1. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter Bernstein (1996)
From the ancient Greeks' belief that the universe was divvied up in a game of craps to Keynes's assertion that uncertainty makes us free, this lively economic history helps readers understand why we think -- and bet -- the way we do.
2. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, by Guy Kawasaki (2004)
The author has aptly described this book as the start-up version of What to Expect When You're Expecting. From his early exhortation to create a mantra (as opposed to a mission statement) through his final mandate to be a "mensch" (give something back), Kawasaki offers a broad, opinionated, often-shrewd blueprint for early stagers.
3. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson (2006)
Next time you are shipping alarm clocks to Singapore without thinking twice about freight costs, thank Malcom McLean, the trucking entrepreneur who battled labor and government to make it possible. This excellent history proves that sometimes the simplest answers are the most revolutionary.
4. Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell, by Nancy F. Koehn (2001)
The compelling stories of six admired companies (the others are H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field's, Estée Lauder, and Starbucks) remind us that great brands aren't clever marketing constructs. Rather, they emerge from founders' deep understanding of the worlds they and their customers inhabit.
5. The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle's-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads, and Other Workplace Afflictions, by Scott Adams (1996)
Managers can learn more from the man with the antigravity tie than from a shelfful of books on organizational dynamics.
6. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber (1995)
"Work on your business, not in it" may be the most oft-quoted piece of wisdom in the entrepreneurial vernacular. Gerber urges readers to develop systems that allow their companies to operate even without them. This book doses starry-eyed entrepreneurs with much-need perspective.
7. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter Drucker (1967)
Drucker's classic prescriptions for decision making and time management are common sense, yet nonobvious. "In every area of effectiveness within an organization, one feeds the opportunities and starves the problems." "If there is any one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration." Nobody does it better.
8. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge (1990)
In the '80s, everyone talked about continuous improvement. Then, MIT's Senge showed us how to do it. Virtually every trait associated with 21st-century success (speed, flexibility, collaboration) is discussed here.
9. First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (1999)
The authors studied surveys of a gazillion people and discovered those undifferentiated masses yearn to be treated as individuals. The manifesto of one-to-one management.
10. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't, by Jim Collins (2001)
This book raised the aspirations of millions of business people and introduced at least some humility to the corner office. Collins's message -- about understanding what you can be best at, preserving the core, and sublimating personal to organizational ambition -- remains an essential signpost for wanderers on Leadership Lane.
11. The Great Game of Business: The Only Sensible Way to Run a Company, by Jack Stack (1992)
The term open-book management didn't exist when Stack, CEO of Springfield Remanufacturing, started giving employees the education and the data to track their company's -- and their own -- performance. Stack is equally instructive and open in chronicling the experience.
12. Growing a Business, by Paul Hawken (1987)
More than 20 years after this book's publication, few equal its blend of pragmatism and values. An early proponent of the role of passion in business, Hawken speaks directly to the ambitious but overwhelmed and often isolated founder.
13. Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, by Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston (2006)
Companies that fight against the green tide risk poisoning relationships with customers, investors, and governments. This manual smartly balances opportunity and risk in the quest to shrink companies' environmental footprint.
14. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie (1936)
Of course, your salespeople and managers should read this self-improvement classic. But Friends is also about leadership. "There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything," writes Carnegie, "and that is by making the other person want to do it."
15. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen (1997)
