10 books like Good to Great

By Jim Collins,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Good to Great. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Pour Your Heart Into It

By Howard Schultz,

Book cover of Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time

This book is by the founder of a company that has successfully navigated the stages of growth from a start-up to a sustainably successful organization and become a global champion or recognized leader in its space. Accordingly, the book is from the “horse’s mouth.” Schultz and his coauthor take the reader on the journey of the development of one of the classic entrepreneurial successes of our time. He details the challenges, his thinking, and the responses that were made to create the Starbucks of today. The book provided s the reader with a rare opportunity to participate in the Starbucks journey from a vision to the reality of building a great company. 

Pour Your Heart Into It

By Howard Schultz,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Pour Your Heart Into It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Pour Your Heart Into It, former CEO and now chairman emeritus Howard Schultz illustrates the principles that have shaped the Starbucks phenomenon, sharing the wisdom he has gained from his quest to make great coffee part of the American experience.

The success of Starbucks Coffee Company is one of the most amazing business stories in decades. What started as a single store on Seattle's waterfront has grown into the largest coffee chain on the planet. Just as remarkable as this incredible growth is the fact that Starbucks has managed to maintain its renowned commitment to product excellence and employee…


Delivering Happiness

By Tony Hsieh,

Book cover of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

It was a tough decision, and I definitely still want you to read Seth Godin’s books, but I settled on the late Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness since great company culture is the foundation to an admired brand. I strongly believe in that and spreading how Tony created the phenomenon that is the Zappos culture, you will realize that paying your top employees hard cash to quit is actually one of the many ways to set your company on the path of becoming an admired brand.

Delivering Happiness

By Tony Hsieh,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Delivering Happiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

- Pay brand-new employees $2,000 to quit
- Make customer service the responsibility of the entire company-not just a department
- Focus on company culture as the #1 priority
- Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business
- Help employees grow-both personally and professionally
- Seek to change the world
- Oh, and make money too . . .

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure at Zappos, the online retailer that's doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually. After debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer in Fortune magazine's annual "Best Companies to Work For"…


Grit

By Angela Duckworth,

Book cover of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Dr. Angela Duckworth’s New York Times best seller identifies the key ingredients for success – whether you are an NFL professional football player, or an aspiring Army officer at West Point. Grit plays a key role in achieving one’s goals, and Duckworth shows by both testimony and research how these traits develop one’s “grit,” and, in turn, develop one’s opportunities for success. 

Grit

By Angela Duckworth,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Grit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

UNLOCK THE KEY TO SUCCESS

In this must-read for anyone seeking to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth takes us on an eye-opening journey to discover the true qualities that lead to outstanding achievement. Winningly personal, insightful and powerful, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that - not talent or luck - makes all the difference.

'Impressively fresh and original' Susan Cain


The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

By Patrick M. Lencioni,

Book cover of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

We can find ourselves feeling helpless in a dysfunctional team situation. This book normalizes the experience and maps out a path for improvement. It’s written in a fictional-novel format that makes it fun and easy to read. The book describes how a leader helps get her team in shape, but anyone can make change. The core dysfunction is lack of trust, followed by fear of conflict. I have found that in my work, that building trust and competency around healthy conflict is absolutely key for organizations. I won’t spoil the other 3 dysfunctions, I’ll let you read it yourself!

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

By Patrick M. Lencioni,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Five Dysfunctions of a Team as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as…


The Effective Executive

By Peter F. Drucker,

Book cover of The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

This book is an OG classic that contains the seed thoughts for many of today's most popular books on management, leadership, and team building. I have often found it incredibly helpful to go back to the original source of today’s widely accepted truisms to gain both perspective and a better understanding of our modern-day leadership assumptions and paradigms. This book is a case in point.

The Effective Executive

By Peter F. Drucker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Effective Executive as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What makes an effective executive?

The measure of the executive, Peter F. Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results.

Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned: Managing time Choosing what to contribute to the organization Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect Setting the right priorities…


The Starfish and the Spider

By Rod A. Beckstrom, Ori Brafman,

Book cover of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

The value of this book is not in advocating for leaderless organizations. It's in understanding the inherent power of decentralized leadership to foster greater innovation, powerfully respond to crisis, and continually morph in the face of rapidly changing culture and environments.

The Starfish and the Spider

By Rod A. Beckstrom, Ori Brafman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Starfish and the Spider as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If you cut off a spider's head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths?

Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have discovered some unexpected answers,…


Raving Fans

By Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles,

Book cover of Raving Fans

This is another book that uses the business fable motif. But within the storyline, you'll find a boatload of insights as to what a leader and a team needs to understand regarding the difference between producing a superior product and producing raving fans - - which is something that I've found most leaders and teams fail to intuitively grasp.

Raving Fans

By Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Raving Fans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With a new foreword by Ken Blanchard

A straightforward and snappy guide to successful customer service from the author of the bestselling The One Minute Manager.

Raving Fans, in a nutshell, is the advice given to a new Area Manager on his first day - in an extraordinary business book that will help everyone, in every kind of organisation or business, deliver stunning customer service and achieve miraculous bottom-line results.

Raving Fans is written in the parable style of The One Minute Manager and uses a brilliantly simple and charming story to teach how to define a vision, learn what…


Quiet

By Susan Cain,

Book cover of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

If you’re a strong, silent type who wants to feel understood, affirmed, and—most important—capable of leadership, you can’t do better than Quiet. With a psychologist’s insight into human character and a storyteller’s panache, Susan Cain demonstrates just how (quietly) effective we introverts can be. I loved her opening story of a reserved young lawyer who wins the day in a fierce negotiation; also her debunking of myths about this oft-overlooked third of the population. Weak? Antisocial? Timid followers? No way. Introverts rule.

Quiet

By Susan Cain,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Quiet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SUSAN CAIN'S NEW BOOK, BITTERSWEET, IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW

A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE HOW YOU SEE INTROVERTS - AND YOURSELF - FOREVER.

Our lives are driven by a fact that most of us can't name and don't understand. It defines who our friends and lovers are, which careers we choose, and whether we blush when we're embarrassed.

That fact is whether we're an introvert or an extrovert.

The most fundamental dimension of personality, at least a third of us are introverts, and yet shyness, sensitivity and seriousness are often seen as…


The Brand Gap

By Marty Neumeier,

Book cover of The Brand Gap

From brand strategy to design, from validation to cultivation, Marty’s delightful read will make you not only understand what branding is, but you will turn into a design advocate along the way. And, more importantly, it will make you understand what’s at the heart of any great brand: Customer experience. Marty further has a captivating style of storytelling. I promise you won’t be putting this book down once you started. Large typography and fun design make it a quick ‘airplane read,’ which is a format that definitely inspired me as an author.

The Brand Gap

By Marty Neumeier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Brand Gap as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand-building. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a "charismatic brand"-a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives. In an entertaining two-hour read you'll learn:

* the new definition of brand
* the five essential disciplines of brand-building
* how branding is changing the dynamics of competition
* the three most powerful questions to ask about any brand
* why collaboration is the key to brand-building…


Attached

By Amir Levine, Rachel Heller,

Book cover of Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—And Keep—Love

Do you find yourself perennially trapped in relationships that can’t give you what you want? The answer may lie in your attachment style. Attached is an incredibly useful book, which provides a model for relationships that may well help you to understand why you’re always choosing the wrong person. The book uses self-reporting quizzes to help you to figure out your attachment style, and whilst that might sound like a bad horoscope. Attached is genuinely insightful, and will deliver a eureka moment or two. 

Attached

By Amir Levine, Rachel Heller,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Attached as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Over a decade after its publication, one book on dating has people firmly in its grip.”
—The New York Times

We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller scientifically explain why why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle.

Discover how an understanding of adult attachment—the most advanced relationship science in existence today—can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John…


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