"Hey, you should read..... ". I hear that all the time and I keep a list; then I buy them on Amazon. The lists grows from personal recommendations, blogs, twitter, presentations, meetings, etc. I am also a huge fan of buying books for their cover. Most of them tie back to sales, but they have twists of management, leadership, influencing, clawing ahead, company strategy, etc. All good stuff to get your fired up.
I put them on a shelf, read them or parts of them (when I get around to it), and often refer back to them. Here is my most recent list that has grown over a few months and a quote from Mark Cuban to help me justify buying them.
“I read books about successful people. In fact, I read every book or magazine I could get my hands on. I would tell myself 1 good idea would pay for the book and could make the difference between me making it or not.” – Mark Cuban
· “Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO” by Harrison Monarth
· “Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It” by Marshall Goldsmith
· “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” by Steven Pressfield
· “Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation” by John Doeer
· “Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload” by Bill Kovach
· “The One Minute Manager”, by Kenneth H. Blanchard
· “Only the Paranoid Survive”, by Andrew Grove
· “Strengths Finder 2.0”, by Tom Rath
· “Poke the Box”, by Seth Godin
· “High Output Management”, by Andrew Grove
· “From Bud to Boss”, by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris
· “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow”, by Chip Conley and Tony Hsieh
· “Speak as a Leader”, by Herman Cain
· “Boring Meetings Suck”, by Jon Petz
· “The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels”, by Michael Watkins
· “The Effective Executive”, by Peter Drucker
· “On Leadership”, by John Gardner
· “First Break all the Rules”, by Marcus Buckingham
· “Leadership is an Art”, by Max DePree
· “Execution”, by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan
· “Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week”, by Dave Barry
· “Small Is the New Big and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas”, by Seth Godin
· “TAPE SUCKS: Inside Data Domain, A Silicon Valley Growth Story”, by Frank Slootman (Kindle only)
· “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
· “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion”, by Gary Vanerchuck
