The most recommended organizational behavior books

Accelerating projects and completing more projects per year is existential for almost every company. The economic and financial leverage is enormous if, for example, 20% or 50% more projects can be completed per year—without significantly increasing operating costs. Nevertheless, it has happened time and again that there were so many construction sites in the company that it was not at all clear why accelerating the project portfolio should be given the highest priority. Kotter's book provided me with key insights that my colleagues and I were able to implement immediately. With success!

Taking the Floor is the story of a 20-year intellectual odyssey, by Daniel Beunza, one of the world’s most insightful analysts of the financial system. He delves in-depth into the organization of a Wall Street trading room, beginning with him negotiating access to it when he was working on his PhD. He also reveals how later conversations with key people in the trading room made him rethink many of his first impressions, showing him that what he took to be a typical form of organization was actually very deliberately designed to be unusual. 

I particularly admire Beunza’s nuanced take (co-developed with the sociologist David Stark) on how traders use mathematical models. Traders are far from the naïve users of models that they are often portrayed as being, and instead often use models in a sophisticated way, not as guides to the truth of markets but as insights into what their… show more.

Simon Sinek exposes how the twisted incentives of short-term profits are causing leaders to steer their companies off course. The book had a huge impact on me because it starkly revealed and explained the game my clients are really playing despite their claims to the contrary.

Because of this book, I was able to connect these motives to some of the worst toxic behaviors I observe in leaders and better understand why they behave this way. As someone often tasked with helping them change course, this book really helps me meet leaders where they are and help them move in a better direction.

In organisations, culture can drive or protect people against burnout, and I love Amy’s work because she addresses a wide range of organisational issues through the topic of psychological safety.

I find the ideas and concrete strategies described in this book can flex to almost any type of business and she provides just enough science to convince the more academically minded whilst remaining practical and realistic.

A very personal look at strategies, mindsets and tools to create collaborative leaders and more collaborative organizations. John Glaser balances both theory and practical advice gained from his extensive experience as both an outside consultant and an internal leader, as school superintendent of one of California’s most prominent and successful school districts, Napa Valley Unified School District. John Glaser knows what he’s writing about.

Most teachers get approximately half a day's training on behaviour in their ITT (and TAs get 0!). Luckily my half-day was with Paul Dix. Coming out of the lecture hall I remember thinking - this man speaks sense. This relates to the years of PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) and AP (Alternative Provision) experience I'd had up to that point. This book, an accumulation of years of experience, gives some practical nuggets to take away as well as some overall school-wide approaches.

This book explains how any employee – not matter their role – can take action to make their workplaces better (without burning career bridges behind them).

I am inspired by Professor Meyerson’s insistence that any employee (not just managers, not just the CEO) can be an agent for positive change. What I particularly love about this book is her focus on small wins. Positive change in work environments is about accumulating small changes, not about huge transformational restructures.

I also love the fact that the book’s recommendations can be applied to any social issue. You can follow your passion to make your workplace more inclusive, more environmentally sustainable, or more socially responsible.

You know how people say ‘it’s business, it’s not personal’? Well that’s just wrong, business is personal because it’s made up of people – people with lives, families, hopes, fears, and dreams.

The authors argue that one of the main problems with our workplaces is that there isn’t enough compassion at work. Workplaces rob their employees of humanity and motivation, which has a negative effect on employee wellbeing, but also organizational potential. I have seen this in my own research and I have to say I couldn’t agree more.

The authors do a great job showing us that compassion isn’t a so-called ‘soft’ value, but a hard-core business strategy. The book’s strength is that it also works as a handbook for organizations to become more compassionate and caring. 

Do you, like me, look around the world and ask the simple question – why is it so fucked up? 

If so, you will love Will Black’s book – because it explains psychopathy and why it was very useful as humans evolved but now has infected our culture and is causing major damage.

Psychopaths may appear charming, but this is superficial and used to manipulate – you know, people just like this. Many are in a position of great power and can shape society and, as Will suggests, create psychopathic cultures. Will gives examples of pathological cultures in families, small networks, larger institutions, global corporations, and governments.

Once a pathological culture has been established, it can expand and infect healthy cultures. We need to identify these cultural inflections and fight them with rationality and empathy.

To a large extent, the research agenda that is subsumed under the rubric of “behavioral economics” started with the idea of bounded rationality and the departures from the utility maximizing model of economics.

Many of the ideas pursued in this line of work owe their origin to the work of Herbert Simon, whose doctorate was in political science from Chicago in 1943 but who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 for combining ideas from mathematics, psychology, economics, and computer science to understand decision making in large organizations. This is not to suggest that none of this was known before.

In fact, some people consider Adam Smith to be the first behavioral economist for his work The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which incorporates ideas from David Hume that it is passion (or emotions) that drive human behavior rather than deliberative reasoning. But, by and large, Simon’s work provided… show more.