A selection of our best business books to help you improve how you work.
Influence is your Superpower
Zoe Chance
We're all nice. In fact, we're told we're too nice and we have to change to succeed: 'Play the game!'; 'Beat them down!'; 'Toughen up!'. Do we have to choose between betraying our own values and being left behind without a voice? Absolutely not. We can naturally be persuasive and successful every day without making enemies of ourselves or other people.
Influence is a science and renowned Yale professor Zoe Chance will help you master it in this fascinating book. Drawing on the latest behavioural research, entertaining real-life stories and the skills she teaches on her sell-out Yale University MBA course, Zoe Chance unpacks what influence is and how we are persuaded before setting out a series of powerful skills you can adopt to master the art of persuasion and influence. Her techniques include the Magic Question, Powerful Listening, the What Would It Take Question and Building Support. She also looks at how to use influence for maximum positive impact in the world - and how to defend yourself against the 'dark arts' of persuasion by other less scrupulous individuals or institutions.
Bold, entertaining and efficacious, this indispensable book is a call to action for all the nice people in the world wanting to practice influence without resorting to manipulation, bullying or corruption to create a brighter more positive future.
Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill, America's most beloved motivational author, devoted 25 years to finding out how the wealthy became that way. After interviewing over 500 of the most affluent men and women of his time, he uncovered the secret to great wealth based on the notion that if we can learn to think like the rich, we can start to behave like them. By understanding and applying the thirteen simple steps that constitute Hill's formula, you can achieve your goals, change your life and join the ranks of the rich and successful. In this updated edition, Dr. Arthur R. Pell provides examples of men and women who, in recent times, exemplify the principles that Hill promulgated. With the success stories of top achievers such as Bill Gates and Steven Spielberg, he proves that Hill's philosophies are as valid today as they were then. If you're looking to become the next Bill Gates, this is the book for you.
The Richest Man in Babylon
George S Clason
Hailed as a modern-day classic, this celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of – and a solution to – personal financial problems. Based on the success secrets of ancient "Babylonian parables", it is the most inspiring book on wealth ever written.
Start with Why
Simon Sinek
Why are some people and organisations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others?
And why are they able to repeat their success again and again? In business, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters why you do it. 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? Why do we do what we do? Why do we exist? Learning to ask these questions can unlock the secret to inspirational business. Sinek explains what it truly takes to lead and inspire and how anyone can learn how to do it.
Zero to One
Blake Masters and Peter Thiel
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there.
Grit
Angela Duckworth
In this must-read for anyone seeking to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth takes us on an eye-opening journey to discover the true qualities that lead to outstanding achievement. Winningly personal, insightful and powerful, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that – not talent or luck – makes all the difference.
Surrounded by Idiots
Thomas Erikson
Do you ever think you’re the only one making any sense? Or tried to reason with your partner with disastrous results? Do long, rambling answers drive you crazy? Or does your colleague’s abrasive manner get your back up?
You are not alone. After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was ‘surrounded by idiots’, communication expert and bestselling author, Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect with certain types of people.
Originally published in Swedish in 2014 as Omgiven Av Idioter, Erikon’s Surrounded by Idiots is already an international phenomenon, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide, of which over 750,000 copies have been sold in Sweden alone. It offers a simple, yet ground-breaking method for assessing the personalities of people we communicate with – in and out of the office – based on four personality types (Red, Blue, Green and Yellow), and provides insights into how we can adjust the way(s) we speak and share information.
Erikson will help you understand yourself better, hone communication and social skills, handle conflict with confidence, improve dynamics with your boss and team, and get the best out of the people you deal with and manage. He also shares simple tricks on body language, improving written communication and advice on when to back away or when to push on, and when to speak up or indeed shut up. Packed with ‘aha!’ and ‘oh no!’ moments, Surrounded by Idiots will help you understand and influence those around you, even people you currently think are beyond all comprehension.
And with a bit of luck you can also be confident that the idiot out there isn’t you!
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Extract: Think Again by Adam Grant