100 books like The 12 Week Year

Tim Ferris is a genius. In his book, he describes how he crafted a lifestyle while building a very successful business. This book demonstrates how to make the most of your extremely busy day in commercial real estate and creates a "maximum value/productive capacity" that is crucial when getting started in a commercial investment career.

He discusses how he went from micro-managing everything to virtually managing nothing, all while traveling the globe and having some life-changing adventures. He is the undisputed king of outsourcing and taking back control of your life.

I read this book and started to implement some of his concepts immediately, and while I am not working 4 hours a week, I am not working 60-70 hours either; I am getting down there!

If you struggle with productivity and want to achieve extraordinary results, The ONE Thing is a must-read.

This book emphasizes the importance of focus and teaches you how to identify the one thing that matters most each day. By choosing the one thing that makes everything else obsolete or unnecessary, you can accomplish more in less time.

The book’s central message is that by focusing on one thing at a time, you can achieve extraordinary results in productivity, achieve your goals, and live a more fulfilling life. 

Deep Work is an excellent book for realizing how detrimental the typical employee’s work habits of checking email every 5 minutes, constant meetings, and other distractions are to their ability to perform high-quality work. Newport also shares good suggestions for reclaiming your focus and doing what he calls “deep work.” 

The book strongly advocates for the importance of having as much time as possible without distractions to achieve flow and perform optimally. This book helped me become much more conscious about how I work.

If you want to improve your leadership presence and ability to command a room, Lions Don’t Need to Roar by D.A. Benton is a must-read.

This book highlights the importance of storytelling as a key component of leadership. Most CEOs are great at telling people stories and using them to convince others to get things done. The book emphasizes that as a leader, you are immediately judged by how you appear, not just by what you say.

After reading this book, you’ll learn how to build a powerful leadership presence that inspires and motivates others.

The Advantage lays out a compelling case that if an organization has strong organizational health it is well placed to succeed in its goals and in its industry.

Good organizational health embraces great teamwork, clear and consistent company culture and goals, and how to have effective meetings. Lencioni brings together many pragmatic and practical perspectives through many years of working with executive teams.

The key element for me is his articulation of the ‘five dysfunctions of teams’ and then how to address these. That one chart has been pivotal to my facilitation of many challenging executive discussions with clients, particularly when paired with Covey’s approach to trust and trust building.

Modelling Trust is the first step in building effective executive teams. 

I learned from Verne firsthand at two separate multi-year courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that were held for high-growth entrepreneurs.

In Scaling Up, he lays out what needs to be done at different stages/sizes of an organization to move to the next level. Like the other books I've recommended, he provides candid advice and practical ways to implement the ideas outlined in the book.

Prof Useem, who teaches leadership at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, sent me a signed copy of this book through my spouse (a Wharton alum) and I cannot recommend it enough.

He eloquently equates a leader’s job to standing on the cliff edge, getting a grip on unfamiliar landscapes, and acquiring the skills to lead organizations in this constantly evolving, ever-changing business landscape.

I think this book is more relevant than ever given our turbulent times – Prof Useem draws on the experiences of ten bold CEOS to show us how, in a world characterized by unprecedented challenges of global pandemic and economic disruption, leaders need to find the edge for leaping across and breaking new ground on the other side.

An engaging and practical guide to being the ambidextrous leader who constantly propels the organization forward, without letting go of its core.

This book really struck a chord with me.

Ferrazzi's insights on workplace innovation during the pandemic have helped me reshape my company's practices to remain competitive in a constantly evolving business landscape.

What I appreciated most about this book is that it's based on research from real-life executives, innovators, and changemakers who redefined their strategies and business models to stay ahead of the curve.

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.

Humanocracy addresses perhaps the biggest opportunity for value creation at scale, i.e., transitioning large command-and-control corporations to flatter organizations.

What I like most is the combination of rigorous thinking, plain language, and company stories illustrating the worldwide movement to purge bureaucracy. I have personally studied one of the companies spotlighted, the preeminent steel manufacturer Nucor. Four layers of management from the CEO to those working in the steel plants.

The authors understand what makes Nucor excel (page 82): “True to the spirit of humanocracy, Nucor’s model isn’t about pushing employees to do more, but giving them the opportunity to be more—more than blue collar workers, more than order takers, more than mere operators, more than employees… every job can be a good job.”