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The books that you should read if you are interested in business, studying in business school, or wish to learn more about business. We will discuss mainstream business books and books from sociology, history and even some fiction.
19 Episodes
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How does a company or an industry face up to the digital disruption? Will Page's answer is that it has to recognise what is going on, take a leap of faith, discard the old model and go with something new. He knows a thing or two about this because he was the Chief Economist at Spotify, a company that has completely transformed the music industry through streaming. This change did not come easily and the music industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming to embrace streaming. Page arg...
The internet has made it so easy for anyone to get access to information and data. But that data and information by themselves don't translate to knowledge. If anything many people feel overwhelmed by data and the often contradictory conclusions that experts might draw from the same set of data.How can you cut through all that noise and gain insights that can translate to action? Scott E Page suggests building your own mental model Swiss Army knife. His book the Model Thinker introduces model...
When you get into business school or enter business, people keep telling you to build your network to get ahead.. Networks are terribly important but if all you do is focus on the transactional nature of network building (think amassing lots of Linkedin connections) you lose out on building deep relationships. You don't have to make every network connection a deep relationship but you do need a small number of exceptional relationships to get further in your career and personal life. Car...
Digital transformation is a recurring theme in business cases, corporate bedrooms, and flip charts in consulting companies. Is there any hope for industries such as newspapers and higher education in the face of disruptions from companies such as Google, Facebook, the Khan Academy and Udemy? What explains the continued success of the New York Times and the Economist when so many other newspapers and magazines continue to lose market share and money?Bharat Anand argues that many people focus t...
There is this saying that you are the average of your 5 best friends. If you think of your organisation, then hiring 5 best people would raise everyone's game. But how do you find one of these stars, let alone 5? Will stars in another company necessarily be good for your organisation? Were they actual talents or supported by the unique environment in their previous company?Claudio Fernandez-Araoz is an expert in spotting and recruiting talent. The book It's Not the How or the What but the Who...
We have all watched movies where a good but flawed individual gives in to some impulse and commits a crime that causes his or her life to spiral out of control. Most of us think that we are moral individuals that will make the right decision and stop ourselves from crossing the line. But will we?Eugene Soltes takes an interesting look at white collar crime. He interviewed many executives convicted of white collar crime with his academic lens. He does not try to cast moral judgement on them bu...
You might be making plans to change some aspect of your life or career. The first thing you will need to do is re-prioritise other aspects of your life. For most of us, having a better relationship with the technology that we use is the best way to free up time and energy to do the things that really matter to us. I am a gadget guy and I love tech. But I have also caught myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin or even Netflix. Cal Newport, a compu...
It’s the end of a crazy year and you might be looking to 2021 with renewed optimism that the pandemic will play itself out. This week’s Book Judge takes a longer look. Mauro Guillen looks at what the world might look like in 2030. I am sure Guillen did not expect all the trends he writes about sound so tame compared to a global pandemic. But I think that makes the book more compelling. After the year that was 2020, it is easier to see these long-running trends play out because afte...
Social networks play an outsized role in societies and economies. No filter by Sarah Frier looks at the influence of Instagram and how its early idealism was lost after its acquisition by Facebook. You get a front row seat to the unfolding drama between the King of Social Media Mark Zuckerberg and the upstart Kevin Systrom. And while there are lots of lessons here for entrepreneurs, co-founders, or early employees in a startup, the biggest lessons for us is how the personalities at the top of...
2020 is turning out to be one big screwup after another. If you are lucky, you can just shrug off these failures and have a good laugh about them. But if you are affected, or responsible for these failures, then this is not a laughing matter.How do business leaders manage their organisations to minimise a catastrophic failure? Almost by definition these failures don't happen very often so you don't know if you are doing the right thing or not. But you do know the costs of getting things wrong...
On the eve of the 2020 US Presidential elections, I am choosing the Plot Against America by Philip Roth, a work of fiction that imagines what would have happened if the 1940 US Presidential elections had gone a different way. In this book, the US elects Charles Lindbergh who sets America on an isolationist, anti-Semitic path. The Plot Against America is an essential read even if you are not an American because it drives home the importance and fragility of the democratic process. Citizen...
For Black History Month, I am introducing Franchise The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain. It is a fascinating look at the complex relationship between McDonalds and the black community in America and the naive hope that black capitalism would magically solve racial inequality in the absence of a major change in policies and attitudes. This is a story of how a global icon reluctantly embraced black franchisees and customers, and found that this became a huge driver of profits...
I am recording this in October 2020 when most of the world is at some stage of returning to work after the largest experiment ever in remote working. But what kind of office are we returning to? Why is an office built the way it is? Why do we even need offices if most of us will work sometime in the week at home?To understand all this, we have to learn about how the modern office got to where it is. Cubed by Nikil Saval brings us on a fascinating journey through the evolution of the offi...
If top athletes spend hours every day perfecting their skills, why do we spend so little time improving our writing skills when everyone knows written communication is a vital skill for leadership?Ann Handley gives you practical tips to write better, whether you are writing a letter to shareholders, a blog post, a tweet or your great American novel. There are also tips on how to improve your LinkedIn profile and posts which are so important now.
How many times do we consider the impact that business decisions have on the local communities? In the book Janesville, Amy Goldstein shows how the closure of the General Motors plant in the city of Janesville has deep, long-lasting effects on the community. You become a fly on the wall as families make some very painful decisions. You will feel sad, angry and inspired by the end of the book. And if you think this is a story of white middle America being abandoned and supporting Trump, think ...
Is there more to the story of the large corporate incumbent than a bureaucratic monolith crushing more deserving startups? Gary Pisano thinks so. He argues that an innovative culture can exist regardless of the size of an organisation. In this book, he describes the innovation DNA, how they exist in pairs that not everyone likes. He also talks about how existing technologies can survive and even flourish for a surprisingly long time in the face of new exciting but unproven technologies. ...
Finance has developed a bad reputation since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, with even many insiders decrying the very questionable practices within the industry. But can finance be principled and noble? Mihir Desai certainly thinks so. Drawing on a wealth of knowledge of finance, classic novels and popular culture, he shows how finance addresses the key issues that individuals and societies have faced over the centuries. Whether that be how to finance a very costly war, to guarding agai...
1Have you tried to convince someone to change their behaviour or viewpoint lately? It happens more often than you think. Whether it be giving feedback at a performance appraisal, discussing which projects to cut at an annual review, or just getting your child to eat their vegetables. Did it work?Jonah Berger (@j1berger) gives you a framework to try the next time you fail to get someone to change. His latest book the Catalyst introduces the REDUCE framework :-reduce Reactanceease Endowmentshrin...
A brand new podcast introducing books that you should read if you want to get ahead in business. If you are a student in business school, consider this your essential reading list. I've lost count of the number of students who get stumped when asked at an interview what books they are reading. I am not giving you the Cliff Notes to business books but you will get my handpicked curation of the books you should read.
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