INSPIRATION
WHAT THE
C-SUITE
IS READING Give and Take:
T
wenty-four years ago, the story goes, Bill Gates asked Warren Buffet what his favorite book was. The answer: Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks, a 1969 collection of New Yorker articles. It became Gates’s favorite book, too. The two business titans weren’t the first or last to derive inspiration from between the covers of a good business book. What, we wondered, do leaders of successful mid-size corporations recommend today? Here, some answers from our wholly unscientific survey.
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Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant
“The ideas about understanding the dynamics of people and how to deal with them can be applied to every company in every situation.” —Chris Dyer, CEO, PeopleG2, a human capital risk management firm, Brea, California
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eli Goldratt
“This 1984 novel (who writes a business novel?) about fictional plant manager Alex Rogo’s fight to save his job and his factory through sheer critical thinking about business and process changed my life and my company.” —Soren Ryherd, president, Working Planet Marketing Group, Providence, Rhode Island
Winter 2015
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