20th anniversary ed. ed.). New York: HarperBusiness.
2) Consulting Demons had a big impact on me as I read it while working as a consultant for one of the “Big 6”. It gives a lot of funny, and sometimes disheartening, insights into what being a consultant was like. A lot of the story comes from an older era, but there is a still value to be garnered in understanding what your consultants have in the back of their minds. Consulting Demons, as much as any of these, may make you laugh and angry at the same time.
Pinault, L. (2001). Consulting Demons: Inside the unscrupulous world of global corporate consulting. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.
3) You can pretty much be advised to read anything by Michael Lewis. Liar’s Poker was his first book which really opened up the general public to the inner-workings of business. I have included it and the more recent book, The Big Short, but these are just two of many great books he’s written. All of them have excellent narratives, and powerful insights. The Big Short was also was turned into a hilarious movie (I’ve not seen Moneyball yet so I can’t comment on it).
Lewis, M. M. (2010). Liar’s poker: Rising through the wreckage on Wall Street. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Lewis, M. M., Boggs, J. (2010). The big short: Inside the doomsday machine. New York, NY:: Simon & Schuster.