I am an avid reader, and more recently a listener, to inspiring books by some great people. Below are my personal recommendations with my comments as to why I think that are so great!
Simply click the image to learn more about the book.
Disclaimer: I am using affiliate links to take you to these books but all of them are books I have read myself, or listened to, and I honestly believe they are a beneficial use of your time. Enjoy reading or listening!
Blue Ocean Strategy
It focuses on how a business can avoid competing in a blood thirsty red ocean and instead look to create a blue ocean of new demand. It includes examples of some well known businesses that have used this thinking with amazing results.
Blue Ocean Shift
This is a continuation of Blue Ocean Strategy but looks at the practical steps required to help shift your organisation from your current red ocean into a profitable blue one!
The Everything Store
There cannot be many people who are unaware of Amazon! Not content with just being an online book store this book tells the story of how the vision of being “the everything store” allowed Jeff Bezos to create one of the biggest companies on the planet!
The Goal
This really interesting book tells the story of Alex Rogo, a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve it’s performance before its inevitable closure. It contains some great tips of how to change things in a business, and in life, even when things look desperate!
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
This book does a great job in calling out the mish-mash of pop culture, motivational slogans and business buzz speak that is so often masquerading as a business strategy. It draws on examples of the good and the bad from across all sectors and all ages and shows why getting business strategy right is so essential.
It’s Not Luck
This is the follow up to “The Goal” mentioned above. It continues the story of Alex Rogo who is now a head of a business unit and facing ever more complicated problems. Goldratt uses the metaphor to show some great ways of thinking that help to produce win-win solutions to seemingly impossible business problems.
Leading Change
This one probably does not need much of an introduction. John Kotter’s now-legendary eight-step process for managing change with positive results has become the foundation for leaders and organizations across the globe. It really is a must read for anyone involved in delivering business change.
Leading With Vision
The authors in this book delve deeply into the notion that a compelling vision can be key to help differentiate a business that wants to hire and retain talent, be more competitive, and thrive in uncertain times. It features a blueprint of how leaders can shape and deliver their vision.
Oversubscribed
This book presents ideas that will ensure that demand for your product or service outstrips supply and you have scores of customers lining up to give you money. It shows how to get customers queuing up while competitors are forced to fight for business
The Pumpkin Plan
After reading an article about a local farmer who had dedicated his life to growing giant pumpkins, Mike Michalowicz realized the same process could apply to growing a business. In his typical straight talking style he explains how having fewer Customers can make it easier to grow your business.
Simplify
This book looks at how some businesses simplify on price while others simplify their proposition. With case studies of some of the most famous firms of the last hundred years, from finance to fast food, this book shows how to analyse any company’s potential to simplify, and enrich the world.
Start with Why
Simon Sinek shows how a business, or indeed an individual, can find their “WHY”….their motivating force for existence. Businesses in particular can define themselves by what they do rather than why they do it. It argues that your clients don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it!
Switch
One of my all time fave books! Chip and Dan Heath use the metaphor of an elephant and its rider as our emotional and logical sides. We have to engage both when we are looking to deliver difficult change. This book gives some great tips and examples that will help with this.
That Will Never Work
Marc Randolph tells an engaging story of the birth and growth of Netflix. It is a great story of an idea born in the days of the VHS tape and raised during the dot com boom that has become a business that is a part of millions of peoples daily lives via our TV screens today.
The Tipping Point
In this book Malcolm Gladwell highlights how ideas or trends can tip and spread like wildfire. It is a really interesting observation of how we as social animals have some specific parts to play in this and looks at some well known examples of business and initiatives that have tipped or not!
The Business Analyst Story 