100 books like Humanocracy

By Gary Hamel, Michele Zanini,

Here are 100 books that Humanocracy fans have personally recommended if you like Humanocracy. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels

Dave Ulrich Author Of Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets

From my list on how to improve organizations.

Why am I passionate about this?

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. The organizations where we live, work, play, and worship affect every part of our lives. Organizations turn individual competencies into collective capabilities, isolated events into sustained patterns, and personal values into collective values. In short, organizations matter in our lives. By adapting their answer to “what is an organization,” leaders, employees, customers, and investors will be better able to improve their organization's experiences.

Dave's book list on how to improve organizations

Dave Ulrich Why did Dave love this book?

Jay Galbraith was the godfather of organization design. His work on how to design organizations has been the foundation of future work. He provides a system model with five parts (his star model) to diagnose and improve the organization. He also highlights the importance and role of information that flows from good organization design which was ahead of its time.

By Jay R. Galbraith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This Third Edition of the groundbreaking book Designing Organizations offers a guide to the process of creating and managing an organization (no matter how complex) that will be positioned to respond effectively and rapidly to customer demands and have the ability to achieve unique competitive advantage. This latest edition includes fresh illustrative examples and references, while the foundation of the book remains the author s popular and widely used Star Model. * Includes a comprehensive explanation of the basics of organization design * Outlines a strategic approach to design that is based on the Star Model, a holistic framework for…


Book cover of Competing for the Future

Dave Ulrich Author Of Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets

From my list on how to improve organizations.

Why am I passionate about this?

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. The organizations where we live, work, play, and worship affect every part of our lives. Organizations turn individual competencies into collective capabilities, isolated events into sustained patterns, and personal values into collective values. In short, organizations matter in our lives. By adapting their answer to “what is an organization,” leaders, employees, customers, and investors will be better able to improve their organization's experiences.

Dave's book list on how to improve organizations

Dave Ulrich Why did Dave love this book?

This is another classic in that it redefines the organization less as morphology and structure and more as a set of capabilities. Capabilities represent what an organization is known for and good at doing. Creating the right organization is less about roles and rules, but more about identifying and creating the right capabilities.

By Gary Hamel, CK Prahalad,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Competing for the Future as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New competitive realities have ruptured industry boundaries, overthrown much of standard management practice, and rendered conventional models of strategy and growth obsolete. In their stead have come the powerful ideas and methodologies of Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, whose much-revered thinking has already engendered a new language of strategy. In this book, they develop a coherent model for how today's executives can identify and accomplish no less than heroic goals in tomorrow's marketplace. Their masterful blueprint addresses how executives can ease the tension between competing today and clearing a path toward leadership in the future.


Book cover of The Agility Factor: Building Adaptable Organizations for Superior Performance

Dave Ulrich Author Of Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets

From my list on how to improve organizations.

Why am I passionate about this?

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. The organizations where we live, work, play, and worship affect every part of our lives. Organizations turn individual competencies into collective capabilities, isolated events into sustained patterns, and personal values into collective values. In short, organizations matter in our lives. By adapting their answer to “what is an organization,” leaders, employees, customers, and investors will be better able to improve their organization's experiences.

Dave's book list on how to improve organizations

Dave Ulrich Why did Dave love this book?

Ed Lawler has a lifetime of melding academic theory and organization practice. In this research based book, he and his colleagues not only recognize that agility matters, but they do research to validate processes that create organization agility. Agility is one of the emerging capabilities for a successful organization in today’s changing world. Anything El Lawler works is well thought out, researched, and usable.

By Christopher G. Worley, Edward E. Lawler, Thomas D. Williams

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A research-based approach to achieving long-term profitability in business What does it take to guarantee success and profitability over time? Authors Christopher G. Worley, a senior research scientist, Thomas D. Williams, an executive advisor, and Edward E. Lawler III, one of the country's leading management experts, set out to find the answer. In The Agility Factor: Building Adaptable Organizations for Superior Performance the authors reveal the factors that drive long-term profitability based on the practices of successful companies that have consistently outperformed their peers. Of the 234 large companies across 18 industries that were studied, there were few companies that…


Book cover of Competing by Design: The Power of Organizational Architecture

Dave Ulrich Author Of Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets

From my list on how to improve organizations.

Why am I passionate about this?

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business and a partner at the RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 30 books. The organizations where we live, work, play, and worship affect every part of our lives. Organizations turn individual competencies into collective capabilities, isolated events into sustained patterns, and personal values into collective values. In short, organizations matter in our lives. By adapting their answer to “what is an organization,” leaders, employees, customers, and investors will be better able to improve their organization's experiences.

Dave's book list on how to improve organizations

Dave Ulrich Why did Dave love this book?

In doing organization diagnosis, it is important to have a framework for thinking about and designing organizations. Like an architect, organization and management practitioners can become architects who build blueprints for creating the right organization. The Nadler/Tushman model is one of the most insightful and comprehensive frameworks for organization diagnosis and improvement.

By David Nadler, Mark B. Nadler, Michael Tushman

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Competing by Design as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If the defining goal of modern-day business can be isolated to just one item, it would be the search for competitive advantage. And, as everyone in business knows, it's a lot harder than it used to be. On the one hand, competition is more intense than ever-technological innovation, consumer expectations, government deregulation, all combine to create more opportunities for new competitors to change the basic rules of the game. On the other hand, most of the old
reliable sources of competitive advantage are drying up: the hallowed strategies employed by GM, IBM, and AT&T to maintain their seemingly unassailable positions…


Book cover of Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want

Bartley J. Madden Author Of Value Creation Principles: The Pragmatic Theory of the Firm Begins with Purpose and Ends with Sustainable Capitalism

From my list on knowledge building and value creation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My intellectual journey has focused on three related passions: understanding how firms create value and the link to their stock market valuations, systems thinking, and knowledge building. This has led to the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University that promotes the key value creation principles that are the foundation for a prosperous society. Prosperity is more widely shared through a society rooted in dynamism with enthusiastic support for experimentation, knowledge building, and innovation by firms. The Madden Center offers a Certificate in Value Creation online course that packages a learning experience to upgrade the knowledge, skills, and resources you need to create value. 

Bartley's book list on knowledge building and value creation

Bartley J. Madden Why did Bartley love this book?

For almost six decades, I have studied the histories of firms and their successes and failures in creating value. I am always looking for heavy hitters who write about their thinking/doing process. Curt Carlson qualifies.

When he was CEO of SRI International, he guided the conception and development of HDTV, Siri, the computer mouse, electronic banking, robotic surgery which evolved into Intuitive Surgical (the dominant robotics surgical firm with its Da Vinci system), and much more.

I first found Carlson via a Harvard Business Review article in which he laid out his proven steps for value creation that seem so straightforward, yet are rarely followed. I wanted a more comprehensive discussion, and I got it with this book.    

By Curtis R. Carlson, William W. Wilmot,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Nothing is more important to business success than innovation . . . And here’s what you can do about it on Monday morning with the definitive how-to book from the world’s leading authority on innovation

When it comes to innovation, Curt Carlson and Bill Wilmot of SRI International know what they are talking about—literally. SRI has pioneered innovations that day in and day out are part of the fabric of your life, such as:

•The computer mouse and the personal computer interface you use at home and work

•The high-definition television in your living room

•The unusual numbers at the…


Book cover of Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

Isaac Getz Author Of Freedom Inc.: How Corporate Liberation Unleashes Employee Potential and Business Performance

From my list on transformational leadership books that will help you to practice it.

Why am I passionate about this?

One remarkable leader I've studied, Bob Davids, said that the greatest scarcity in the world is not oil or food but leadership. For two decades, I've been on a quest to uncover the essence of a transformational leader, someone who cultivates an environment where employees' needs are so well-addressed that they are eager to show up and give their best every day. This journey led me to study hundreds of leaders and books, all serving as the foundation for my thoughts and writings. I trust that these books will kickstart your own journey. Mine has guided me to play a pivotal role in the corporate liberation movement, involving hundreds of leaders who have transformed their organizations.

Isaac's book list on transformational leadership books that will help you to practice it

Isaac Getz Why did Isaac love this book?

This is the freshest account I’ve read by a leader of his company’s transformational journey: Ricardo Semler became CEO of his father’s company, SEMCO, at the age of 21, and wrote the book in his early thirties, not to forget the transformative journey he just led.

But even more than the narrative itself, I loved Semler’s philosophical reflections, densely packed throughout the book. Example: “We simply don’t believe our employees have an interest in coming in late and doing as little as possible. After all, the same people raise children and elect mayors and presidents. They are adults. In SEMCO, we treat them as adults.”

Semler, twice chosen as Brazil’s businessperson of the year, proves how a leader, driven by authentic beliefs, can lead a transformation that makes people and—consequently—the company thrive.

By Ricardo Semler,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Corporate Rebels: Make work more fun

Bjarte Bogsnes Author Of This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations

From my list on management innovation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about management innovation, exploring and embracing new and better ways of leading and managing. For almost 30 years, I have helped organizations all over the world get started on a Beyond Budgeting journey, alongside my Finance and HR roles in Borealis and Statoil/Equinor. I'm forever thankful for the great opportunities these companies have given me. I have now said goodbye to my corporate life for Bogsnes Advisory, hoping to help even more organizations radically improve their management practices. I'm Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT), a popular international business speaker and Beyond Budgeting coach, and winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation Award. 

Bjarte's book list on management innovation

Bjarte Bogsnes Why did Bjarte love this book?

Pim de Morree and Joost Minnarr both left safe and good corporate jobs to explore the world of management innovation.

They toured the world, meeting and learning from great companies and leaders across a variety of industries. The result is a book of wonderful stories and deep insights about what these companies were rebelling against, and what they did instead.

Highly recommended!

By Joost Minnaar, Pim de Morree,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

8 radical lessons from 100 of the world's most inspiring companies

Today's workplaces are broken. Badly broken. With 85% of employees disengaged, 23% feeling burned out and 37% believing that their job makes no useful contribution to society, work as we know it today is simply not working.

The good news? There is a better way. And it's not just theory. It's already practiced in pioneering organisations around the globe. Drawing on Minnaar and De Morree's visits to 100+ of the world's most progressive organisations, this book gives direct evidence that you can make work enjoyable and rewarding, while boosting…


Book cover of Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap

Bjarte Bogsnes Author Of This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations

From my list on management innovation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about management innovation, exploring and embracing new and better ways of leading and managing. For almost 30 years, I have helped organizations all over the world get started on a Beyond Budgeting journey, alongside my Finance and HR roles in Borealis and Statoil/Equinor. I'm forever thankful for the great opportunities these companies have given me. I have now said goodbye to my corporate life for Bogsnes Advisory, hoping to help even more organizations radically improve their management practices. I'm Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT), a popular international business speaker and Beyond Budgeting coach, and winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation Award. 

Bjarte's book list on management innovation

Bjarte Bogsnes Why did Bjarte love this book?

Jeremy Hope (RIP) and Robin Fraser were two British authors/researchers who, in the late nineties, discovered that a number of companies had ditched traditional budgeting and much more in favour of more adaptive and human management models.

They visited and interviewed these organisations, including the European petrochemicals company Borealis where we kicked out the traditional budget in 1995. The result was this fascinating book, and the international network Beyond Budgeting Roundtable which today is more active than ever.

By Jeremy Hope, Robin Fraser,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The traditional annual budgeting process--characterized by fixed targets and performance incentives--is time consuming, overcentralized, and outdated. Worse, it often causes dysfunctional and unethical managerial behavior. Based on an intensive, international study into pioneering companies, Beyond Budgeting offers an alternative, coherent management model that overcomes the limitations of traditional budgeting. Focused around achieving sustained improvement relative to competitors, it provides a guiding framework for managing in the twenty-first century.


Book cover of Future Ready: How to Master Business Forecasting

Bjarte Bogsnes Author Of This Is Beyond Budgeting: A Guide to More Adaptive and Human Organizations

From my list on management innovation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about management innovation, exploring and embracing new and better ways of leading and managing. For almost 30 years, I have helped organizations all over the world get started on a Beyond Budgeting journey, alongside my Finance and HR roles in Borealis and Statoil/Equinor. I'm forever thankful for the great opportunities these companies have given me. I have now said goodbye to my corporate life for Bogsnes Advisory, hoping to help even more organizations radically improve their management practices. I'm Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT), a popular international business speaker and Beyond Budgeting coach, and winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation Award. 

Bjarte's book list on management innovation

Bjarte Bogsnes Why did Bjarte love this book?

UK based Steve Morlidge is a veteran in the Beyond Budgeting movement.

Together with US based Steve Player (RIP), they wrote what I would call the greatest book ever on business forecasting. Rooted in Morlidge’s PhD insights and his extensive experience as a Finance professional, this book provides invaluable learnings on how to provide unbiased, trustworthy, and relevant business forecasts.

It also reveals how to get rid of politics and gaming in this critical business process.

By Steve Morlidge, Steve Player,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The recent crisis in the financial markets has exposed serious flaws in management methods. The failure to anticipate and deal with the consequences of the unfolding collapse has starkly illustrated what many leaders and managers in business have known for years; in most organizations, the process of forecasting is badly broken. For that reason, forecasting business performance tops the list of concerns for CFO's across the globe.

It is time to rethink the way businesses organize and run forecasting processes and how they use the insights that they provide to navigate through these turbulent times. This book synthesizes and structures…


Book cover of Rebuild: The Economy, Leadership, and You

Bartley J. Madden Author Of Value Creation Principles: The Pragmatic Theory of the Firm Begins with Purpose and Ends with Sustainable Capitalism

From my list on knowledge building and value creation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My intellectual journey has focused on three related passions: understanding how firms create value and the link to their stock market valuations, systems thinking, and knowledge building. This has led to the Madden Center for Value Creation at Florida Atlantic University that promotes the key value creation principles that are the foundation for a prosperous society. Prosperity is more widely shared through a society rooted in dynamism with enthusiastic support for experimentation, knowledge building, and innovation by firms. The Madden Center offers a Certificate in Value Creation online course that packages a learning experience to upgrade the knowledge, skills, and resources you need to create value. 

Bartley's book list on knowledge building and value creation

Bartley J. Madden Why did Bartley love this book?

From a distance you would label me a supporter of capitalism. A closer look says a free-market capitalist with a heart.

However, an even closer look would reveal how much I love dialogues with smart people who have big ideas that may not currently be a hand-in-glove fit with my worldview. And we both want to learn about different ways of looking at problems and are not concerned with selling the correctness of our strongly held beliefs. Jack Reardon is a good friend and one of those smart people with big ideas.

The book that Jack and Graham Boyd wrote should be read in the spirit of learning about different ways of applying a systems thinking lens to critically important sustainability issues. Their book explains how to travel a path to achieve a sustainable world with a regenerative economy in which both competition and cooperation are more closely aligned.

The…

By Jack Reardon, Graham Boyd,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Finalist, American Book Fest, Best Book Awards.


We believe that there has never been a better time to start businesses and build an economy that works for all of us, and all our needs. This book gives you the best toolkit and building blocks available today to build antifragile, net positive, regenerative, circular businesses and ecosystems of businesses. Antifragile, because each is designed from the DNA up to adapt and stay at the optimum for a regenerative, sustainable, circular economy that delivers a good life for all within the planet's boundaries. Whatever you are focused on, from the rapid depletion…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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