October 17, 2013 at 12:167 useful books for the leader
Hello, Habr!
We are in RIK a bit of a retrograde - we still read books and advise our students to do this. Let the bourgeoisie talk about clip thinking, but we believe that Russia, as the most reading country in the world, will remain so :)
Today I want to share a selection of books that has been formed over the years of work by the leader of me and my partners. This is the basic library for anyone who wants to become a manager or is already one: managers, team leaders, art directors, department heads and even general managers. Personally, I re-read something from this list a couple of times a year, and I hope it comes in handy.
1. Sun Tzu. Art of War
War loves victory and does not like duration.
For me, this is a handbook for the past five years. It has a huge number of business analogies that work to this day. I reread random quotes from this book almost every month.
Since this book is more than one thousand years old, you can consider it a national treasure and without hesitation to publish a link to the free version . Although, in bookstores there are sometimes gift editions of tremendous beauty, but this is already for lovers of “warm tube projectors”.
2. Getting Real
You don’t need a lot of money, a huge team or a long development cycle to create cool software. All this for slow, obscure and unchanging applications. Getting Real has a different approach.
The book that everything must be done simply and quickly (directly, as in the quote above from Sun Tzu is yet another proof of the universality of that book). Ode to Occam's razor, written in the language of IT specialists. It is useful to everyone who makes products in IT - from sites to banking systems.
Previously, the 37signals website had a beautiful free Russian version, and then only English was left . But an inquisitive reader will surely find the necessary translation on the Internet.
3. Getting Things Done
The art of relaxing consciousness and the ability to free it from all worries and experiences is probably one of the greatest secrets of great people.
Yes, this is the book from David Allen about paper and daddy. Everything is laid out on shelves with a minimum amount of unnecessary information. Why do not I recommend Gleb of Arkhangelsk? I have a good friend who is so meticulous that he knows how much he spent on toothpaste in 2009 with an accuracy of + -10 rubles. And even he could not implement the Time Drive technique. There is an opinion on the Internet that only Gleb himself can work according to the method of Gleb of Arkhangelsk.
Since this book is still protected by copyright, I will not publish links to free versions.
4. You can agree on everything
The very first line of the rabbit roast recipe says: "First, catch the rabbit."
Founding book on negotiations. You can read it, practice the tasks from its pages, and then tie it up with literature and trainings about negotiations - practice and practice again. I hope there is no need to explain why the leader should be able to negotiate with people :)
An alternative may be: “No” by Jim Camp, both books are about the same thing, but in a different style. You can choose the one you like best.
5. Life at full power
We fly through life without pausing to think about who we really want to become. We are in touch, but we are disconnected
This book fell into my hands 3-4 years ago and I liked it so much that I immediately began to give it to my colleagues and friends "to read" - at some point I even missed the one in whose hands she had settled. I hope he continued my glorious tradition and also passed it on to another after reading it.
The main idea of the book is that to succeed in business you need to spend less time on business. It’s a paradox, but my technique worked. In the language of gamers, you need to save mana. How to save it is described in detail in the book.
6. Small Giants
The company highest purpose is "to make worthy contributions to the common good."
A great book that the desire of businessmen to increase momentum and staff is far from always leading to success. The author studied several companies that have a high level of profitability and at the same time remain small, and the employees there are happy. I myself love working in small companies, so this book is very close to me.
I did not find it in the Russian version; of the available options in English is the Amazon version for the Kindle. And, yes, it’s not necessary to buy a Kindle device - Amazon has applications for popular mobile platforms.
7. Sovereign Machiavelli
Mercenary and allied forces are useless and dangerous; that power that relies on a hired army will never be either strong or durable, for mercenaries are ambitious, dissolute, prone to contention, cocky with friends and cowardly with the enemy, treacherous and wicked; their defeat is delayed only as long as a decisive attack is delayed
Last but not least, the treatise of Niccolo Machiavelli in 1532, written by him as a manual for the young Florentine ruler Lorenzo Medici. If in the 5,000 years since the writing of Sun Tzu, little has changed, then in less than 500 years since the writing of this book, even more so.
It is unlikely that Mr. Machiavelli claims copyright, so I will give a link to the treatise in the Russian translation .
PS.
The list is numbered without any idea of sorting, just for easy orientation by post.
