Stephen King says that if you want to be a writer, there are two things you must do: read a lot and write a lot. This is about the “read a lot” part. I include reading lists and book reviews that will help you do business more effectively and write better for business.
In this post, I point you to reviews of The AirBnB Story, Enough, Stretch, Humility is the New Smart, and The Decision Book.
From Wharton: The Inside Story Behind the Unlikely Rise of Airbnb
“In 2007 Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were broke and looking to raise money to make their rent in San Francisco. They decided to rent out air mattresses in their apartment to attendees of a conference because all the hotels were booked. They called their service ‘Air Bed and Breakfast.’ In a few years, this small experiment would create the hotel industry disruptor Airbnb. The privately held company, with third co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk on board, now lists more than three million lodgings in nearly 200 countries. It is worth $31 billion, more than Hilton and Wyndham combined, and closing in on Marriott. Leigh Gallagher, assistant managing editor at Fortune magazine, chronicles the extraordinary growth of the company in her new book, The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions … and Created Plenty of Controversy.”
From Tom Peters: Enough
“Jack Bogle, the Vanguard Group founder (Vanguard has $3 trillion in assets under management), wrote in 2008 a marvelous book titled Enough. I offer here the chapter titles:”
From Michael McKinney: Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less
“IN HIS BOOK Stretch, Scott Sonenshein dispels the notion that having more resources = getting better results and replaces it with the conviction that a better use of resources = getting better results.”
From Christina Folz: Why Humility Is the New Smart
“The ‘new smart’ is not about what you know; it’s about how you think and relate to other people, according to Edward D. Hess, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. And embodying it will be critical to succeeding in what Hess refers to as the coming ‘smart machine age.’ Hess, who co-authored Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age (Berrett-Koehler, 2017) with Katherine Ludwig, explains how automation will transform the workplace and perhaps spur people to take a few more bites of humble pie.”
From Kevin Eikenberry: The Decision Book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking
“Whether you want to know the Swiss Cheese Model, remember Maslow’s Pyramids, understand double loop learning, or explain the Black Swan model, this book is for you.”
Reading recommendations are a regular feature of this blog. Want more recommendations about what to read? Check out my Three Star Leadership blog and Michael McKinney’s LeadingBlog.