To Sell Is Human
 

The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

by Daniel H. Pink

Book Summary

As a manager, your role is to influence your stake holders. This will look a lot of different ways, but when you really get right down to it, we are talking about sales. When you take the negative connotation away and acknowledge the power in better understanding how to move others, the awareness is prevailing. The book then walks the reader through “How to Be” and then “What to Do” by utilizing social science to support the ideas. The author works to convince the reader to broaden their perspective on the value and importance of selling in our everyday lives.

Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

Book Summary

How is a visionary created? In this entertaining biography, Walter Isaacson honestly explores the life and times of visionary, entrepreneur and creative mastermind Steve Jobs. Along with candid interviews with Jobs himself, the book is full of anecdotal stories from friends and colleagues that help explain the intensity, intuition and obsessive control of a complex man almost everyone has heard of, but few people really understood. His company, Apple, became a beacon of business and brand success, making Jobs one of the most well-known business leaders in the world. From his life shaping experience of being abandoned as a child to the bumps along the road, Jobs’ desire to innovate and create highly functional and useful products for the end consumer led to his ultimate success despite his many character flaws.

Tribes

We Need You to Lead Us
by Seth Godin (2008)

Read It? Only if you've ever had an idea that is bigger than you are.

Book summary

It’s good to be the king… which is why the kings of the world, including those in the business and management world, fight change and keep the “peasants” in the dark.  The days of the old factory model of business, where the game is played to guard positions of power, are nearing an end.  Those who drive change against the system (the Heretics) are winning because of the power of tribes created around the heretic and her powerful ideas.  These tribes have great power.  They have toppled and created whole governments, new products, and new ways to live life.  Today, it is easier than ever to build a tribe…  and the tribe needs YOU.