36 Best Business Books that Influenced Microsoft Leaders

There are more books coming out every year than I can read in a lifetime.  One of the ways I filter for great books is, I ask the most effective people I know, which books had a significant impact on how they think, feel, or act.  I like to find the books that really made a difference, not just in theory, but in practice.

Recently, I reached out to several Microsoft leaders, past and present, and up and down the ranks.  The beauty of Microsoft is the extremely high concentration of smart people and  I like to leverage the collective brain.  In this case, I posed a simple question to find out which business books actually made a difference:

“What are the top 3 books that changed your life in terms of business effectiveness?”

I ended up with a really eclectic set ranging from parenting guides to changing the world.  The top 3 business books that showed up multiple times were: Blue Ocean, Good to Great, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  This actually didn’t surprise me.  I’ve been using Blue Ocean at work on a regular basis and Good to Great was a core part of the culture of the Microsoft patterns & practices team (the team I’m on.)

Here are 36 best business books that influenced the Microsoft leaders that I reached out to:

  1. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
  2. Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
  3. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
  4. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
  5. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
  6. Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time
  7. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
  8. Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street
(more...)

Read more: Source of Insight

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