“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
~ Charles W. Eliot
As an executive startup coach, investor and advisor specializing in scaling companies, founders and clients often ask me for resources and book recommendations.
In the past few weeks, Nate Robert & Andrew Berberick, cofounders of Baton, asked me if I had any book recommendations for them.
I’m a voracious reader and usually have 4-5 books that I’m reading at a time in my Kindle (I have 1,200 books in my Kindle and two very large bookshelves full of books at home that I’m always adding to).
While there are thousands of new business books released every year, most of them, in my opinion, aren’t worth recommending – especially to busy clients running startup companies who need to stay focused and cut out all distractions and noise.
I’ve compiled a list of books below that I’ve found valuable enough to recommend to busy startup founders. Enjoy!
(Links are to Amazon, but I highly recommend finding them at your local bookstore, if possible.)
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith (I’ve always considered Marshall a mentor and we still email from time to time. I recommend this book to every executive I meet at some point – it has 20 habits that hold leaders back that are really good to know and address.)
- Kind Ambition: Practical Steps to Achieve Success Without Losing Your Soul by Ian Blei (Ian is a friend of mine and this is a short book with some really great content and action steps included throughout)
- Under the Hood: How to Fire Up and Fine Tune Your Employee Culture by Stan Slap (I worked with Stan at Standard Bank in South Africa a few years ago. He has some of the best research on culture out there – he definitely knows his stuff. This book really helps leaders understand that they aren’t part of the employee culture – they are outside of that culture trying to sell it something, including goals, ideas, strategies, etc.)
- The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You by Karla McLaren (This book changed my life – it may not seem like a business book at first glance, but knowing what each emotion means and is a signal for is really critical for leaders to know when you sense them in yourself and your team. Her background and introduction may deter people from reading beyond that, because she has a very odd approach, but the chapters on the emotions are really good.)
- High-Impact Tools for Teams by Stefano Mastrogiacoma & Alex Osterwalder (This book has some really great tools and exercises for teams around alignment, team agreements, frustrations, etc.)
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman (My client Tom Neff recommended this book to me and I use it with some clients specifically around vision, mission, values, etc. It has a straightforward “Entrepreneurial Operation System” model for developing clarity and accountability.)
- The Portable Coach: 28 Surefire Strategies for Business and Personal Success by Thomas Leonard (Thomas was my mentor until he died in 2003 and is the father of the coaching profession. I worked for him, traveled with him and learned more from him than any person other than my father. This book has tons of useful exercises and some counter-intuitive recommendations that really work. I highly recommend this book.)
If you have any resources that you really like and recommend, I’d really appreciate you sharing them in the comments below – I’m always on the lookout for great, new, helpful books!