The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time puts each book in context so that readers can quickly find solutions to the problems they face, such as how best to spend The First 90 Days in a new job or how to take their company from Good to Great. Many of the choices are surprising—you’ll find reviews of Moneyball and Orbiting the Giant Hairball, but not Jack Welch’s memoir. At the end of each review, Jack and Todd direct readers to other books both inside and outside The 100 Best. And sprinkled throughout are sidebars taking the reader beyond business books, suggesting movies, novels, and even children’s books that offer equally relevant insights. This guide will appeal to anyone, from entry-level to CEO, who wants to cut through the clutter and discover the brilliant books that are truly worth their investment of time and money.

Getting Things Done

The Effective Executive

How to Be a Star at Work

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten AliveThe Power of Intuition

What Should I Do with My Life?

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Chasing Daylight

On Becoming a Leader

The Leadership Moment

The Leadership Challenge

Leadership Is an Art

The Radical Leap

Control Your Destiny or Someone Else WillLeading Change

Questions of Character

The Story Factor

Never Give In!

STRATEGY

In Search of Excellence

Good to Great

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Only the Paranoid Survive

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?

Discovering the Soul of Service

Execution

Competing for the Future

SALES AND MARKETING

Influence

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

A New Brand World

Selling the Invisible

Zag

Crossing the Chasm

Secrets of Closing the Sale

How to Become a Rainmaker

Why We Buy

The Experience Economy

Purple Cow

The Tipping Point

RULES AND SCOREKEEPING

Naked Economics

Financial Intelligence

The Balanced Scorecard

MANAGEMENT

The Essential Drucker

Out of the Crisis

Toyota Production SystemReengineering the CorporationThe Goal

The Great Game of BusinessFirst, Break All the Rules

Now, Discover Your StrengthsThe Knowing-Doing Gap

The Five Dysfunctions of a TeamSix Thinking Hats

BIOGRAPHIES

The Art of the Start

The E-Myth Revisited

The Republic of Tea

The Partnership Charter

Growing a Business

Guerrilla Marketing

The Monk and the Riddle

NARRATIVES

American Steel

The Force

The Smartest Guys in the Room

When Genius Failed

Moneyball

INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY

Orbiting the Giant Hairball

The Art of Innovation

Jump Start Your Business Brain

A Whack on the Side of the Head

The Creative Habit

The Art of Possibility

BIG IDEAS

The Age of Unreason

STRATEGY - Beyond the Core

SALES AND MARKETING

RULES AND SCOREKEEPING - What the CEOWants You to Know

INNOVATION AND CREATIVITYBIG IDEAS - More Than You Know

Acknowledgements

INDEX

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I dedicate this book to A David Schwartz, who saw something in me that I didn’t, and who is either really proud or is rolling over in his grave Either way, thanks!

Jack Covert

To Eric and Sue Sattersten—For your love and support from the very beginning.

Todd Sattersten

to read Locked somewhere in this tower of paper

is the solution to your current business problem

In fact, a book publisher recently sharedresearch with us that showed the number onereason people buy business books is to findsolutions to problems Sitting at the educationalcrossroads of “I know nothing about this” and

“Let’s hire a consultant,” good business bookscontain a high-value proposition for twenty dollarsand two hours of your attention

But it is more than that Business books can

change you, if you let them The Lexus and the

Olive Tree will lead you to a paradigm shift from

local to global Now, Discover Your Strengths

quizzes you, then encourages an exploration of

your talents, not your weaknesses And Moneyball

shows that any industry is ripe for reinvention

It is difficult to find those gems, though Theendless stream of new books requires a filter tohelp discern the good and the better from the

absolute best The solution to that problem is this book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

Recommending the best in business books is inour company’s DNA In the early days of 800-CEO-READ, Jack manually compiled a newacquisitions list every week to keep customersinformed of the latest releases This weekly listevolved into a set of monthly reviews called “JackCovert Selects.” When Todd joined the company

in 2004, the recommendations were furtherexpanded to include a daily weblog, a semiweeklypodcast, and the monthly publication of essays onChangeThis (change this.com) The latest additionsare the annual 800-CEO-READ Business Book

Awards and the publication In the Books, both of

which highlight the best of the year in businessbooks

After sifting through “the new and the now” ofbusiness books for a quarter-century, we decided itwas time to bring together the books that are mostdeserving of your attention

OF ALL TIME?

Our choices for the one hundred best businessbooks of all time will certainly find detractors Soearly on we want to make clear our criteria forselecting these books First, the most importantcriterion was the quality of the idea Recognizingthat judgment of quality is subjective, we found theonly route to choosing the best was to ask of eachbook the same set of questions: Is the authormaking a good argument? Is there something new towhat he or she is presenting? Does the idea align

or contradict with what we intrinsically knowabout business? Can we use this idea to make ourbusiness better? After asking these questions ofthousands of books, we found ample candidates.However, a good idea was not the only

consideration in selecting the 100 Best.

The second factor in choosing these books wasthe applicability of the idea for someone working

in business today We dismissed books thatdescribed dated theories that have since beenreplaced or those containing anecdotes for successabout companies that no longer exist For example,Frederick Taylor’s turn-of-the-century view thatlaborers were merely replaceable cogs in someorganizational machine has been largely replaced

by a more humanistic view that individuals bringthe diversity of their strengths to the work they do.The selections in our book represent a morecontemporary (and thus, more applicable) point ofview and in this way diverge from other “best of”lists

Finally, the books needed to be accessible Agood idea is indecipherable when conveyed usingcryptic language, and worthwhile messages get lostwhen surrounded by pointless filler For all thelove we have for Adam Smith, we didn’t select

The Wealth of Nations and its nine hundred-plus

pages because of the sheer magnitude of theundertaking We suggest Geoffrey Moore’s

Crossing the Chasm as a more accessible

substitute for Everett Rogers’s Diffusion of

Innovations In this sense, we champion the

reader’s need for clear access to whatever idea theauthor is selling

HOW TO USE THE BOOK

This book contains twelve sections, organized bycategory We start with the most important subject

of all: you Then, leadership, strategy, and salesand marketing follow We include a short section

on rules and scorekeeping, after which you’ll findsections devoted to management, biographies, andentrepreneurship We close with narratives andbooks on innovation and creativity and big ideas

We leave you with a section called Takeaways.Constructed differently from the others, this partgives you a quick look into the world of business.All of these books serve as proof that businessbooks can provide value for even the busiestperson

In the reviews themselves, we aimed to stay true

to the promise of our subtitle, “What They Say,Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You.”This was an ambitious task in the 500 to 1,000words we allotted for each book, but the effortresulted in reviews that are an amalgamation of asummary of the book, our own stories, the contextfor the ideas presented by the authors, and our take

on how the book might best be used Since wedivided the task of reviewing the books, we’veidentified the reviewer (Jack or Todd) at thebeginning of each entry

We were as careful with the design of this book

as we were with the selection of the booksincluded We drew on a wide variety ofinspirations to create the layout that makes itsomething different The browse-friendly style ofmagazines inspired our use of highlighted quotes,large headings, and rich illustrations Wemimicked the Choose Your Own Adventurechildren’s book series by giving readers the

opportunity to choose their own path through the

listings And finally, scattered throughout The 100

Best are sidebars that stand independent from the

reviews, taking the reader beyond business books,suggesting movies, novels, and even children’sbooks that offer equally relevant insights

We truly hope you enjoy the book and use it tofind solutions to your business problems We’dlove to hear whether you agree or disagree withour choices, and of any successes that resultedfrom reading one of the recommended books Jack

is available at jack@800ceoread.com, and Todd is

at todd@800ceoread.com You can also find morematerial online at 100bestbiz.com

Yes, you! How about spending some time on youfor once?

You have things to do

You have some habits to break and some new ones

to form

You have a life you want to live

You need to start by reading this chapter

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

Reviewed by Jack

The pursuit of happiness has been contemplated by

many thinkers over the ages, from Aristotle toThomas Jefferson to Viktor Frankl, and theconversation continues today No matter how muchsociety has evolved in physical comforts orcultural achievements, happiness remains elusive

We talk about it, we write books about it, and yet

we barely recognize it

But we have all experienced it Happinesscomes in those moments of effortless concentrationwhen minutes, even hours, seem to pass without so

much as a glance at the clock It’s the point guardunconsciously dropping three-pointers in the biggame It’s the writer sitting at her keyboard whilethe story writes itself In those moments, we haveexperienced what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls

flow, when we are totally focused and completely

un-self-conscious This achievement of flowcaptures that longed-for state of happiness

These moments appear to us as fleeting andunpredictable, though Csikszentmihalyi’s research

shows otherwise Certain pursuits and activitieslend themselves to reaching a state of flow.Csikszentmihalyi describes the commoncharacteristics of these activities as including “asense that one’s skills are adequate to cope withthe challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-bound action system that provides clear clues as tohow well one is performing.” Games, in thebroadest sense of the word, contain those elements.Rules provide boundaries Practice builds skills.And scoring systems offer immediate feedback onyour performance.

If jobs were constructed like games,Csikszentmihalyi posits, flow would be reachedmore often at work He offers surgeons as anexample of workers who reliably achieve flow Asurgeon’s goal is clear: fix what is broken Thefeedback is immediate and continual: checkheartbeat monitor The intense challenge isrecurring, though no surgery is the same The

operating room itself is designed to block outdistractions And because the risk is so great, asurgeon is in a state of concentration “so intensethat there is no attention left over to think aboutanything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense oftime becomes distorted.” All of these featurescreate an emotional rush for a surgeon The onlytime a surgeon loses that level of engagement iswhen he or she gets into a position of roterepetition and the game becomes predictable.

Flow is “the state in which people are soinvolved in an activity that nothing else seems

to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyablethat people will do it even at great cost, forthe sheer sake of doing it.”

The premise of this book is based on an

experience we have all had: those preciousmoments when time flies and we find we have

accomplished a great deal I have included Flow

here at the beginning of this section as a startingpoint, a broad discussion about our mentalapproach to accomplishing tasks But thesignificance of these optimal experiences extendsbeyond productivity and lies in their ability to

provide us with periods of happiness I know the

feeling of flow, the kind of high it gives, and aswith all good things, I want to learn how to tap intothat feeling more often There seems to be no moreworthwhile endeavor JC

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper Perennial, Paperback

1991, ISBN 9780060920432

WHERE TO NEXT?▸▸ Page 279 for the art of

possibility ▸▸ Page 50 for the art of leadership ▸▸Page 295 for the art of self-awareness | EVEN

MORE : Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl; The Pursuit of Happiness by David G Myers; Group Genius by Keith Sawyer

Getting Things Done

DAVID ALLEN

Reviewed by Todd

Most efforts to get organized fail Even given one’sdiligent use of a FranklinCovey planner or PDA,tasks change hourly based on priorities of thecorporate moment Calendars capture but a fraction

of our total responsibilities, and simple to-do listsprove, as author David Allen puts it, “inadequate

to deal with the volume and variable nature of theaverage professional’s workload.”

I n Getting Things Done, Allen suggests

productivity comes from a quiet state of mentalbeing Distractions easily disrupt conscious

thought Poorly defined to-do’s force the brain into

repeating loops of infinite alternatives Getting

Things Done shifts the focus from the commonly

defined problems of time, information, andpriorities, to action with a capital A By definingand managing actions, ambiguous tasks are turnedinto clear next steps And once those actions arecaptured using a reliable system, the mental noiseclears, allowing space for more substantivethought

“The big problem is that your mind keepsreminding you of things when you can’t doanything about them.”

Allen introduces a “workflow method” made up

of five distinct stages Everything that commandsattention—unread e-mails, a pile of magazines, thenever-ending list of household projects—iscollected and processed, and decisions are madeabout subsequent actions The results are organizedinto lists, calendars, or projects The overall flow

is reviewed weekly, allowing a wide-angle view

of the progress The final step is doing: writing thee-mail, returning the call, buying the groceries AsAllen says, despite most people’s declaration thatthere is just not enough time in the day, time is notthe issue; clarifying the actions needed is wherepeople fall down

THE FIVE STAGES OF MANAGING WORKFLOW

3 organize the results

4 review as options for what we choose

to

5 do

The modularity of Allen’s system makes itattractive to all people looking to be moreproductive While the highest possible GettingThings Done mind-set is achieved with devotion toall five interlocking steps, adopting a singlediscipline or stand-alone technique can bring

measurable benefit For example, Allen suggestsusing a tickler folder to hold items that can be dealtwith at a later date I recently took his advice andstarted an electronic tickler folder (as opposed tothe physical folder system he recommends), andI’m happy to report that the simple benefit of areliable system for follow-up calls andforthcoming business books clears a perceivableportion of my personal RAM.

To say Getting Things Done has a following

would be an understatement Programmers andtechnology enthusiasts were early adopters,attracted to its simple but methodical approach toeliminating mental clutter These same individualstested and experimented with the most effectiveuse of software, often writing their own code tocreate a solution that best fit their unique needs.Several dozen stand-alone applications have beenbrought to market, as well as supplements forindustry standards like Microsoft Outlook New

Getting Things Done converts can do a simple

Google search to discover forums, blog posts, andvendors of all sizes to help with theirorganizational metamorphoses

High-level athletes train for years to perfect thesmallest aspects of their performance Allen is

suggesting the same in Getting Things Done.

Mental loose ends and overflowing in-boxes sapour ability to perform By implementing processesand focusing on action, businesspeople share withathletes the same benefits of a clear mind andforward momentum TS

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, Penguin Books, Paperback

2001, ISBN 9780142000281

WHERE TO NEXT?▸▸ Page 18 for personal

effectiveness ▸▸ Page 313 for early effectiveness8Page 91 for organizational effectiveness | EVEN

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