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Authors: Jack Trout & Al Ries Brief: You may still be half-exposed to the world of marketing if the grey-haired professors at your b-school forgot to suggest you this book or you, being oblivious to the power-content of this book, tossed it off in the drawer never to pick it up again. "Positioning: The battle for your mind"(1981) turned out to be a path-breaking book changing the perspective of the businesses about the 'mind place', forever. Not long after this book hit the market, Madison Avenue executives began to develop positioning slogans for their clients. The contemporaneous nature and content of this book compounded with the clutter due to proliferation of brands in the marketplace, make this book more relevant than ever. I would reiterate the advice of several Marketing professionals about this book - read it at least once every six months.  Authors: Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad Brief: For all those aspiring-to-be CEOs, this book is a must. Hamel and Prahalad brought two ideas to the forefront of management in the 1990s: Creating a strategic intent that dominates corporate thinking, and then understanding the core competencies that the organization requires to get there. Rather than create numerous 5 year plans, communicate the direction and insure you have the skills to get there. While some of its specific examples have aged and its basic message around core competencies and numerator growth rather than denominator reduction have passed into common business parlance, it is still a solid read that has much to offer. Every businessperson has to decide what his or her company is going to do, how it is going to do it, and what its future course will be. This is a surprisingly complex task and it is all too easy to make the wrong steps simply because they seem safe, pragmatic, and obvious.  Author: Gary Hamel
Brief: 'Leading the revolution' is a thought-provoking, 'get-out-and-do-it' masterpiece from one of the most prolific authors in the management arena. With his inimitable and provocative style of writing, Gary Hamel puts forth his ideas and insights in a manner that can even mobilize half-dead. Hamel instructs the grey-haired-revolutionaries to take the reins from ruling-class managers, kill the orthodoxies that lurk in the organizations and come up with radical innovations that forever change the underlying rules of the game. He corroborates each imperative with real-life examples of revolutionaries, such as John Patrick and David Grossman at IBM, Ken Kutaragi at Sony, and Georges Dupont-Roc at Shell. All in all, 'leading the revolution' is full of novel thoughts, POAs and models. Even the worst of the critics can lap up dozens of insights and ideas from this book. Required reading! 
Authors: David A Aaker and Eric Joachimsthaler Brief: Tom Peters extols this book as the ultimate book written on branding. Unlike his previous two bestsellers - 'Building strong brands' and 'Building brand equity' - the third installment of his trilogy goes a step ahead and proclaims that strong brands should be nurtured strategically than tactically. Opportunities of the long-term should not be sacrificed at the altar of tomorrow. Aaker and Joachimsthaler start off the proceedings with a long-winded yet interesting-to-read example of P&G's brand man. They follow it up with brand architecture and brand portfolio theories corraborated with case-histories of Colgate, Toyota etc. Authors also explain how sponsorships are a different brand-building tool than self-directed, paid advertising campaigns. Extensive case-histories of Nike, Adidas, Mastercard, Virgin, LL Bean make the book an interesting read. In conclusion, 'brand leadership' is about moving from tactical to strategic brand management and integrating the brand strategy into organization's overall business strategy. This book is a must read for students of marketing and for executives who are stuck in the warp of tactical marketing. 
Author: Jeffrey Sachs Brief: Do you blame apathetic Governments, corrupt regimes, poverty etc for African plight? If yes, then head to your nearest bookstore and get this book. It will help you break out of stereotypical thinking. Sachs' work can be labeled nothing less than stellar. He has written this book with a broad agenda on mind - achievement of UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by year 2015 and complete elimination of poverty by year 2025- and yet doesn't leave out the subtlest of explanations about the predicaments facing poor countries. An exemplar is the chapter where Sachs touches upon pathology and discusses sporogany, AIDS, yellow fever and so forth. When was the last time you read an economist deliberating on malarial viruses' transformation cycles? In presenting his argument, he takes the readers through world economic history to the turnarounds of many economies he was a part of. One can find fantastic insights garbed in fancy-phrases such as 'Analytical deliberation', 'Differential diagnosis', 'Clinical Economics', etc. in the book. Sachs' solutions to the problems are backed up by 'hard-to-ignore', crushing data-analysis. A chart in the book mentions that the income of top 400 taxpayers is more than the combined GDP of five African countries. The biggest plus of this book is its objectivity. Sachs has been unrelenting in his blatant criticism of some Nobel laureates, American policies and indifferent attitude of the rich world at large towards poor countries. Sachs sheds light on the fact how US has reneged on its commitment of contributing 0.7% of its GNP/year towards poor countries. Given the relevant content and the significance of this book, I can safely presume that it will stand the test of time for the years to come.  Author: Jack Trout Brief: Not long since parting ways with his co-author Al Ries, Jack Trout gave us a book full of big-guys bashing and commonsense. Trout performs dissection on companies such as General Motors, DEC, Xerox, AT&T, Crest and his all-time favorite Miller Beer. He drives home the point how differentiation amongst the sub-brands in a portfolio matters. And for this purposse, he choses General Motors - the struggling auto giant. He lays down the brand portfolio strategy for GM - it should phase out the Dogs in its portfolio, cut down on plethora of sub-brands (70 of them) to maintain differentiation. At the time of publication of this book, GM had 28% market share of global auto industy. And as i write this piece, it's down to 24.3%, with Toyota knocking on the door after havind dislodged Chrysler from its no 3 position. However, It's still not 'game over' for GM. All i can say is that top brass at GM would benefit from Trout's advice.Trout also takes into cross-hairs Ken Olsen, Peter Rogers and even Michael Porter. Book's last three chapters about the board-of-directors, competitors and how to be a good CEO are worth the money spent. Trout elaborates how boards have degenerated into coteries of old cronies, he also outlines certain guidelines for selecting an ideal board-of-directors. 
Author: Benjamin Graham; revised by Jason Zweig Brief: Warren Buffett considers Benjamin Graham someone more than his teacher and his guide. In the preface to the revised 4th edition of this book, Buffett brands it the best book on investing ever written. 'The Intelligent investor' was first published in 1949 followed by three updated editions till 1973. Since then, it has sold over a million copies worldwide. In year 2003, a new revised 4th edition was published with commentary on each chapter from Jason Zweig - a Senior writer and columnist with Money magazine. This edition runs to 20 chapters, 689 pages, with appendixes and endnotes only constituting 52 pages. It showcases Graham's sound and safe principles for investing - principles that have worked for more than the half century since it was first published - with nuggets of wisdom from Zweig, too. Graham's principles and guidelines avoid any overtones of sermonizing and self-importance. The whole book is a manifestation of Graham's core principles (which include margin of safety, realistic approach of an investor towards stocks, etc.) mentioned in the introductory chapter. Book appears to be bang on with its first chapter - Investment vs speculation. Graham captures the essence of the whole chapter in one statement - "People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers." First 9 chapters of the book cover investing basics that all investors could benefit from. These chapters provide the investor with a realistic picture of how Wall Street works and what investors need to do to come out ahead. Chapter 12 to chapter 16 focus on pre-share earnings, stock selection for defensive investor and enterprising investor, convertible issues and warrants. Chapter 18 compares and contrasts 8 pairs of companies (from auto manufacturers to real estate cos to industrial equipment cos.). Zweig also keeps up with Graham when he draws comparisons between modern day pairs - Yahoo vs Yum, Palm vs 3Com, Nortel vs Nortek, etc. Chapter 19 does a threadbare analysis on the dividend policy with respect to shareholders and management. Graham winds up with elaboration on one of his core principles - 'Margin of safety' - in Chapter 20. Even if one reads chapters 1,5,6,12,14,15,18,19,20 and follows Graham's pieces of advice religiously, one would not only immensly benefit but also be distinctive and realistic in one's financial expectations. In the nutshell, beautifully packaged, this essential work is a must-have for students and working executives alike.  Authors: Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler Brief: In case, you are not able to connect with the names of the above-mentinoed authors, let me tell you that none of them is a big-time management Guru and worse, none of them has ever put forth a rallying concept to be taught in b-schools. Books of this genre hardly create a buzzword in b-schools despite the fact that they hold wisdom critical to the success of future business leaders. More than that, this book is applicational in non-business aspects of life, too. 'Crucial Confrontations' is based on a study carried out on more than 1000 successful problem-solvers across the world. In everyday life, we often come across situations wherein individuals fail to live up to the expectations of their seniors or their family members. If at all anybody steps up to the issue, they often do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Reason why this happens is that a majority of us don't know how to step up to confrontations and steer them to a successful conclusion. And that is exactly the purpose this book has been written for. It provides the readers with an often overlooked need for fruitful confrontations. Finally, 'Crucial Confrontations' is one of Tom Peters' favorite books. Need I say, "Recommended!"  Author: Stephen R Covey
Brief: One book that really changed my perspective on personal growth, human relationships and time management, is Stephen Covey's masterpiece. All of us look at things around us in the way we have been programmed, not in the way things actually are. And that is the cornerstone of Covey's book - 'principle-centred philosophy'. Book's about seven habits that one must inculcate to change one's stereotypical thought architecture and simultaneously, have better control over one's life. Rather than focusing on personal relationships or productivity, Covey goes about it in a cogent manner, changing readers' perception almost as instantly as they finish Covey's exquisitely written lines. This is one of those rare books which has to be perused not skimmed through. Covey's concepts certainly hold water, and with readers' willingness, can certainly induce the changes they promise. It's a book that would never lose its relevance. 
Author: Scott Adams Brief: Ok! I know a book so scathing and virulent about good-old management practices doesn't deserve a place on any 'Hall of Fame' list. So what, if this book was a bestseller, got recommended by a bunch of iconoclasts and was made a 'required reading' in many Business schools. After all, how can a cartoonist blow to shreds the despicable yet sacrosanct-considered strictures of modern business? Many critics have panned this book as an ultimate cheapshot by a disgruntled employee, thus questioning Adams' intentions. The fact of the matter, however, is that 'The Dilbert Principle' is as irrefutable as it is corrosive. Scott Adams drew upon his experiences at Pacific Bell - the company where he worked for nine years - while writing this book. Much to the chagrin of many, the basic premise of this book is that all human beings are idiots. Adams, very tactfully, works up this premise into 'the Dilbert principle' which states that the most ineffective workers are systematically promoted to management positions to prevent them from doing any further harm. This book ought to be a part of one's management books repertory - not because it's anti-management - but for the simple fact that it brings to the light the hidden agendas, uncanny games and unspoken practices that are actually followed in most organizations. Next >> |
