When I first started in the field of strategy, all the cool kids were doing industry-level analysis. Order of entry, strategic groups, R&D intensity…anything you could get sufficient data about to run complex models was the order of the day. Those of us studying the ‘insides’ of corporations, particularly the process of innovation, were kind of huddled together for warmth! Today, strategy and innovation have come together in a remarkable way, but I find that most people still don’t understand the processes. One of my goals is to de-mystify the innovation process – these books will give you a great start in understanding the practices that are too bewildering for too many people.
This unusually formatted and provocative book delivers on its promise, which is that harnessing human imagination is a predictable, replicable process. Beginning with the first seeds of what gets our imaginations going (hint: when things aren’t chugging along as expected) to a recipe for how not to let those sparks die out as an idea becomes more mainstream, the book is chock full of examples, anecdotes, how to’s and more. And one of my favorite aspects of it is that it also has a multimedia guide to what BCG calls the “napkin gallery,” a virtual museum devoted to the earliest instances of some of the most important inventions ever commercialized.
A guide for mining the imagination to find powerful new ways to succeed.
We need imagination now more than ever-to find new opportunities, rethink our businesses, and discover paths to growth. Yet too many companies have lost their ability to imagine. What is this mysterious capacity? How does imagination work? And how can organizations keep it alive and harness it in a systematic way?
The Imagination Machine answers these questions and more. Drawing on the experience and insights of CEOs across several industries, as well as lessons from neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and philosophy, Martin Reeves of Boston Consulting Group's…
I graduated law school in 2015 with over $200,000 of debt. As the daughter of immigrants, born and raised in a low-income community in the Bronx, I was overwhelmed by how little I knew about money. I turned to books to build healthy money management habits, improve my credit, and, importantly, pay down my debt. I have since read dozens of personal finance books, built a community of over 60,000 on social media, and spoken to audiences nationwide about personal finance. Given the impact that books have had on my journey, I wrote my own from the perspective of a first-generation Latina that went from six figures of debt to a six-figure net worth.
Want to start investing but have no idea where to start? Get this book. I first read this book when I was about a year into my investing journey. I had started investing in my retirement through my company’s 401K plan but was stuck. I didn’t understand much of the investing lingo, lacked the confidence to buy and sell investments, and was unsure whether my strategy of balancing my student loan repayment with my investing goals was wise. Erin, Broke Millennial, provided exactly what I was looking for! Learning from a fellow millennial woman provided a fresh perspective on investing while making the topic interesting and approachable.
A guide to investing basics by the author of Broke Millennial, for anyone who feels like they aren't ready (or rich enough) to get into the market
Millennials want to learn how to start investing. The problem is that most have no idea where to begin. There's a significant lack of information out there catering to the concerns of new millennial investors, such as:
* Should I invest while paying down student loans? * How do I invest in a socially responsible way? * What about robo-advisors and apps--are any of them any good? * Where can I look online…
I have been passionate about continuous learning and understanding why people act the way they do. The books I recommend cover the topic of continuous growth across different states and areas of life.
I started following Guy Kawasaki because of some of his ideas on communication, work, writing, etc. Wise Guy is an easy-to-read book in which Guy Kawasaki shares some of the things he has learned across different areas of life (work, relationships, mentorship, etc.).
I really enjoy the personal stories shared in the book, which have led the author to grow both personally and professionally. It also made me reflect on my personal stories and how they have contributed to the person I am today.
Silicon Valley icon and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki shares the unlikely stories of his life and the lessons we can draw from them.
Guy Kawasaki has been a fixture in the tech world since he was part of Apple's original Macintosh team in the 1980s. He's widely respected as a source of wisdom about entrepreneurship, venture capital, marketing, and business evangelism, which he's shared in bestselling books such as The Art of the Start and Enchantment. But before all that, he was just a middle-class kid in Hawaii, a grandson of Japanese immigrants, who loved football and got a C+…
In 2013, my father–an amazing man who was the picture of health–died suddenly and unexpectedly while at the gym. At the time, I was miserable and unfulfilled. My father’s passing sent me down a path of deep self-exploration, where I realized that life is simply too short and unpredictable to settle for less than what you truly want. As I endeavored to change my life, I became a certified life coach, relationship coach, and happiness trainer, initially to help myself, but soon discovered a passion for helping others. I've been lucky to have incredible mentors like Dr. Robert Glover. My unconventional brand of self-help has been featured in numerous publications.
This book didn’t just change my life; it may have saved it.
Countless men across the world will say the same thing. It is an eye-opener. A game changer. A big stick upside the head. It turned my whole world upside down in the best possible way.
While in the throes of depression and heartbreak, this was the only book that put a name to the beliefs and behaviors that seemed to govern my existence. It gave me the tools to develop more confidence, more resilience, and more self-respect. It also provided a roadmap to a better life.
“One of the best books I’ve ever read on men’s emotional health and development.” Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Models.
“I have read every self-help book out there, but this was the first that put everything together in a way that made perfect sense to me.”
“Every page of my copy of No More Mr. Nice Guy is highlighted in yellow. How did you know me so well?
A Nice Guy, according to Dr. Robert Glover, a pioneering expert on the Nice Guy Syndrome, is a man who believes he is not…
Emilie Wapnick is an award-winning author and community builder. She is the founder and creative director at Puttylike, where she helps multipotentialites (people with many passions and creative pursuits) integrate all of their interests to create dynamic, fulfilling, and fruitful careers and lives. Her popular TED talk, Why some of us don’t have one true calling, has been viewed 7 million times and she has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, BBC, and Vice.
Pamela Slim offers a wonderful way to reimagine your life and career, build your personal brand, and share your story. Multipotentialites often struggle to describe where they’ve been and where they’re headed in an impactful way. This book argues that your career is not a linear thing—it’s a collection of different types of work that you’re proud of. Body of Work will help you see your life story from a totally new vantage point.
These days it's increasingly rare to have a stable career in any field. More and more of us are blending big company jobs, startup gigs, freelance work, and volunteer side projects. We take chances to expand our knowledge, capabilities, and experience. But how do we make sense of that kind of career - and explain it? Pamela Slim, the acclaimed author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, gives us the tools to have meaningful careers in this new world of work. She shows how to find the connections among diverse accomplishments, sell your story, and continually reinvent and relaunch your brand.
As a thirty-year meditator, certified meditation leader, and award-winning author, it’s my job to keep up on the latest books about mindfulness and Zen practice. Despite seeing new volumes being published regularly, I return to these books as great sources of solid practice information. Each of these authors explains meditation in accessible terms, easy for readers to follow and understand. I can’t remember who said that a confused reader is an antagonistic reader, but they are right. The books I’ve suggested offer clarity. They help readers begin or continue their practice and understand how and why meditation is worth their time.
I found Brad Stulberg’s latest book when I was researching my book and immediately toned down my prose to meet the challenge of distilling practices nearly impossible to explain in simple terms anyone can understand. Sound impossible? Brad makes it look effortless. There’s just enough science balanced by personal experience and other anecdotes that what could have been a PhD dissertation (was it?) reads with ease. The power and simplicity make it elegant and ever so useful.
Join thousands of readers and learn about the foundations of sustainable excellence and concrete habits for peak performance and a more genuine kind of success.
"A thoughtful, actionable book for pursuing more excellence with less angst." --Adam Grant, author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
"Ambitious, far-reaching, and impactful" -- David Epstein, author of Range
"This book taps into something that so many of us feel but can't articulate." --Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global
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From the bestselling author of Peak Performance comes a powerful antidote to heroic individualism and the ensuing epidemic of…
I'm the Founder and CEO of Intertech, an IT firm I started over 30 years ago. I've written three books and more than 100 articles on business, leadership, and technology. Intertech has won over 50 awards for growth, workplace best practices, and employee engagement including being named one of the Best 30 Employers in Tech by Fortune Magazine and one of the Top 10 Consulting firms in America by Consulting Magazine.
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.
Winner of the International Book Awards for General Business
Winner of the Readers' Favorite International Book Award for Non-Fiction Business
It’s been over a decade since Verne Harnish’s best-selling book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits was first released. Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) is the first major revision of this business classic which details practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business. This book is written so everyone — from frontline employees to senior executives — can get aligned in contributing to the growth of a firm. Scaling Up focuses on the four major decision areas every company must get…
I am a New York Times #1 bestselling author of more than 10 customer experience and leadership books. When I am not reading and writing, I help leaders and entrepreneurs drive employee engagement, customer loyalty, and referrals.
I wish I had written this book. Chip Conley takes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and applies it to employees and customers. Sharing lessons from hotel leadership, Chip demonstrates how managers and frontline workers should prioritize primary needs of those they serve while stretching to address higher level belonging and self-expression needs. With precision and clarity, Chip Conley offers a template for assessing the wants, needs, and desires of others
Proven principles for sustainable success, with new leadership insight
PEAK is the popular, transformative guide to doing business better, written by a seasoned entrepreneur/CEO who has disrupted his favorite industry not once, but twice. Author Chip Conley, founder and former CEO of one of the world's largest boutique hotel companies, turned to psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs at a time when his company was in dire need. And years later, when the young founders of Airbnb asked him to help turn their start-up home sharing company into a world-class hospitality giant, Conley once again used the principles he'd developed…
In a world in which we are faced with increasing amounts of information that we have to parse (from social media, cable news channels, newspapers), it often feels hard to separate fact from fiction, and evidence-based research from junk science. In my own work, I have given a great deal of thought to how to get research-based evidence into the hands of practitioners (managers, employees) who can put it to good use. An important piece of the puzzle is helping practitioners understand the research evidence and how to apply it. The books on this list are great examples of authors who translate research into language that people can understand and use.
Gladwell is a master storyteller who is especially gifted at weaving an interesting narrative around what might otherwise be banal research evidence and facts.
In this book, he challenges our thinking about what contributes to individuals’ success; our over emphasis on individual merit, innate talent, and ambition and under emphasis on the role of context, opportunities, and preparation. Gladwell uses engaging and relevant stories (about hockey players, geniuses, plane crashes, his own family) to make his points in powerful ways.
In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Regarded by many as the most gifted and influential author and journalist in America today, Gladwell has the rare ability to connect with audiences of tremendously varied interests. There are over 10 million copies of his books in print. Now, Gladwell's landmark investigations into the world around us are collected together for the first time. Beautifully repackaged and redesigned, with newly added illustrations throughout each book, COLLECTED is a perfect treasury of prose…
I’m a software developer turned independent software vendor, learning about product management as a way to launch more successful products. I’m a co-founder of MindMup, a popular collaboration tool used by millions of students and schoolchildren worldwide, and Narakeet, an innovative video maker for people who are not video professionals. The books from this list helped me create successful products that users love, and successfully compete with companies that have several orders of magnitude more staff and resources.
Other books will teach you to focus on outcomes, but then the next question is what kind of outcomes are worth focusing on. This is where Lean Analytics comes in. The real gem from this book is the model of Five Stages of Growth, suggesting a typical progression of outcomes that product managers should follow when growing a product from an idea to a marketplace winner. It’s an invaluable thinking tool for new and experienced product managers alike. In addition, the book documents what kind of metrics various successful products tracked throughout growth, and provides some amazingly useful reference values for key business metrics for different categories of software products.
This book is great as an introduction to business metrics for new product managers, focusing specifically on software products. I recommend reading this before any other metrics book, as it’s very practical and relatable.
Whether you're a startup founder trying to disrupt an industry or an intrapreneur trying to provoke change from within, your biggest challenge is creating a product people actually want. Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction. This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without. Understand Lean Startup, analytics…
