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25 Best Business Books Ever

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What makes a business book the “best”? Best-selling? Most influential? Timelessness?Categorical relevance?

Business Pundit sifted through numerous categories and resources to come up with thislist of the 25 Best Business Books Ever. We didn’t concern ourselves with categories(management, sales, etc.) or timeliness of subject matter. Instead, we focused on thefollowing question: Based on prominent reviews, academic use, and popularity, which business books would be considered “classics?” Of those, which are the best?

We think that really smart, successful businesspeople know that their education islifelong and diverse. Nevertheless, while many corporate leaders will cite Sun Tzu’s The

 Art of War and Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince as invaluable business tomes, we stuck with books written for a business-minded readership.

25. The Wealth of Nations

by Adam Smith

1991

First published in 1776, this broad-ranging exploration of commercial and economic first principles laid the philosophical foundations for modern capitalism and the free-marketeconomy. Smith’s central thesis is that capital can best be used to create both individualand national wealth in conditions of minimal government interference. He believed thatfree-market competition advances both the vitality of commercial activity and theultimate good of all a nation’s citizens.

Click here for more information on The Wealth of Nations 

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A business historian, Chandler was one of the first scholars to systematically examine thecorporate structure of large companies. Considered a theoretical masterpiece, this book— namely, its now-debated conclusion that strategy should drive structure—played aleading role in the profitable decentralization of leading corporations in the 1960s and1970s.

Click here for more information on Strategy and Structure 

20. Organizational Culture and Leadership

by Edgar H. Stein1992

Organizational development pioneer Schein introduced, into the management debate,culture as a constantly changing force in an organization’s life—and one that must beunderstood for there to be successful change. In successive editions of this book, theauthor draws on contemporary research to redefine culture, including the notion of subcultures, and shows how to transform this abstract concept into a practical tool for understanding and influencing organizational dynamics.

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Particularly striking is this book’s unintentional expression of a value system: a relentlesscommitment to the engineering worldview of efficiency as paramount. Sloan’ssimultaneous decentralization of manufacturing and centralization of corporate policyand financial controls became the basis for an organizational model that dominatedAmerican industry for more than half a century.

Click here for more information on My Years with General Motors 

15. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization

by Peter M. Senge

1990

Based on 15 years of experience putting the ideas into practice, this bestselling classic popularized the concept of the learning organization, a holistic approach that prioritizes

learning—new and expansive patterns of thinking—as both an individual and a groupexperience. Senge argues that “changing individuals so that they produce results theycare about [and] accomplish things that are important to them” faster than the competitondoes is, in the long run, the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Because the learning organization requires managers to surrender their traditional spheresof power and control, and because it demands trust, involvement, and the allowance for experimentation and failure, it has rarely been converted into a reality. Nevertheless,Senge’s ideas have affected the rewards and remuneration strategies of many companies.

Click here for more information on The Fifth Discipline 

14. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do

about It

by Michael E. Gerber 

1985

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This underground bestseller dispels the commonplace assumptions surrounding startingand running a successful small business. Two of Gerber’s most incisive observations arethat (1) many entrepreneurs know considerably more about producing what they sell than

about operating their business, and (2) the entrepreneur must “work on your business, notin your business.” This book intelligently and comprehensively charts an approach tosystematizing a new business so that it grows beyond the capacities of its creator.

Click here for more information on The E-Myth Revisited  

13. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell 

2000

Drawing on a fascinating array of research findings and real-world examples, Gladwell presents a concise, elegant, erudite analysis of mass behavioral change that is strikinglycounterintuitive. Regarded among marketing and sales professionals as one of the best

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 books on the economics of popular culture, this entertaining read is, says author JeffreyToobin, “one of those rare books that changes the way you think about, well, everything.”

Click here for more information on The Tipping Point  

12. Competing for the Futureby Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad 

1994

This definitive book on contemporary business strategy criticizes the narrow mechanisticview of strategy and calls for an approach that is multifaceted, emotional as well asanalytical, and concerned with meaning, purpose, and passion. The authors say their work “provides would-be revolutionaries with the tools and concepts they need to challenge the protectors of the past.” They argue that too many leaders, stuck in the day-to-day detailsof running their businesses, fail to prepare their companies for the future, and thatcrafting a strategic architecture around a company’s core competencies is the solution.

Click here for more information on Competing for the Future 

11. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t

by Jim Collins

2001

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Measuring sustained results over a period of 15 years, Collins identifies, from an originallist of 1435, 11 well-established companies that made the leap from being “good” to being “great.”

Applicable to entrepreneurs as well as corporations, this carefully researched book singles out what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership—“a paradoxical blend of personalhumility and professional will”—as the critical factor in those transformations. Suchnatural leaders “channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of  building a great company,” which begins with getting the right people—those withdiscipline and resolve—in the right positions. Challenging the conventional notion of theoutgoing, high-profile CEO, an effective leader moves with selfless determination,inspiring average performers to become great producers.

There’s been a lot of controversy about this book on Business Pundit. Is Good to Great

too general, too philosophical? Is its research flawed? Have Fannie Mae and Circuit City proven Level 5 principles wrong?

The book still found its place on this list based on our selection criteria. When wecompiled these books and scrutinized Good to Great, we realized that it’s not the onlyclassic subject to pointed—and valid–critiques. If we removed Good to Great from thelist based on BP’s prior post, we’d have to remove a whole bunch of other books, too.

Click here for more information on Good to Great  

10. Out of the Crisis

by W. Edwards Deming 1982

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This classic on quality management reflects Deming’s experience introducing statisticalmethods for quality measurement and improvement to Japan in the 1960s. Aiming totransform the U.S. style of management and governmental relations with industry, theauthor blends statistics and common sense to challenge American business practices atalmost every point, launching the quality revolution here. Citing poor management, notlazy workers, as responsible for most quality problems, this book, in simple, directlanguage, offers a theory of management based on Deming’s notable 14 Points of Management, and explains how to apply them to boost quality.

Click here for more information on Out of the Crisis 

9. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolutionby Michael Hammer and James Champy1993

Though based on the relatively dry field of operations research, this book became a prominent bestseller in its heyday, replacing much of the received wisdom of the last 200

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 product. Rather, they argue, enduring organizations demonstrate core values and a core purpose that remain fixed, while their business strategies and practices adapt endlessly toa changing world. Organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can beapplied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, this book provides a master blueprintfor building a great and enduring company.

Click here for more information on Built to Last  

7. The Practice of Management

by Peter F. Drucker 

1954

Considered the foremost management and business thinker of the 20th century, Drucker was the first to depict management as a distinct function, a separate responsibility in theworkplace: the work of getting work done through and with other people. This still-

relevant book holds that management was one of the major social innovations of the lastcentury, and it poses three now-classic business questions: What is our business? Who isour customer? What does our customer consider valuable?

According to author Gary Hamel, “No other writer has contributed as much to the professionalization of management as Peter Drucker. … [He] bridges the theoretical andthe practical, the analytical and the emotive, the private and the social more perfectly thanany other management writer.”

Click here for more information on The Practice of Management  

6. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

by Michael E. Porter 

1980

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 Now in its 63rd printing in English, with translations in 19 languages, this modern classicfilled a void in management thinking, transforming the theory, practice, and teaching of  business strategy. Strikingly accessible, Porter’s analysis of industries captures the

complexity of industry competition in three generic strategies and five competitive forcesthat have been internalized and applied by managers, investment analysts, consultants,students, and scholars throughout the world.

This seminal book changed conventional thinking around strategy, offering a methodwhereby a company can examine not just its particular industry but its place in it, that is,its essential differentiation from its competitors that can be sold to the customer. Author Gary Hamel says, “[I]t is an unfailing guide to whether some particular strategy, oncearticulated, can be counted on to produce worthwhile profits.”

Click here for more information on Competitive Strategy 

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

by Stephen R. Covey1989

Having developed the concept of this groundbreaking, long-term bestseller by studyingliterature going back more than 200 years, Covey bases his approach on relativelyimmutable personal human values. Unlike many a self-improvement author, however, he

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doesn’t promise a quick fix; rather, he calls for a paradigm shift—a revolutionary changein one’s perceptions and interpretations of how the world works. And with differentthinking comes different actions that will profoundly affect one’s productivity andeffectiveness.

Be proactive. Begin with an end in mind. Put first things first. Think win/win. Seek firstto understand. Synergize. Renewal. With penetrating insights and cogent anecdotes,Covey presents a highly structured, holistically integrated methodology for creating balance, and hence success, in one’s personal and professional lives.

Click here for more information on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 

4. The One-Minute Manager

by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

1981

Millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses around the globehave followed the timeless principles of this first mega-bestselling business book, presented as a parable. Concisely elegant, this narrative reveals three practicalmanagement secrets: One-Minute Goals, One-Minute Praisings, and One-MinuteReprimands—a concept that has spawned numerous “One-Minute” titles, for endeavorsfrom parenting to golfing.

Blanchard and Johnson ground their ideas in studies in medicine and the behavioralsciences to explain why the one-minute techniques work with so many people, in so

many environments.

Click here for more information on The One-Minute Manager  

3. How to Win Friends & Influence People

 by Dale Carnegie1937

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Having sold more than 15 million copies, this seminal self-improvement book continuesto guide managers in the universal challenge of face-to-face communication.

A master of human nature, Carnegie advises that “[w]hen dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.” He argues that success isonly 15% professional knowledge; the remaining 85% is “the ability to express ideas, toassume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.”

Click here for more information on How to Win Friends & Influence People 

2. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

by Clayton M. Christensen

1997 

Examining a variety of leading well-managed companies that have failed to capitalize oninnovative technologies, Christensen explains, with striking clarity and style, how tomanage breakthrough products successfully when customers may not be ready for them.

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His argument that overdependence on customer needs, or on the most profitable products,can damage a company’s success challenges the marketing and customer service booksthat put customer focus at the top of the corporate agenda. Considered a paradigmaticmarketing visionary, Christensen highlights the problems inherent in what appears to besound decision making, and rigorously demonstrates that companies will fall behind if 

they fail to adapt or adopt new technologies that will meet customers’ unstated or futureneeds.

Illustrating his points with anecdotes of historical figures, business leaders, and ordinaryfolks, Carnegie instructs the reader in how to change people, how to win them over toyour way of thinking, without causing offense or resentment, and without making themfeel manipulated. He teaches these skills through the underlying principle that peoplewant to feel important and appreciated. Carnegie was the first to create a flourishing,credible, long-term business out of his ideas.

Click here for more information on The Innovator’s Dilemma 

1. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies

by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

1982

Highly influential when global competition, largely from Japan, had brought Western

 business to a low, this quintessential business book describes eight enduring management principles that made the forty-three companies surveyed “excellent.” The authors focusexclusively on big companies, namely big manufacturers, but ironically condemn theexcesses of modern management practice and advocate a return to simpler virtues. Theyhave since come to feel that their ideas are better embodied in smaller companies.

Through lively case studies, this very readable classic forces a look at the fundamentals,at “first principles” that give a company its soul: Attention to customers, an abiding

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concern for people (productivity through people), the celebration of trial and error. Adriving force in the subsequent deluge of business books, this trailblazer establishedcustomer service as a key form of differentiation and advantage, and launched the author-as-consultant/speaker/celebrity phenomenon.