March 22, 2011

You’re busy, I know. Too busy to read all of the books you see and think, “Hmmmm, that one might be useful I’m gonna pick that one up.”  In the business category alone, Amazon.com has 1.3 million entries, and within that 30,000-plus for small business and entrepreneurship. Yikes.  

Well, this week we decided to cull through the masses and pull out the best. Not by reading them all (sorry, but I don’t have time for that either) but by asking a few key experts—successful entrepreneurs, business pros and the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine—for the titles they thought were must-reads. 

Here are their picks:

• The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, by Clayton Christensen.  This book isn’t new, it was published in 2003. But it’s a tried and true classic, says Amy Cosper from Entrepreneur. “The copy I have is highlighted, dog-eared and generally beat down from constant use and frequent reference. Christensen takes a deep look at how and why businesses need to stay relevant by adapting not only to your customers’ needs, but also a changing marketplace and changing technologies.” He also digs deep into the failures of great companies and leaders, so you’ll learn why they went down. Most of the case studies are based on larger businesses, but Cosper says the lessons transcend size.

• Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader and Have a Richer Life, by Stewart Freidman. This comes by way of a recommendation from Prof. Stephen Kobrin, the executive director of the Wharton Digital Press at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It’s a different take on work-life balance—something I talk about all the time, in this space and elsewhere— that shows you how to use leadership skills to do well at work, at home, in your community and personally, and within yourself.  “It’s a guide to using leadership to integrate all of the parts of one’s life—one of the best, and most realistic takes on work-life balance that’s available,” says Kobrin.

• Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein. Marc Cenedella, founder and CEO of TheLadders.com, a search service for jobs paying $100,000 or more, says this book can help you put the risks of owning your own company in perspective. “Some people mistakenly think that entrepreneurship is about taking lots of risk. It’s not. It’s actually about taking risks that you think other people misunderstand as big risks. So starting a computer company in the Arizona deserts in 1975 isn’t risky if you’re Bill Gates and you know they are going to power the world’s future.” Cenedella also recommended two other reads: Made in Japan, by Akiio Morita (co-founder of Sony) and Made in America, by Sam Walton (founder of Walmart). He suggests taking them on back to back to see the differences in how the men approached customer service and employee culture building—both, of course, ended up highly successful.

• Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model, by John Mullins and Randy Komisar. This one came out in 2009, and is the pick of Prof. Murray Low, the director of The Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School. It takes you through real life examples of companies, including Apple, who had to shift and experiment to get to where they are today. The point? You may not get it right on the first try. “It debunks the idea of the ‘perfect business plan’ and provides practical guidance on how to think about a winning business model,” says Low. “It gives both comfort and direction to entrepreneurs who are struggling with plan A.” As you know, flexibility is key in any business, small or large.  

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell. This is less about building your business, more about stumbling on the next big idea and marketing it—although it’s a good read at any part of the process.  Cherie Stine, the COO of OCG Products—which makes Stretchy Shapes, a Silly Bandz look-a-like, and Tech Candy patterned iPhone cases—says she and her partner, April Mraz, were having coffee one day when they started discussing Gladwell’s book, which is about social epidemics (essentially, why every kid in America had a bright silicone bracelet around their wrist for a year, or why most people have iPods despite the range of MP3 players on the market). “It’s about how quickly an idea can catch on and spread, and also about how people can capitalize on these trends and ‘ride the wave,’” says Stine. “The discussion really got under April’s skin. She has an insatiable curiosity and within two days, she understood who the major players were in the silicone bracelet craze and how and when they were shipping product to stores.” Two weeks later, the duo opened a kiosk at the mall, and two weeks after that, they opened their second. In under a year, they had 62 sales representatives nationwide, plus outposts in Germany, the U.K., Australia and Denmark.

Jean Chatzky is financial editor of NBC's "Today" show, a contributing editor at More magazine and author of "Money 911: Your Most Pressing Money Questions Answered, Your Money Emergencies Solved." She recently launched the Jean Chatzky Score Builder in partnership with  smartcredit.com. Check out her blog at jeanchatzky.com and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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