This is a list of books that I found particularly useful while
transitioning into a management position and/or working as a manager in a
corporate setting. From what I hear, these books do not seem to be on the
standard reading list of corporate trainings - but they should be. So here they
are.
There are many more worthwhile books out there that I have
not read and that therefore did not make it on the list. Please share your
favorites in the comments below.
My suggestion is to invest a few bucks, get them all and read them with a
highlighter. It’s worth it.
Managing yourself
- Getting things done (D. Allen)
- A classic and definitely worth a read. It took me two starts to get this up
and running and once it worked, it was a blaze. The bottom line is about
taking control of your work life by explicitly scheduling priorities
instead of prioritizing a schedule. Even if you only take away your own
“inbox zero” approach from this, it’s worth it. My personal tip: if you’re
among those who are stuck with MS Outlook, create a “convert email to task”
shortcut and combine with traskcracker.
- HBR must reads (Harvard Business Review)
- Mostly brilliant articles, in particular “What makes an effective
executive” (P. F. Drucker), “What leaders really do” (J. P. Kotter), “What
makes a leader?” (D. Goleman), “Leadership that gets results” (D. Goleman),
“The discipline of teams” (J. R. Katzenbach and D. K. Smith), and “How
will you measure your life?” (C. M. Christensen).
- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Shunryū Suzuki)
- What can I say? It’s different. It helped.
Managing people
- Managing, Performing, Living (F. Malik)
- The book on effective management. Malik is a
no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point writer and this is a refreshing and
(sometimes painfully) candid book. Loved it.
- Getting to YES (R. Fischer & W. L. Ury)
- The book is based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, a group
that deals with all levels of negotiation and conflict resolution. This was
one of the earliest books I read (well before actually becoming a manager)
and I helped me a lot to think constructively about finding win-win situations.
- Primal Leadership (D. Goleman, R. Boyatzis, A. McKee)
- The emotoional intelligence bible. The writing is not my style and much
of the text turned out to be a no-surprise, but well-structured summary of
how emotional intelligence influences managerial thinking and how it can
improve management performance. Honestly the worst read on the list, but
that’s maybe just me (I prefer Goleman’s articles in HBR).
Managing operations
- The lean startup (E. Ries)
- The one thing you don’t have in a corporate setting is a true startup
situation, they say. It’s only that your resources are limited, you need to
continuously adapt your business model, keep up with your customers’ latent
needs and deliver as soon as possible. Good reasons to read this book.
Managing strategy & leadership
- Good strategy, bad strategy (R. Rumelt)
- This is a good one. Gave me a strong handle on what to consider a
“strategy” at all and what is necessary to develop, maintain and expand a
good strategy. Highly recommended!
- The innovator’s dilemma (C. Christensen)
- The (twenty year old!) seminal book on value networks and how they
influence corporate ability to innovate. Lengthy text on a (in retrospect)
somewhat straightforward concept. Make sure to include a few recent
thoughts in the mix.
- The first 90 days (M. Watkins)
- It’s probably a good idea to read this book at every job change and/or
promotion. Beyond the “what are you going to achieve in the first 3 months
on the job” and “how to make sure investing into yourself will pay off for
the company” the real value of this book lies in its communication strategy
and expectation setting approach: gaining a joint understanding of the
situation at hand before moving on to change things. Worth it.
- Business model generation (A. Osterwalder, Y. Pigneur)
- Coming from a technical background, this book changed the world for me. Simple
guiding principles what makes a business model, how to build one, what to
look for. The business model canvas turned out to be invaluable for many a
discussion I had about corporate innovation projects and is now considered
a standard tool in my old company.
- Value proposition design (A. Smith et al.)
- Osterwalder is good at marketing. This book provides depth about how to fill
the value proposition column in the business model canvas. It’s a somewhat
structured design thinking-type approach to figuring out your customers’
latent needs. Maybe I just like the format.
- Reality check (G. Kawasaki)
- A no-nonsense look at building a business. Sometimes somewhat
oversimplified but a good read.
Managing change
- Switch: How to change things when change is hard (C. Heath & D. Heath)
- Very interesting book. The basic assumption is that people are willing to
change but they have limited resources at their disposal to do so. That is
the reason why change needs to be designed - and it can be designed on
three levels: on a conscious level, on the level of habits and by designing
the environment. Successful change requires careful attention and alignment
of all three levels. Interesting read. If you like this, you should also
read Kotters seminal paper on “Leading change: why transformation efforts
fail”.
- Change by design (T. Brown)
- Tim Brown is the CEO of IDEO, the design thinking company.
In the book he gives his take on how design works today and what it takes
to apply it successfully in a multitude of situations. Certainly a
refreshing read in times where “Design Thinking” has become a huge buzzword
(thanks HBR).
- Creative confidence (D.M. Kelley & T. Kelley)
- This is a must. Emotional and deep from the heart. Relevant. And so, so different
from what you read in all the standard management literature. This is about
meaning and about how design can change lives for the better. Read it.
Managing communication
- The Duarte design series: Slideology, Resonate, Illuminate (N. Duarte)
- Over the last years, Nancy Duarte from Duarte, Inc. created a book series
initially focusing on presentation design and gradually shifting towards
storytelling design. I can recommend them all:
Slideology is more on the basic slide design side,
Resonate is about storytelling and
Illuminate is really about how to transport a vision
through a change process. All books have an amazing layout that makes them real
fun to read.
- Presentation Zen (G. Reynolds)
- This is a quickfix book that gives you a fast overview over how to design
slides for your audience (my personal favorite: the before-after pages).
Helps managing the corporate design blues…