Best Business Books: US News & World Report asks thought-leaders for their picks

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 27, 2016
What are the business books that top thought leaders read? Well, some of them are not even strictly ‘business’ – but there are lessons to be learnt from them nevertheless.

The books primarily talk about leadership, survival, strategy, success (and failures) and so on. Qualities that affect business as much as they affect life. The US News & World Report, in a recently published special report on Best Business books, spoke with 14 leaders -- from academics to entrepreneurs to corporate executives – and asked them to pick five books of their choice, which they consider indispensable reading for managers.  

Here is a list of the books selected by six of the US News & World Report panelists: authors Jim Collins and Chris Anderson; top executives Jim Buckmaster and Hector Ruizan; and academicians Robert Joss and Robert Bruner. Perhaps, some of these books should be part of your summer reading too!  

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, likes to read about lessons from history: 

  • In Love and War: The Story of a Family's Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years by Jim and Sybil Stockdale (1984)
  • The Second World War (six volumes) by Winston Churchill (1948–1953)
  • Churchill's day
  • Personal History by Katharine Graham (1997)
  • Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers (1962)
  • The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History  by Stephen J. Gould (1980)

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief, Wired magazine and author, of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More recommends:

  • ‘Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2001).
  • The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger (2000)
  • Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly (1995)
  • Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology by George Gilder (1989)
  • The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference  by Malcolm Gladwell (2000).

Hector Ruiz, chairman and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices, recommends:

  • Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein (1995)
  • Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
  • The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by C. K. Prahalad (2005)
  • Five Essentials for a Winning Life: The Nutrition, Fitness, and Life Plan for Discovering the Champion Within by Chris Carmichael (2006)
  • Dilbert by Scott Adams (ongoing)

Jim Buckmaster, CEO, craigslist, lists four titles:

  • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
  • The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil (2005)
  • Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman (1988)
  • The Discourses  by Epictetus (second century B.C.)

Robert Joss, dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business, picks out:

  • The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (1981)
  • The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker (1954)
  • My Years With General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (1963)
  • Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jerry Porras and Jim Collins (1994)
  • Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society  by John Gardner (1964)

Robert Bruner, dean, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia recommends:

  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
  • On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt (2005)
  • Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins (2001)
  • Leading Change by John Kotter (1996)
  • The Effective Executive  by Peter Drucker (1967)

The US News & World Report was formed in 1948 with the merger two weeklies -- the United States News and the World Report. Both were published by a journalist called David Lawrence. In 1933, Lawrence published the first issue of a weekly newspaper called the United States News. Six years later, he launched a magazine called World Report.