The Economist has just published its list of the top 6 business books of all time.
Huge and deserved congratulations to Business of Software 2011 speaker Professor Clayton Christensen who makes the list for his seminal, ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’.
“Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997) introduced one of the most influential modern business ideas—disruptive innovation—and proved that high academic theory need not be a disadvantage in a book aimed at the general reader. Mr Christensen showed that great companies can fail despite doing everything right: even as they listen to their customers and invest heavily in their most productive technologies, their markets can be destroyed by radical new technologies.” Aiming High, The Economist
It is a great read and it still astonishes me that I meet entrepreneurs that haven’t read it – a great source of insight and inspiration. Buy it from Amazon – The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
The six books picked by The Economist are:
- My Years with General Motors, Alfred Sloan, 1964
The Organisation Man
, William Whyte, 1956
- Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (Drucker series)
, Peter Drucker, 1973
- In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-run Companies, Tom Peters & Robert Waterman, 1982
- The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits, C.K. Prahalad, 2004
- The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Professor Clayton Christensen, 1997
What is the book that has made the single biggest impact on your business life?
I would also like to add a book by Jack Welch ‘Winning” …written in simple language that every employee can understand and apply to better manage business.