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 Rock Bottom to Rock Star, The Second Machine Age, and The Kingdom of Happiness.
From Michael McKinney: Rock Bottom to Rock Star
“RYAN BLAIR is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of ViSalus Sciences. In Rock Bottom to Rock Star he shares lessons from his own journey. Not surprisingly, the journey begins with taking personal responsibility. Without it you can’t move up from your rock bottom. You are your own competition.”
From Michael Manapat: Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson’s “The Second Machine Age”
“Andrew McAffee and Erik Brynjolfsson begin their book The Second Machine Age with a simple question: what innovation has had the greatest impact on human history? ‘Innovation’ is meant in the broadest sense: agriculture and the domestication of animals were innovations, as were the advent of various religions and forms of government, the printing press, and the cotton gin. But which of these changed the course of humanity the most (and how even is that determined)?”
From Leigh Buchanan: How Tony Hsieh’s $350 Million Bet on Las Vegas Went Down
“Aimee Groth’s book about the not-so-excellent adventures of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh reads like the fever dream you might have after going on a bender at a TED conference. Every management trope of the last decade–the audacious goals and small bets, tribes and circles, primacy of passion and nobility of failure–are plucked from the abstract and rendered as human tragicomedy. If the phrase ‘world-changing’ appears in your mission statement, you should take a gander at The Kingdom of Happiness: Inside Tony Hsieh’s Zapponian Utopia.”
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 Bob Morris’ Blogging on Business.