CIO and IT executives who read The Heller Report have recommended the following books on leadership, business and technology for 2016.
Happy New Year! As is our annual rite of winter, we present our 2016 Recommended CIO Reading List, a compilation of books on business, technology and life submitted by readers of The Heller Report. Enjoy!
(Listed alphabetically by author's last name)
The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired
by Lou Adler
Recommended by Chris Van Liew
"Terrific and very practical recommendations for how to find the candidate you really want through the hiring process, not to mention great counsel for anyone preparing to interview for a role themselves!"
A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
by Warren Berger
Recommended by Marc Dimmick
"CIO's are looked upon to provide answers. The trouble is if you don't have the right question then your answer will probably not hit the mark. Warren Berger, through story and example takes the reader on a journey to learn how to ask a beautiful question."
Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine
by Jeanne Bliss
Recommended by Anonymous
"One of the best regarding customer experience and among the most practical books I have read. I strongly recommend this book for CCOs, CIOs and CMOs."
Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead
by Laszlo Bock
Recommended by Anton Batalla
"Chock full of great advice on how to be a good manager/leader based on analysis done by Google's People Operations team over the years."
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
Recommended by Adam Gorski
"Most CIOs put great strategic plans together, secure resources, but most of the projects fail to deliver expected results on time. This book is a blueprint for how to get things done."
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown
Recommended by Bill Scudder
"Describes how a finely tuned and aligned organization, in this case a scull, can outperform other organizations that are affected by misalignment/drag. Also describes the keen leadership eye that can spot the misalignments and make corrections."
Under New Management: How Leading Organizations Are Upending Business as Usual
by David Burkus
Recommended by Howard Cornett
"This book takes a look at how the change in business in the digital age is changing the way we manage and the way we SHOULD manage. It is loaded with specific examples of what other companies have done and how they have succeeded by, in some cases, fundamentally changing how they operate. Truly for those brave souls wiling to innovate with their companies."
The BRMP® Guide to the BRM Body of Knowledge
by The Business Relationship Management Institute
Recommended by K. Barnes
"You will learn to converge with the business and share accountability for business results, drive culture that eliminates silos within organizations and instead fosters collaboration. You will learn how to communicate business value results."
Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family
by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia
Recommended by German Valencia
"It's a fascinating book filled with touching personal stories of real employees whose lives were changed for the better forever when they began working at Barry-Wehmiller. The book is co-written by the CEO who has put people at the centre of his business."
Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change: Inspire the People and Succeed Where Others Fail
by H. James Dallas
Recommended by Vitaly Khozyainov
"This book is written by a CIO who made his way to top leadership roles. It is based on contemporary stories, not on experience from the previous century. The language is simple yet clear. Advice is very practical, and based on concepts that do not require a degree in sociology to understand."
Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World
by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Recommended by Gary Hoke
"Big achievements start with big goals. This books provides IT leaders and entrepreneurs with the big picture insights about how emerging technologies will revolutionize the world over the coming decades. The forward-thinking content in this book will allow you to consider how these emerging technologies will impact your industry, company and life so you can develop proactive strategies to stay ahead of the competition."
Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United
by Alex Ferguson
Recommended by Mark Southam
"Great views and insight into leading sports team that translates into basic business day to day."
Also recommended by Plamen Bliznakov
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
Recommended by anonymous
"Great insights into how we as a society view and treat our aging population. Something that our nation needs to address as 10,000 people a day age into Medicare eligibility (thru 2029)!"
by Bill George
Recommended by Khwaja Shaik
"This is the most robust and practical leadership book - a must read for all leaders. Corporate CEOs and leaders at all levels - myself included- have been inspired by the works of Bill George. Get ready for a life changing experience."
F
uture Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
by Marc Goodman
Recommended by Norm Fjeldheim
"A terrific book on cybercrime, and what can be done about it. Marc teaches at Singular University, and also is a great speaker. His book is well worth reading."
by Gary Hamel
Recommended by Ron Pepin
"Outlines what will be important to employees, the future of organizations, and why leaders need to adjust."
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Recommended by Maryfran Johnson
"The best leaders are masters of change management, and this wonderful book (circa 2010) is filled with entertaining stories that teach profound lessons about how and why people change. Anyone seeking to lead in the "hearts and minds" style will find much to treasure in the advice of the Heath brothers (both organizational psychologists)."
Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale
by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O'Reilly
Recommended by Peter Sprung
"As a business leader and as software eats the world, the CIO must collaboratively create competitive advantage through technology and building a culture of innovation. Emerging know-how and how-to best practices for doing so are described in this insightful book."
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
by Phil Jackson
Recommended by Anthony Metrakos
"This book has helped me in many different levels. The main level is leading teams, where I have so many different personalities."
by Henry Kissinger
Recommended by Sheryl Bunton
"Understand geopolitical forces and broaden mindset via the lessons of history."
Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
by L. David Marquet
Recommended by Martin Mendez
"A very good read for those leaders that want to empower their teams with autonomous capabilities and decision making."
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
by General Stanley McChrystal
Recommended by Ajay Kumar
"In our fast changing environment, organizational structure and related attributes are getting more and more complicated. This books is for executives to provide a fresh view on new rule of engagement for a complex world."
Recommended by Dr. Mike Lewis
"When I started this book I thought it would be yet another military hero story, and full disclosure, the first bits read that way. However, the book makes a turn to become a book about creating environments where many people can find success across a true diversity of needs. It truly demonstrates a 'build it and they will come' approach to creating the best teams available at the time. As you read this book, many things will surprise you. The number one surprise to me was the repeated demonstration of humility and humble acts. See the trash can story to understand what I mean. I have added this book to my graduating MBAs future reading list to help them become better leaders, based on the examples in this book."
Truman by David McCullough
Recommended by Chris Van Liew
"Finding the right leaders to emulate is important for a CIO, and these leaders should not be limited to other CIO's. Truman is a very detailed and unvarnished look at an American leader who had the greatest responsibilities imaginable, who could well carry his successes and his failures, and who knew better than to think too highly of himself in the process. There is much to emulate (and a bit to avoid as well) in this book for all leaders today."
by Nicholas de Monchaux
Recommended by Mark Cybulski
"Fascinating mixture of history, science, technology, politics, media, and culture, including a backbone about systems engineering of complex systems that must combine technology with humans."
The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
Recommended by Robert Ross
"It's a great read to help you understand people in a way that might not come naturally."
Corporate Chanakya: Successful Management the Chanakya Way
by Radhakrishnan Pillai
Recommended by Raghu Adaveni
"Chankya is well known Ancient Leader in AsiaPac. It's very important to know how to blend knowledge, skills, strategy, decision making and attack plans. Every Leader should know about Chanakya's techniques."
How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
by George Polya
Recommended by Omar Halabieh
"A masterpiece on problem solving - an indispensable leadership skill."
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
by Simon Sinek
Recommended by Devan Dewey
"This book has completely reshaped the way I think about everything."
Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes--But Some Do
by Matthew Syed
Recommended by Craig Edwards
"Fantastic book about learning from your mistakes. From airlines, to healthcare to David Beckham, this will change how you think and learn from life's failures, to deliver success."
The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All
by Michael Useem
Recommended by Claudia Young
"Fascinating, enchanting, and easy read. Well worth your time!"
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time
by Laura Vanderkam
Recommended by Barbie Bigelow
"Dealing with strategic and operational polarities and conflicting priorities is inherent in leadership, especially CIO leadership. I Know How She Does It challenges the common belief that successful executives don't have leisure or family time. Laura's book gives a data driven look at how a set of moms with big jobs make the most of time with some surprising insights.The revelation for me was how much flexibility we have and that at least 100 other women (the subjects of the study) have found effective ways to use little bits of time. Using that flexibility means we can have both rewarding careers doing what we love and everything else. I used audible to listen during my run (Laura would be proud)."
F.I.R.E.: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained, and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation
by Dan Ward
Recommended by Ken Piddington
"This is a great book about how to ignite innovation, helping leaders apply strategic concepts and decision-making principles. It provides some great foundational guidance on innovation"
Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
by Liz Wiseman
Recommended by Eduard de Vries
"Great book for leaders , the main focus of the book is how we can improve ourselves; be more of a multiplier and less diminisher. We each have behaviors in both categories and this book will help you and your staff recognize the unproductive traits versus productive, then reduce diminishing and increase multiplier behavior. The book offers real-world examples, which makes the content applicable to more junior leaders. After reading this book, I bought it for all my leaders, reviewed it as a group. The concepts and terms are now a part of our everyday vocabulary. I highly recommend this book."
See the 2015 CIO Recommended Reading List
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