Autumn reading

Becoming a Better Boss: Why Good Management is So Difficult

Author: Julian Birkinshaw
Publisher: Jossey Bass

Management is universal and timeless, but it receives an endlessly bad press.  Birkinshaw has led the intellectual charge on management’s behalf, first by co-founding the Management Innovation Lab with Gary Hamel, and now with this new book which charts the realities of managing in today’s global organisations.  Notable are the range and compellingly real nature of Birkinshaw’s examples: managers wrestling with familiar organisational demons, and sometimes winning.

The Proactive Leader: How to Overcome Procrastination and be a Bold Decision Maker

Author: David De Cremer
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Not a book to linger by in the bookshop, this demands a quick decision.  It asks fundamental and familiar questions: Why do leaders delay decisions? Are they aware of their own tendency to procrastinate? Are they able and willing to prevent it? David De Cremer provides insights and tools to identify the psychological and situational factors that cause procrastination in leaders.

Brand Breakout: How Emerging Market Brands will go Global

Authors: Nirmalya Kumarand Jan-Benedict Steenkamp
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

The one piece missing from the jigsaw of the economic rejuvenation of nations such as China is their ability to create global brands.  Kumar and Steenkamp analyse the reality behind the excitement and chart the rise of brands which have managed to make the leap from emerging markets to the world stage.  It can and will be done.

The New Business Road Test

Author: John Mullins
Publisher: FT/Prentice Hall

The fourth edition of John Mullins’ essential reading for would-be entrepreneurs.  Mullins identifies seven domains for the assessment of any market opportunity and guides you through how to test and improve your idea. Offers a practical route to discovering whether your brilliant idea is worth a business plan and likely to make for a successful enterprise.
 

The I of Leadership: Strategies for seeing, being and doing

Author: Nigel Nicholson
Publisher: Jossey Bass

“From the leader’s point of view, true effectiveness comes from self-management, the ‘I’ of leadership.  On the leadership journey it is necessary to have conversations. Some of the most important are with oneself,” writes Nigel Nicholson, offering a uniquely wide ranging take on leadership.
 

China’s Growth

Author: Linda Yueh
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Over the last 30 years, China has not only doubled its GDP and income every seven to eight years, it has also lifted 660 million people (or one-tenth of the world’s population) out of abject poverty. With its 1.3 billion people accounting for one-fifth of the global population, China’s economic growth has begun to shape the world and yet the determinants of its successful development are far from established or well-understood. Linda Yueh explains them.