50Best The
172
PAGES OF INSPIR ATION & EXPERT ADVICE
the 50 best business books
Business Books
THE ultimate time-saving guide to the secrets of business success
FWG02 2013
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MOTIVATION | MARKETING | ENTREPRENEURS MANAGEMENT | SALES | BEST Business Apps
The Knowledge
Contents 6
history
Books about business have been around almost as long as capitalism itself. We take a look at the long history of the business book.
MANAGEMENT
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34
From the seminal The Human Side of Enterprise through to today’s zeitgeist-seizing contemporary texts, we look at the top ten management books. Bonus: CV Guides – pg30
THE RISE OF CHINA
As Western capitalism struggles in the grip of one of its worst crisis, China is emerging as a dominant force in international business.
MARKETING
38
Our cherry pick of the top ten books on the art of persuasion, from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point to Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars. Bonus: Social Media Books – pg60
64
WHEN business BECAME FUN
Sitting at desks in total silence, burying your head in work until home-time is so last year. The emphasis now in the modern workplace is fun…
SALES
68
Our top ten list of the best and brightest sales books out there, from Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale through to Harry Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible. Bonus: E-Business Books – pg90
4 The 50 Best Business Books
The Knowledge
94
LEARNING FROM MISTAKES
Many companies fail because they refuse to learn the mistakes others have made. How can the business world make sure another Enron doesn’t happen?
MOTIVATION
98 124
Having the right brain for business isn’t enough – you’ve got to want to make it big! We select the best books to get you motivationally in the right place. Bonus: Business Biographies – pg120
CO-OPERATIVE BUSINESSES
How are companies that are owned and controlled by the members they serve beginning to compete so effectively with the more traditional business models?
ENTREPRENEURS
128
From Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity to James Dyson’s Against the Odds, this is our pick of the top books on entrepreneurship. Bonus: Lunchbreak Reads – pg150
154
THE MAKE IT BIG CHECKLIST
What do business’ big-hitters all have in common? We look at the characteristics everyone from Henry Ford to Mark Zuckerberg seem to have in abundance.
BEST BUSINESS APPS
158
Our rundown of the best business-related apps your smartphone and tablet must have. You’ll soon wonder how on earth you coped without them.
The 50 Best Business Books 5
Top Five
5Best The
cv guides
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ight now it’s imperative that you have your CV primped and pimped to the max – even if you aren’t actively looking for a new job. A CV needs to be concise and hugely informative, strictly business while conveying your winning personality... the sort of complicated copywriting that most people need a helping hand with. We’ve looked through the entire CV booklist and brought you the richest pickings. You’re welcome.
X The 30 The50 50Best BestBusiness BusinessBooks Books
CV Guides
1
You’re Hired! CV: How to Write a Brilliant CV Corinne Mills (Trotman) Summary The CV books market is hardly under-subscribed so it can be hard to find one that stands out. This one does. Written in 2009 by a senior HR-bod turned career coach (and, interestingly, former punk singer and actor), it’s a real insight into what employers want. You’re Hired! looks at format as well as functionality and takes you right back to the preparation process and helps you identify the most relevant skills for the position you’re applying for, as well as helping you maximize your pre-existing skills. Turning the CV-creation process into a business proposal process, the book is a great way to make you treat your job-seeking in a professional manner.
Written in 2009 by a senior HR-bod turned career coach (and, interestingly, former punk singer and actor), Your Hired! is a real insight into what employers want.
There are plenty of real-life examples and practical advice on how to address complicated questions. What really stands out about this is a list of “action words” and adverbs to use, as well as looking at words to avoid. Verdict The perfect guide to packaging yourself as a marketable business. It’s also a great motivational tool – in terms of motivating you to get your CV done and done well. The 50 Best Business Books 31
Feature
When business became fun Or at least, relatively bearable...
“You really need to relook at your ‘relaxed style’.” 64 The 50 Best Business Books
When business became fun
T
here was a time when the best you could hope for from your employer was a regular brown envelope with a living wage inside it and a day off at Christmas. Now, for a place to be deemed “a great place to work” it has to have a selection of gourmet restaurants, at least one pool table and a chrome slide to get down to accounts. It’s widely documented that, along with free haircuts, access to a gym, videogames and pingpong, Google offers its employees paid time (“20% time”) to work on anything they like, or even nothing whatsoever. Pixar’s HQ in California has comfy settees, piñatas and the obligatory bat-andball games. In addition to its fun packaging, the once British drinks company Innocent (now 90% owned by Coca Cola) has a communal kitchen at the heart of its headquarters “Fruit Towers”, with food and drink on constant tap as well as a beer garden and picnic tables. These days, it seems, if your employer doesn’t come and offer you a neck massage at least once a day then you’re in the wrong job. I Wish I Worked There by Kursty Groves and Will Knight (Wiley) goes behind the scenes of 20 famous brands, including Nike, Urban Outfitters and LEGO, all of whom place creativity at the heart of their working culture. Of the LEGO headquarters
she says, “Play is not restricted to brick-building sessions or co-creation with children, it’s part of the DNA. ‘Hotspots’ – areas furnished with games such as table football – pop up among team spaces throughout the studio, encouraging people to relax and connect with colleagues.” She adds, “This type of playfulness relies upon a spirit of trust, something that is reinforced by the physical openness and relaxed atmosphere of the working environment.” Entering the Virgin headquarters, she says, “through glass doors, the space delivers its first Virgin brand surprise: a greeting projected onto the reception desk – just for you. Following a generous ‘sweetie tube’, whose candy dispensing points on every floor connect the spaces, the eye is drawn up through the three-storey atrium and past glass-walled meeting rooms that are themed to represent the sentiment behind the Virgin values.” The Levity Effect by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher (Wiley) argues the case convincingly that lighthearted leaders earn more on average than their peers, that entertaining workplaces breed more loyal employees and happier customers and that workers who are considered humorous are much more likely to get promoted, especially to senior positions. They also list no fewer than 142 ways for unimaginative executives to create a fun environment at work. Managing to Have Fun: How Fun at Work Can Motivate Your Employees, Inspire Your Coworkers, and Boost Your Bottom Line (Simon and Schuster) The 50 Best Business Books 65
The Five Knowledge Top
5Best The
business biograpihies
W
hat better way to learn than from the masters? In fact, if you look at the structure of most business books: they’ll posit a theory and then substantiate it with real-life examples. Often citing business leaders like the ones featured in these pages. These titles give you the chance to study the best-written biographies of the great and the good and draw your own lessons and conclusions.
X 50The 120 Best50Business Best Business Books Books
Biographies
1
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography Walter Isaacson (Little, Brown) Summary This is the landmark biography of one of business’s most intriguing characters. It’s drawn from three years of exclusive interviews with the great man as well as discussions with his family members, Apple colleagues and his main competitors. Jobs could famously be exasperating but few could deny that he was one of the world’s greatest innovators. His desire for perfection alienated and enthralled his friends and enemies. Despite his desire for complete control, the author maintains that nothing written was given the once over by Jobs. The result is a sometimes candid, sometimes shocking, but rounded portrait of a now legendary man: “If you want to live your life in a creative way, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, ‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.’ And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.”
Despite his desire for complete control, the author maintains that nothing written was given the once over by Jobs.
Verdict Read this if you want to understand the passions, demons and polarised aspects of one of history’s most fascinating and visionary business leaders. The 50 Best Business Books 121
The secrets of the business experts – in one volume
50 Best Business The
The best business books can be inspiring and invaluable – if you have the time to read them. So we’ve selected the most influential business writing in the world and distilled all that expert wisdom in one place. Inside you’ll find priceless advice, powerful ideas and the secrets of career success…
Books
The 10 Best Business Apps The essential digital tools for business success
inside: Top Ten
Top Ten
Management Books
Sales Books
Grand finale
Being human The Human Side of Enterprise Douglas McGregor (McGraw-Hill)
Secrets of Closing the Sale Zig Ziglar (Time Warner International)
P
It is one of the favourite pastimes of management to decide, from their ivory tower, what help the field organisation needs and then to design and develop programs for meeting these needs. Then it becomes necessary to get the field organisation to accept the help provided.
ublished in 1960, The Human Side of Enterprise is widely acknowledged as one of the most important pieces of management literature ever written. Most of today’s successful leaders have successfully incorporated McGregor’s methods into their management styles. The book was voted the fourth most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll by the American Fellows of the Academy of Management. Careful attention to core values are considered the book’s enduring legacy in the business world. »
In Brief McGregor’s science-backed theory urges leaders to trust and develop their human resources and not to underestimate
10 The 50 Best Business Books
W
hen life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. The saying has been around almost as long as there have been things to sell. When Zig (born Hilary Hinton Ziglar in Alabama) died in 2012, the world lost one of its greatest motivational speakers. Ziglar’s 1975 book See You At The Top documented his route to riches and sold more than 1m copies. In his autobiography Zig, published in 2002, he wrote, “If my life has had a theme, I suppose it has been a typical American theme in that, for most of it, I have been looking for happiness and success.” »
In Brief Forget the hard sell and learn the art of questioning and persuasion instead, Ziglar’s influential title suggests
Many times your best prospect will almost adamantly refuse an appointment because he doesn’t want to ‘waste your time or his time.’ He is often the best prospect for the very simple reason that he knows he either wants or needs – or both – the product, goods, or services you are selling.
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The 50 Best Business Books 11
The 50 Best Business Books 71
Sales
Management Top Ten
Top Ten
Marketing Books
Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, that in any situation roughly 80% of the ‘work’ will be done by 20% of the participants. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionately becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work.
Tipping the scales The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown)
W
ritten in 2000, at the peak of popular science’s dominance, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point took the concept of viruses and applied it to fashion, to create an epidemic of his own. Aggressively feeding off the bestseller lists, selling millions and spawning a whole new culture of behaviourist thinking, the book earned its writer (whose grades were apparently too bad for any grad school) a place on Time magazine’s 100 most influential thinkers list.
tweak in the environment can affect the spread of an epidemic (our inner states are the result of our outer circumstances).
Velvet Glove “Ideas spread like viruses,” says Gladwell, before going on to explain the three rules by which they abide; the law of the few, the stickiness factor and the power of context.
As humans, says Gladwell, we expect everyday change to happen slowly and for there to be a relationship between cause and effect. When something happens, seemingly for no apparent reason (such as crime dropping dramatically in New York or a when movie made on a shoestring budget ends up making millions), we’re surprised. Gladwell says we shouldn’t be, because this is how social epidemics work. The Tipping Point draws from psychology, sociology and epidemiology using examples from business, fashion and media to explain how fads come into being, why they’re not ‘fads’ at all, and how we can make good use of them.
The law of the few dictates that ideas or behaviours spread thanks to a few key individuals (the connectors, who know everyone, the mavens, who acquire specialist knowledge on a product, and salespeople, who enthuse). The stickiness factor is the way a message can be rendered irresistible and the power of context is the way in which a small
Think smart
THE VERDICT
T
his book practically wrote the script of all self-help books. Published in 1937 (in a 5,000-copy edition), it has sold a whopping 15m copies and is regarded as the most successful selfhelp book of all time. When Warren Buffet describes a book as having changed his life, you know it’s had an impact. Written just after the Depression, it was just what the business world was waiting for.
Read this if… You would like a fresh insight into why change happens in society and want to start a positive ‘epidemic’ with your own business.
46 The 50 Best Business Books
it with “****” he says. He also suggests reviewing the book every month. The book is divided into six basic sections, each one devoted to a particular principle, covering techniques in handling people, ways to make people like you, ways to win people to your way of thinking, ways to change people without giving offence or arousing resentment and rules for making your home life happier. The techniques mainly involve thinking before you speak, something which many of us could learn from at work. He suggests certain stock phrases which make people listen attentively, such as “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.” And, he says, you can say this with 100% certainty: “The only reason, for example, that you are not a rattlesnake is that your mother and father weren’t rattlesnakes.” It’s a classic.
Think Before you Speak Dale Carnegie claimed that “all people can talk when they get mad”. He said that if you hit the most ignorant man in town on the jaw and knock him down, he would get on his feet and talk with eloquence, heat and emphasis. The way to develop self-confidence, he said, is to do the thing you fear to do and get a record of successful experiences behind you. Anyone who’s ever done a Dale Carnegie course will recognise his technique of ensuring you don’t just read or listen, you read again and then you read again with a pen and underline things. “If it is a four-star suggestion, then underscore every sentence or highlight it, or mark 104 The 50 Best Business Books
The 50 Best Business Books 47
Marketing
Entrepreneur Books
The bigger the company grew, the more focused Zuckerberg became on user experience and longterm strategy. At some point he started carrying a little leather diary that he called, ‘The Book of Change’. On the title page he inscribed Ghandi’s quote: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’
The Like button
THE VERDICT
Without a challenge, Theodore Roosevelt would never have been President... A challenge not only changed his life; it had a real effect upon the future of his nation.
How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie (Vermilion)
This is the ultimate modern marketing manual. Malcolm Gladwell offers a structured approach to seeding small ideas and understanding influence. Though a slew of books taking a similar approach has followed in its powerful wake, this is still critical reading for anyone who can’t figure out why their product hasn’t been picked up yet or anyone who needs to find their own tastemakers.
Top Ten
Motivation Books
Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg Ekaterina Walter (McGraw-Hill Professional)
Even now, this book is THE basic guide to living your life better. The winning friends and influencing people is only a pleasing by-product. As the great man himself admits, “If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing - an increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person’s point of view, and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own - if you get only that one thing from this book, it may easily prove to be one of the stepping-stones of your career.”
E
katerina Walter, herself a business and marketing thought-leader of some renown, was named as one of 25 “women who rock social media” by Forbes in 2012. When she published this book at the beginning of 2013, it was what the business world had been waiting for: a deconstruction of one of the world’s greatest CEOs (according to Forbes) and someone who has earned his place in history several times over.
It’s astonishing to consider that Facebook was only started in 2004. By September 2012 it had 1bn users. Like any good business book this doesn’t just describe what happened but also tells you how on earth it happened. Arranged in actionable chunks, Think Like Zuck looks at the five principles behind
You want to get back to the basics of influencing people. The 50 Best Business Books 105
This is a genuinely riveting look at one of the most remarkable entrepreneurial visions of this age and how it drives success. It’s about refusing to recognise the impossible, it’s about daring to win and changing things in the process. This is one for anyone who has that allencompassing desire not just to make a zillion pounds but also to build a legacy and even change the world. Like. Like. Like.
Facebook’s amazing ascent. Those principles are passion (keep your energy and commitment fully charged at all times by pursuing something you believe in), purpose (don’t just create a great product; drive a meaningful movement), people (build powerful teams that can execute your vision), product (create a product that is innovative, that breaks all the rules, that changes everything) and partnerships (build powerful partnerships with people who fuel imagination and energise execution). Would that it were that easy but this book is also full of examples of other entrepreneurs who have used these principles to change the world. And lest we dismiss Facebook as something that merely changed the internet and how we communicate, she reminds us that it has actually saved lives. Food for thought for any budding entrepreneur.
Passion & Purpose Who wouldn’t want to know Mark Zuckerberg’s secrets? It’s not often that an entrepreneur actually manages to change the entire world’s mindset but Zuck did it. How did he do it?
Read this if…
THE VERDICT
Read this if… You want to understand the incredible growth of Facebook and see if doing what Zuck would do can help you realise your own success.
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Entrepreneurs
Motivation
Plus THE BEST BOOKS FOR: Top Five
CV Guides
5BEST THE
CV GUIDES
R
ight now it’s imperative that you have your CV primped and pimped to the max – even if you aren’t actively looking for a new job. A CV needs to be concise and hugely informative, strictly business while conveying your winning personality... the sort of complicated copywriting that most people need a helping hand with. We’ve looked through the entire CV booklist and brought you the richest pickings. You’re welcome.
The Five Knowledge Top
You’re Hired! CV: How to Write a Brilliant CV Corinne Mills (Trotman) Summary The CV books market is hardly under-subscribed so it can be hard to find one that stands out. This one does. Written in 2009 by a senior HR-bod turned career coach (and, interestingly, former punk singer and actor), it’s a real insight into what employers want. You’re Hired! looks at format as well as functionality and takes you right back to the preparation process and helps you identify the most relevant skills for the position you’re applying for, as well as helping you maximize your pre-existing skills. Turning the CV-creation process into a business proposal process, the book is a great way to make you treat your job-seeking in a professional manner.
SOCIAL MEDIA
BOOKS
Written in 2009 by a senior HR-bod turned career coach (and, interestingly, former punk singer and actor), Your Hired! is a real insight into what employers want.
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ane Likes this. ‘This’ might be world peace or it might be a picture of a kitten in a hamper, it might even be something you make or a service you provide. The trouble is, it’s difficult to know what to do about Zane’s Likes in a business sense (or any other sense, frankly). Similarly: what to do when Zane decides there’s something you sell or provide and he doesn’t like it and he takes to Twitter or Facebook to complain? Social media is the new reality and it’s no picnic. These five books are here to help.
There are plenty of real-life examples and practical advice on how to address complicated questions. What really stands out about this is a list of “action words” and adverbs to use, as well as looking at words to avoid.
The Five Knowledge Top
Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust Chris Brogan and Julien Smith (John Wiley & Sons) Summary The internet has radically changed the way we do business. Consumers are well-informed, wellconnected and cynical. The most valuable currency today is trust, says Brogan, and trust agents are the digitally savvy people using the web to humanise businesses through transparency. This book hit the New York Times bestseller list two days after its official release and the Wall Street Journal bestseller list shortly thereafter. It’s not hard to see why. In a humorous and readable style, the book looks at the importance of social capital, how to transform the space you work in to make yourself its leader, the web’s non-verbal signals of trust and how to leverage social tools for maximum benefit. Crammed with calls to action, the book illustrates that, far from dehumanising, social media can enable you and your business to be more human. “Why we trust people is the same,” say the authors, “it’s only the ways we come to be trusted that have been changing, and that’s because communication has been changing.”
E-business Books
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Verdict The perfect guide to packaging yourself as a marketable business. It’s also a great motivational tool – in terms of motivating you to get your CV done and done well. X The 30 The50 50Best BestBusiness BusinessBooks Books
Social Media Books
5BEST
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Trust agents are the digitally savvy people using the web to humanise businesses through transparency.
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he business world is still steadying itself from the global shift from analogue to digital. Not only that, but every time we start to think we’re on top of it we’re reeling again: Content is king! Video is king! Free is king! Social is king! Mobile is king! – it’s like a business strategy version of Game of Thrones out there. These titles are the best route maps to your digital destination by the people who really get digital.
CVs and Resumes
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Social Media
Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing Chris Anderson (Hyperion) Summary The best price in the digital marketplace, says Chris Anderson, is no price. In this book he shows how the most successful businesses are using free offers to sell expensive products. He says there is a significant global shift; people under 30 won’t pay for information, knowing they can get it for free. In his typically engaging and witty style, he explains new and complicated e-technologies. He talks about how the Internet has caused production and distribution costs in many sectors to sink dramatically yet has also allowed producers to trade much more creatively. What does this mean for businesses? The idea of free is divided into four principles: Cross-subsidies (you give away the razor but sell the blade), advertising-supported, freemium (such as Spotify, where some users pay for a premium version which supports the free version) and non-monetary markets (open-source software and Wikipedia). It’s essential reading for anyone struggling in the digital economy.
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90 The 50 Best 50 Best Business Business Books Books
E-business
Biographies
5BEST
BUSINESS
There is a significant global shift; people under 30 won’t pay for information, knowing they can get it for free.
BIOGRAPIHIES
W
hat better way to learn than from the masters? In fact, if you look at the structure of most business books: they’ll posit a theory and then substantiate it with real-life examples. Often citing business leaders like the ones featured in these pages. These titles give you the chance to study the best-written biographies of the great and the good and draw your own lessons and conclusions.
Top Five
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography Walter Isaacson (Little, Brown) Summary This is the landmark biography of one of business’s most intriguing characters. It’s drawn from three years of exclusive interviews with the great man as well as discussions with his family members, Apple colleagues and his main competitors. Jobs could famously be exasperating but few could deny that he was one of the world’s greatest innovators. His desire for perfection alienated and enthralled his friends and enemies. Despite his desire for complete control, the author maintains that nothing written was given the once over by Jobs. The result is a sometimes candid, sometimes shocking, but rounded portrait of a now legendary man: “If you want to live your life in a creative way, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, ‘Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.’ And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.”
X 50The 120 Best50Business Best Business Books Books
Biographies
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LUNCHBREAK
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Despite his desire for complete control, the author maintains that nothing written was given the once over by Jobs.
W
e barely have the time between working days to buy our food, eat, sleep... you know: live. So the idea of taking work home with you in the form of a business book may sometimes feel a little too much. Believe us, we know: that’s the whole point of The 50 Best Business Books. If you aren’t ready to commit to getting down with a full on tome then these titles are likely to be of interest.
The One Minute Manager: Increase Productivity, Profits and Your Own Prosperity Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson (Harper) Summary This book takes very little time to read and very little time to put its ideas into practice. Told as a fable, like all great management books, this follows the story of a man on the hunt for a great manager. The man finds hardliners who pay no heed to staff morale and encounters soft managers who pay attention to staff wellbeing at the expense of the company’s profits. And a third manager who combines both. The story takes the basic principles of good management and packages them into three easy to digest “secrets” and tools the manager needs to maintain a positive organisation. These principles comprise one-minute goal setting, one minute praisings and one-minute reprimands. In short, catch someone doing something right and praise them. Catch negative behaviour immediately, reprimand, explain consequences and move on. Like all good management theories, this could also very easily apply to children and dogs.
Told as a fable, like all great management books, this follows the story of a man on the hunt for a great manager.
Verdict This is ideal for anyone who wants a sound business philosophy but is too busy slaving over the company accounts to read up on them.
Verdict Read this if you want to understand the passions, demons and polarised aspects of one of history’s most fascinating and visionary business leaders. The 50 Best Business Books 91
Lunchbreak Reads
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Verdict The free model is an immediate turn off for most business leaders but Anderson makes free make sense. Thoroughly recommended.
Verdict This is for anyone who’s spent too long sucking up to the industry top-dogs and is ready, in the words of Brogan and Smith to “raise up the newcomers”. The 50 Best Business Books 31
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Lunchbreak Reads
Read this if: • You want to get promoted or a pay rise • You want a successful career • You want to be more organised • You want to be a better manager • You’re looking for a new way of working • You need to find advice tailored for you
About the author HAZEL DAVIS is a business journalist who works for the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times of London, the Daily Telegraph and reports on business news for Billboard and more. She has interviewed many of the world’s leading CEOs and read thousands of business books.