Warren Buffet credits reading 500 pages a day to his success. Time to get started!
Verve Partners’ pink ribbon breakfast
Verve Partners support the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s vision of Zero Deaths from breast cancer.
We might not all be business owners, but there’s a lot of value in hearing from some of the greatest minds in business, those that study successful businesses and social commentators. In fact, Warren Buffet said reading 500 pages a day was the key to success. So, here are 4 must-read business books circulating in the office and why we think they’re valuable.
Our 4 must-read business books
This is the book Steve Jobs cited when explaining why Apple had to embrace cloud computing. It’s a book that chronicles how innovation happens, and why huge corporations often collapse when they fail to adapt and respond to the next wake of innovation. (We only have to look to Blockbuster to see how that went.)
This book makes you really think. Author, Clayton Christensen, says the reason these companies failed is that their management was too good.
“The very decision-making and resource allocation processes that are key to the success of established companies are the very processes that reject disruptive technologies: listening to customers; tracking competitors’ actions carefully; and investing resources to design and build higher-performance, higher-quality products that will yield greater profit.”
To research, accept and respond to disruptive technology, companies must essentially invest in what the customer rejects and yields lower profits.
Don’t be fooled by the title; this isn’t about running an e-business.
Instead, Gerber talks about something that was a real lightbulb moment for us. How often are you the roadblock to getting things in your work life actually accomplished?
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business—you have a job.”
Gerber talks about setting up a business that can run without you.
Written by three Swedish statisticians, this book looks at the instincts that affect our perception of the world. These innate biases range from having an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, how we perceive progress (spoiler: we generally think things are getting worse), and an instinct towards fear and blame.
The book is actually a positive one—we are making progress—and it encourages us to see the world more “factfully”.
Bill Gates actually called this book one of the most important he’s ever read.
We all have great ideas, but often it’s the process of translating an idea or strategy into action where things get difficult. Sean Coven writes a roadmap to do so, making use of the desire to win which exists in everyone.
To achieve a goal you’ve never achieved before, you have to do things you’ve never done before. In a similar vein, you have to be accountable for that too.
“If you’re not keeping score, you’re just practising.”
