The most influential business books
I’ve always read books and being in business means that I have a reason (as if I need one) to read books about business. I thought it might be worthwhile to create a list of my top business books; the ones that influenced me most.
- Good to Great – Jim Collins. I’d never heard of Jim Collins until a few years ago. I attended a leadership conference where I watched a series of speakers from all over the world talk about leadership and one of these was Jim Colins. His book good to great is one of the seminal works that has shaped my subsequent business and personal activities. In the book he recounts the process of looking at hundreds of good and great companies all over the world and trying to identify what it was that enabled a company to make the transition from simply being good to being a great company. It sounds dry and academic but the insights that he, and his research team, draws out of the evidence, have to place this book in my top list.
- Jeff Olsen – The Slight Edge. In this small book Jeff Olsen talks about the choices we make everyday without even thinking about them that over time lead to either success or failure.
- listen to an audio introduction to Jeff Olsen
- listen to an introduction to the book The Slight Edge
- Robert Kiyosaki’s book – Rich Dad Poor Dad in which he tells his own story about how he watched his real father get the best education in the world but end up poor as a teacher and his friend’s dad who helped Robert embark on an educational path that provided financial literacy and the knowledge to enable him to amass great wealth. The board game Cashflow 101 is well worth getting if you have children and teenagers – available via amazon.com
