The Eight Books to Read Before You Start Your Business

But there are two reasons Startup made the reading list. The first is that it emphasizes the stunning contrast between the entrepreneurial experience as it is described in the textbooks and as one group of people actually lived it. The second is that anyone who actually reads the books on this list in the order suggested is going to need a shot of dramatic escapism right about now.

8
Leadership Is an Art
BY Max De Pree

Every quarter, the officers and director-level managers of Herman Miller Inc., the office-furniture company, meet to review results, discuss plans, and examine ideas and directions. The meetings involve about 70 people. Shortly before one meeting, Max De Pree, the CEO and the son of Herman Miller's founder, received a thank-you letter from the mother of a handicapped employee. De Pree thought he should read it aloud at the meeting.

I almost got through this letter but could not finish. There I stood in front of this group of people--some of them pretty hard-driving--tongue-tied and embarrassed, unable to continue. At that point, one of our senior vice presidents, Joe Schwartz--urbane, elegant, mature--strode up the center aisle, put his arm around my shoulder, kissed me on the cheek, and adjourned the meeting.

If you were to start a company, can you imagine, under similar circumstances, a Joe Schwartz kissing you? "The signs of outstanding leadership," says De Pree, "appear primarily among the followers."

In his cover blurb for the paperback edition, Peter Drucker declares that De Pree's book "says more about leadership in clearer, more elegant, and more convincing language than many of the much longer books that have been published on the subject." Drucker, as usual, is right; and many people urged that this thin volume be included on this list.

It is, appropriately, last on the list--a fitting close to a series of works that began, in Player Piano, with Vonnegut's dramatization of the role of the human spirit in business. And it is appropriately last on a list drawn up for start-up entrepreneurs, because it provides one final prelaunch check of character and motives. "Beliefs," De Pree writes, "come before policies or standards or practices. Practice without belief is a forlorn existence. Managers who have no beliefs but only understand methodology and quantification are modern-day eunuchs."

Tom Richman writes about management, travel, and books. See below for book prices see below and read an excerpt from Startup.

The List

• Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Laureleaf, 1997, $6.99)

• On Not Knowing How to Live, by Allen Wheelis (Harper & Row, 1975, out of print)

• Future Perfect, by Stan Davis (Addison-Wesley, 1997, $13)

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, by Michael E. Gerber (HarperBusiness, 1995, $15)

• The Practice of Management, by Peter F. Drucker (HarperBusiness, 1993, $17)

• New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century, by Jeffry A. Timmons (revised 4th edition, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 1994, $75.05)

• Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure, by Jerry Kaplan (Penguin Books, 1994, $12.95)

• Leadership Is an Art, by Max De Pree (Dell, 1989, $12.95)

Finding the Books

Most of the books noted in this article can be found in a good library. If you want to buy them, especially those that are out of print, you might try the usual Web sites: www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. Or try these three sites, where used and out-of-print books are available--and usually for less money than through the biggies above: www.bibliofind.com, www.alibris.com/, and www.bookfinder.com/ .

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