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 Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager: The 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team, Leadership in War: Essential Lessons from Those Who Made History, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, and See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence.
From Michael McKinney: Robert Iger’s 20 Leadership Lessons
“ROBERT IGER has worked for the same company for forty-five years: twenty-two of them at ABC, and another twenty-three at Disney, after Disney acquired ABC in 1995—the last fourteen of those years, as the CEO of Disney. He shares it all in The Ride of a Lifetime. Like the biggest, most exciting rides were once called at Disneyland, he says his time as CEO of Disney has been like a fourteen-year ride on a giant E-Ticket attraction.”
From Bob Morris: Everyone Deserves a Great Manager
“Written by Scott Miller with two FranklinCovey colleagues, Todd Davis and Victoria Roos Olsson, this book explains how to develop effective leaders at all levels and in all areas of almost any organization. The foundation of the developmental process consists of ‘six critical practices.’ None is a head-snapper; all are related, indeed interdependent. Miller devotes a separate chapter to each, just as Stephen Covey once did when writing his business classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989)”
From Daniel Akst: Command and control: Lessons in high-stakes leadership
“Business is not war, thank God, though it is too often compared to it. Yet people working in every arena, including the C-suite, can learn valuable lessons from those who lead when the stakes are inevitably highest.”
From the London School of Economics: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
“A challenge to the boundless hype that has often surrounded the activities of modern technology companies – reviewed by Sam DiBella”
From Wharton: In the Digital Age, How Companies Can Go from Vulnerable to Vigilant
“Companies that are vigilant — and responsive to changes in their business environment — see higher increases in their market capitalization than those that are not. The need for vigilance increases as digital technologies challenge existing business models. Early warning signs may not be apparent to companies that are complacent, so leaders need to groom their organizations to be responsive to weak signals of potential threats and latent opportunity. This needs to be done throughout each organization, right down to the reception rooms. These insights and more appear in a new book by George Day, Wharton emeritus professor of marketing, and Paul Schoemaker, founder and chairman of Q2 Technologies who also served on the faculties of the University of Chicago and Wharton.”
Reading recommendations are a regular feature of this blog. Want more recommendations about what to read? Check out my Three Star Leadership blog, Michael McKinney’s LeadingBlog, and Skip Prichard’s Leadership Insights.