Best Business Ethics
Start with Why analyses leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Steve Jobs and discovers that they all think in the same way - they all started with why. Simon Sinek explains the framework needed for businesses to move past knowing what they do to how they do it, and then to ask the more important question- WHY ? A perspective that is nothing short of the truth.” -MOKHTAR LAMANI, former ambassador, special envoy to Iraq SIMON SINEK , the bestselling author of LEADERS EAT LAST and TOGETHER IS BETTER, is an optimist who believes in a brighter future for humanity.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It reads a little bit like he took articles from his blog, stuck them in a large word-processing document, did some minor editing, and submitted the thing as-is for publication in order to create this book. As far as I can tell, if you're reasonably intelligent you can glean pretty much everything essential to Sinek's idea based on his TED Talk together with this understanding that "HOW" means something different in each of the two contexts he contrasts. What you WON'T get from that is his rather in-depth, incredibly clear exposé of why the "WHAT --> HOW" communication pattern requires manipulating people to some degree or another and why that is by necessity unsustainable in the long run. So in short, the book is a reasonable buy, certainly at the Kindle price, but do consider benefitting from Sinek's wisdom for free in 20 minutes first by watching his TED Talk."
"This book has inspired many thoughts as I read it, but it has helped me to truly put into perspective the age-old advice to follow your passion."
"If you're a leader this book tells you what you've always known on an instinctive level."
"I teach a college-level business course that shows people how to grow their business by word-of-mouth."
"I am confident this book has indeed the potential to change the world for the better through the life of its readers and organizations they might collaborate with."
"I did believe that the author took some leaps between an organization's existential rational and customer connections."
"The author was trying so hard to make a many-page book out of the message and it was excruciating to go through this repetition.. Save your money and (most importantly) your time and just watch the TED talk on YT.."
Covey, is the very basis of the new global economy, and he shows how trustand the speed at which it is established with clients, employees and constituentsis the essential ingredient for any highperformance, successful organization. Trust is so integral to our relationships that we often take it for granted, yet in an era marked by business scandals and a desire for accountability this book by leadership expert Covey is a welcome guide to nurturing trust in our professional and personal lives. Following a touching foreword by father Stephen R. Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and related books), the junior Covey outlines 13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders, such as demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, delivering results and practicing accountability.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Covey shows how trust should be the basis of personal and business life."
"This is on the required reading for my doctoral program for educational leadership, administration, and policy but a lot of the example were geared towards the business and financial world."
"I loved all the quotes in the book."
"I am reading it again for a second time."
"This is a powerful and very inspirational book that will guide you and explains how to be more influential in every aspect of your life."
"Good book for both business and personal."
"We implemented the full Speed of Trust training at my place of employment and it is one of, if not the best training I've taken in my career."
"I wish more managers read this book."
In this combination of memoir, business strategy guide, and call to action, Tim O'Reilly, Silicon Valley’s leading intellectual and the founder of O’Reilly Media, explores the upside and the potential downsides of today's WTF? His genius over the past four decades has been to identify and to help shape our response to emerging technologies with world shaking potential—the World Wide Web, Open Source Software, Web 2.0, Open Government data, the Maker Movement, Big Data, and now AI. O’Reilly shares the techniques he's used at O’Reilly Media to make sense of and predict past innovation waves and applies those same techniques to provide a framework for thinking about how today’s world-spanning platforms and networks, on-demand services, and artificial intelligence are changing the nature of business, education, government, financial markets, and the economy as a whole. The core of the book's call to action is an exhortation to businesses to DO MORE with technology rather than just using it to cut costs and enrich their shareholders. Entrepreneurs need to set their sights on how they can use big data, sensors, and AI to create amazing human experiences and the economy of the future, making us all richer in the same way the tools of the first industrial revolution did. “So many insights, so much history, so much of our future by the consummate insider who is as much a part of the story as the people and ideas he writes about - I was learning something on more or less every page.” (Dr. James Manyika, director, McKinsey Global Institute). This book makes sense of the astonishing transformations that are happening around us and is an indispensable guidebook to tomorrow.” (Walter Isaacson, President & CEO, The Aspen Institute). “[a] punchy and provocative book… What’s the Future is an insightful and heartfelt plea, daring us to reimagine a better economy and society… a jaunty read with a compelling narrative of how technology interweaves with the real world. O’Reilly applies techniques his pioneering company has used to predict and make sense of past innovation waves to provide a framework for thinking about what he calls the “WTF technologies” of the twenty-first century. In this powerful combination of memoir, business-strategy guide, and rallying cry, O’Reilly draws on lessons from networked platforms, including Amazon, Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft, to show how our economy and financial markets have become increasingly managed by algorithms. O’Reilly makes the case that income inequality, declining upward mobility, and job loss due to technology are all the result of design choices we have made in the algorithms that manage our markets and our companies.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Tim O’Reilly, who I admit to having no awareness of prior to buying this book, has obviously had a front row seat at the birth and development of the digital economy. I would have accepted his references with less supporting documentation but engineers, admittedly, may be more demanding on that front. In this book the author takes an inquisitive scalpel to the frustrating world we now live in and, explains it, isolates some of the root causes, and offers some prescriptions. Algorithms will give you an answer but not necessarily “truth.” That, more often than not, is a matter of perspective and your personal standard of precognitive conclusion. In the end, the news coming from the “other community” is all fake because, by definition, it is not substantiated if we are unwilling to accept that it is. I dare say it is more immediate than climate change for the simple reason that the Internet has become integrated with our economy, our politics, and our culture to such a degree that if it fails our world will come tumbling down. Trust is pivotal to the Internet ecosystem and the gatekeepers, to date, have protected it with skill and determination. The author actually lays out the argument quite well when he notes that traffic tickets handed out by intersection cameras are quite “fairly” distributed. The author correctly notes, “The characteristics of the training data are much more important to the result than the algorithm.” Bingo. In the end I couldn’t agree more with O’Reilly that the real problem we face today is the master algorithm of serving the shareholder. “It’s essential to get beyond the idea that the only goal of business is to make money for its shareholders.” As a former CEO, I believe he is absolutely right; we have hollowed out our economy and our souls and given it all to management and their investors, who now enjoy a very outsized portion of our miraculous economic output. Bravo to Tim O’Reilly, however, for putting this very important topic on the table for discussion."
"Must read for anyone wanting to reimagine fruitful existance and gainful employment in the new economy."
"Hidden pearls of wisdom and insight amongst lots of grandstanding."
"I like this audio book very much."
"Very informative and insightful - highly recommended for econ & tech minded folks."
"Through a wide range of contexts and examples, he suggests that we need to change the rules and incentives of our markets -- not only markets for goods and services but also financial markets -- and the layers of internal and governmental rules that regulate them -- to better address the conflicts between people and profit, to turn the invisible hand to guide corporations fairly."
"Tim O'Reilly is in my mind one of the most credible voices when it comes to tech trends and he has hit the nail on the head with this rather prophetic and engaging book."
Best Business Etiquette
In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company. This meticulously researched book, which grew from a much buzzed-about article in the Harvard Business Review, puts into plain language an undeniable fact: the modern workplace is beset with assholes. Sutton (Weird Ideas that Work), a professor of management science at Stanford University, argues that assholes—those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful—poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses, regardless of their individual effectiveness. Direct and punchy, Sutton uses accessible language and a bevy of examples to make his case, providing tests to determine if you are an asshole (and if so, advice for how to self-correct), a how-to guide to surviving environments where assholes freely roam and a carefully calibrated measure, the "Total Cost of Assholes," by which corporations can assess the damage.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Solid advice in a small format."
"Outstanding book."
"This book just helps you realize that everyone deals with this at work."
"Fine book, however it's a little boring and repeats itself in several chapters."
"I think every employer should read this book - it would waken some up."
"More people in positions of leadership need to read this and apply the theme addressed, Don't Allow People in Your Employ to Be Assholes!"
"First half of the book is interesting and informative but other half feels like it is repetition of the first."
Best Business Mentoring & Coaching
Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek , shares the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure book—a compilation of tools, tactics, and habits from 130+ of the world's top performers. From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life. To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. This book, Tribe of Mentors , includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. • Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that “losing makes you think in ways victories can’t.”. • How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn’t realistic). This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. He is one of Fast Company ’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show , which has exceeded 200 million downloads and been selected for “Best of iTunes” three years running.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"You are supposed to find an actionable nugget on every page, from some of the best people in the world. He basically sent out an email to hundreds of successful people, asking them the same questions. But unlike his "Tools of Titan" (which is one of the most valuable books you can have in your bookshelf), the informations is shallow. I like the Tools of Titans format, since it is more of Tim's distillied notes and higlights."
"The fascination with Hollywood and stardom and constantly introducing people as “billionaire” and “‘New York Times’ Bestselling Author” etc. Ah, the old Tools of Titans profiles of everyday brilliant heroes profiled elsewhere like P. Attia, R. Patrick, D. D'agostino, N. Ravikant, W. Hof; C. Sommer and P. Tsatsouline...real, complete, true people - also Gabi and Laird come to mind - who are true mentors in action, word and bravery...thank you again Tim for that. But now with Tribe we see many others who have reaped far too much pathological adoration already, too many money whores and power whores who deign to preach to us plebes, and too few everyday heroes who are truly humbling, inspiring, and unsung."
"The introduction (a few pages) by Tim is the only valuable part of the book."
"It was a massive treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge from some of the smartest people in the world. Most of the people who responded to his interview questions are not interesting people, especially the Hollywood celebrities."
"I'm a big fan of Tim Ferriss and ran to the nearby Barnes and Nobles as soon as I heard that this book is released."
Best Personal Success in Business
Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek , shares the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure book—a compilation of tools, tactics, and habits from 130+ of the world's top performers. From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life. To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. This book, Tribe of Mentors , includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. • Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that “losing makes you think in ways victories can’t.”. • How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn’t realistic). This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. He is one of Fast Company ’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show , which has exceeded 200 million downloads and been selected for “Best of iTunes” three years running.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"You are supposed to find an actionable nugget on every page, from some of the best people in the world. He basically sent out an email to hundreds of successful people, asking them the same questions. But unlike his "Tools of Titan" (which is one of the most valuable books you can have in your bookshelf), the informations is shallow. I like the Tools of Titans format, since it is more of Tim's distillied notes and higlights."
"The fascination with Hollywood and stardom and constantly introducing people as “billionaire” and “‘New York Times’ Bestselling Author” etc. Ah, the old Tools of Titans profiles of everyday brilliant heroes profiled elsewhere like P. Attia, R. Patrick, D. D'agostino, N. Ravikant, W. Hof; C. Sommer and P. Tsatsouline...real, complete, true people - also Gabi and Laird come to mind - who are true mentors in action, word and bravery...thank you again Tim for that. But now with Tribe we see many others who have reaped far too much pathological adoration already, too many money whores and power whores who deign to preach to us plebes, and too few everyday heroes who are truly humbling, inspiring, and unsung."
"The introduction (a few pages) by Tim is the only valuable part of the book."
"It was a massive treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge from some of the smartest people in the world. Most of the people who responded to his interview questions are not interesting people, especially the Hollywood celebrities."
"I bought this book because I was a fan of Tools of Titan even though a lot of the advice and insights can be had from Tim's podcast. I still give the book a few stars for being able to be something I can pick up casually and read a quick 2-3 page insight but there is nothing groundbreaking."
Best Business Motivation & Self-Improvement
From the author: “For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show , which has exceeded 200 million downloads and been selected for “Best of iTunes” three years running.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I have hereditary cholesterol problems and my forays into a ketogenic lifestyle dropped my particle count from ~1950 to ~1225. There are many other great things that have come as a result of my exposure to Tim's podcast, too many to list here. This is supposedly a "recipe book" (according to page xvi in the Foreword). A few guests on his podcast have amazing things to say about meditation (Sam Harris, Naval Ravikant, Kevin Rose, etc.). But there is no central place to which you can turn to find out the collected wisdom of the many guests who have delved into this topic. In fact, there's not even one central place in the book that gives a list of the commonalities between the guests. They have the discipline to turn down the good, so that they can pursue (and achieve) the great. It might teach the tactics and routines and habits of world-class performers, but there's FAR TOO MUCH here to make it valuable in showing YOU how to achieve those heights."
"This book suffers from the expectations of his previous work--Tim is honest about presenting "Tools of Titans" as sort of a glimpse of his journals/notes from his life's work, but this book loses nearly everything we've come to expect. It's WebMD with a clouded personality...it's a bit like a bound website without the hyperlinking. He's shown he's capable of completely rethinking a problem or a lifestyle or a way of doing things, and this book isn't like that at all."
"It was worth the price especially after 200+free episodes of the podcast which I enjoy every week."
"I ordered this book yesterday, and it showed up on my door step today. The book is laid out in a format that is easy to navigate should you want to go back to reference again."
"The four-hour work week was a mindset changer, the 4-hour body gave me a playbook for anything I want to do physically and the 4-hour chef showed me how to have fun learning. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. The 4 Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman. The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life."
Best Time Management in Business
In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. "― New York Times Book Review "DEEP WORK accomplishes two considerable tasks: One is putting out a wealth of concrete practices for the ambitious, without relying on gauzy clichés. Cal Newport's exciting new book is an introduction and guide to the kind of intense concentration in a distraction-free environment that results in fast, powerful learning and performance. "DEEP WORK makes a compelling case for cultivating intense focus, and offers immediately actionable steps for infusing more of it into our lives. "Cal Newport is a clear voice in a sea of noise, bringing science and passion in equal measure. "Cal Newport offers the most well-informed and astute collection of practical advice I have seen for reclaiming one's mental powers. "Deep work is the killer app of the knowledge economy: it is only by concentrating intensely that you can master a difficult discipline or solve a demanding problem. "A wonderfully entangled, intertwined, and erudite series of strategies, philosophies, disciplines, and techniques to sharpen your focus and dive deep into your work. Cal Newport, Ph.D., lives in Washington, DC, where he is a writer and an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work. I build my days around a core of carefully chosen deep work, with the shallow activities I absolutely cannot avoid batched into smaller bursts at the peripheries of my schedule. Depth-destroying behaviors such as immediate e-mail responses and an active social media presence are lauded, while avoidance of these trends generates suspicion. …The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration. … the minimum unit of time for deep work in this philosophy tends to be at least one full day. To put aside a few hours in the morning, for example, is too short to count as a deep work stretch for an adherent of this approach. Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets… it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. At the end of the workday, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning— no after-dinner e-mail check, no mental replays of conversations, and no scheming about how you’ll handle an upcoming challenge; shut down work thinking completely. If you need more time, then extend your workday, …trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day enough that you end up getting less done than if you had instead respected a shutdown. 13. for a novice, somewhere around an hour a day of intense concentration seems to be a limit, while for experts this number can expand to as many as four hours— but rarely more. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand… they’re pretty much mental wrecks."
"Deep Work is the execution/tactical companion to Newport's last book, So Good They Can't Ignore You and it doesn't disappoint. -However, these are usually also things that you need to trade in your career capital (rare skills and experience using them) in order to maximize. So Good They Can't Ignore You doesn't spend much time explaining how to actually implement deep work (deliberate practice) into you life. It tells you to focus deeply, stretch yourself cognitively and get constant high quality feedback on your work/output. If you have already bought into the idea, you can skim this part, but I found the examples and people he featured to be very interesting so it's worth a read. Newport lays out an interesting theory for 3 types of workers, Superstars, Owners and High Skill Workers and makes a convincing and important argument for the importance in the future of being able to work at higher levels of abstraction and work with intelligent machines. Meaning is a key part of Newport's argument because the whole book links back to the Passion vs. Rare Skills debate…which is a better strategy for finding a job you love? Newport give 3 theories on why deep work is meaningful, a psychological, neurological and a philosophical reason. Rule 1 gives you a bunch of strategies and examples of how to integrate deep work into your schedule. The Grand Gestures part of this chapter is really good, you learn about Bill Gates Think Week and same famous authors who go to secluded islands or build cabins to get a lot of deep work done when necessary. Newport gives a number of strategies for doing two important things: improving your ability to focus and eliminating your desire for distraction. This rule isn't as strategic as the other ones, it's mostly about making a side argument that these networking sites aren't as important is you think they are."