No business owner is perfect, and we believe that there is always something new to learn or something to improve when it comes to running a business! An easy way to gaining insight and intelligence about the business industry is by reading some of the world’s best business books.
We gathered a list of the most highly regarded business books out there, and we highly suggest you get to reading: every book has a different message and story to tell!
The Innovator’s Dilemma
By Clayton M. Christensen
Recommended by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and other business powerhouses, The Innovator’s Dilemma is described as “on of the most influential business books of all time.” Published in 1997, Christensen touches on ever-changing technologies and how technology relates to a company’s potential success. Whatever the business, Christensen describes why and how companies will become irrelevant unless they adjust to modern practices as they appear and become popular.
The Innovator’s Dilemma serves as a blueprint for learning how to navigate innovation.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
By Dale Carnegie
This self-help book, first published in October of 1936, is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 15 million copies having been sold worldwide. Author Dale Carnegie’s words of advice in this bestseller are tried and true, which is why successful businesspeople and influencers alike swear by its guidance. Interested in a summary of the book’s contents? Take a look here!
How to Win Friends and Influence People is the best self-help book of its kind, designed to lead you in the direction of success.
Good to Great
By Jim Collins
The full title of this corporate strategy book is Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. Just as it sounds, Jim Collins examines how some businesses transition from being good companies to great companies, and how the majority of businesses fail to make said transition.
Published on October 16, 2001, the book defines “greatness” as “financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period.”
In Good to Great, Collins discovers the reason specific businesses become great: they focus almost entirely on their fields of competence alone.
Too Big to Fail
By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Released in October of 2009, Too Big to Fail covers the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the creation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The book has received great acclaim as a business book, even receiving the 2010 Gerald Loeb Award.
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – and Themselves tells the story of what was perhaps the biggest financial crisis ever seen before, and how the leaders of finance fought to save the world’s economy.
The Lean Startup
By Eric Ries
Defined by author Eric Ries, a startup is “an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” In The Lean Startup, Ries touches on how many business startups fail, and how many of those failures are completely avoidable. Ries explains how entrepreneurs don’t need elaborate business plans, and that there is a certain approach to be taken to building a business made to survive.
The Lean Startup is a must read for business owners looking to get their business off the ground.
Ariel Westphal
“Hi there! I’m Ariel, the Marketing Director for Acumen Connections. I led the team in establishing Acumen Connections’ identity and processes when Brian J. Staver purchased the company in 2017. Nowadays, Renee and Anna do most of the heavy lifting on the content writing side as I oversee all marketing initiatives, but our team works together to create an environment that supports Acumen Connections’ mission of “Building Business Connections”.