Chan, Kim and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business School Press, 2005. [Good for identifying new market opportunities.]

Christensen, Clayton. The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business. Collins Business Essentials, 2003. [Good for Global Giants to understand how markets often move out from under them.]

Collis, David J. and Michael G. Rukstad. Can You Say What Your Strategy Is. Harvard Business Review, April 2008.

Matteson, David and Jim Mattheson. The Smart Organization: Creating Value through Strategic R&D. Harvard Business School Press, 1998. [Excellent way of knowing how to build wisdom and intelligence through systems.]

Mintzberg, Henry, Bruce Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel. Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour through the Wilds of Strategic Management. Free Press, 1998. [One of the best books with a comprehensive view of strategic frameworks.]

Various authors. Harvard Business Review on Corporate Strategy. Harvard Business School Press, 1999. [Landmark reading across a 20-year horizon.]

If you want to know how collaboration, community, and our digital world will change how business is done, some good resources are:

Locke, Christopher, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger. The Cluetrain Manifesto. Basic Books, 2001.

Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. Anchor, 2005.

Tapscott, Don. Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation. McGraw-Hill, 1999.

Tapscott, Don. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Portfolio Hardcover, 2008.

Weinberger, David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. Times Books, 2007.

“Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009 – Robin Good’s Collaborative Map,” http://ow.ly/gAbk.

Choosing definitive leadership books to share is akin to answering the question, “Which is your favorite child?” That said, I recommend anything from Barry Posner, dean of the Santa Clara University Business School, and a few others that decode why “how we lead” matters.

Frisch, Bob. "When Teams Can’t Decide.” Harvard Business Review, November 2008.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Encouraging and Rewarding Others. Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge. Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Posner. Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Lencioni, Patrick M. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. Jossey-Bass, 2002.

Pruzan, Peter and Kirsten Pruzan Mikkelsen. Leading with Wisdom. Greenleaf Publishing, 2007.

Seidman, Dov. How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life). Wiley, 2007.

Streatfield, Phi. The Paradox of Control in Organizations (Complexity and Emergence in Organizations). Routledge, 2001.

In business, people often avoid tough discussions, but as the poet Rumi would say, “Without the rub, you cannot get to a polished stone.” These books might give you some tools and things to consider in defining your own approach.

Blanton, Brad. Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life By Telling the Truth. SparrowHawk Publications, 1996.

Haugk, Kenneth C. and Ruth Koch. Speaking Truth in Love. Stephen Ministries, 1992.

Matthies, Dennis. Precision Questioning Workshop. Vervago, Inc. http://www.vervago.com.

Noonan, William R. Discussing the Undiscussable: A Guide to Overcoming Defensive Routines in the Workplace. Jossey-Bass, 2007.

Patterson, Kerry, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Stone, Douglas, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Penguin Books, 1999.

The Hoffman Institute Foundation. In the Hoffman Process, scientifically proven benefits applied on the professional level result in increased self-confidence, greater ease in times of ambiguity, and the ability to stay centered under stress. In short, The Hoffman Process provides a practical way to apply self-awareness in a performance environment. The Hoffman Quadrinity Process. http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org.

Three outstanding books on how your stance and approach can infuse creativity into your work:

Deep, Sam and Lyle Sussman. Power Tools. Addison-Wesley, 1998.

de Bono, Edward. Six Thinking Hats. Back Bay Books, 1999.

Kelly, Tom and Jonathan Littman. The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization. Doubleday Business, 2003.

People often think of facilitation as a “soft people” thing because HR people do it, but the skill of facilitation is akin to learning how to lead an improv performance.

Interaction Associates. Facilitative Leadership®: Tapping the Power of Participation course.

Neuhauser, Peg C. Tribal Warfare in Organizations: Turning Tribal Conflict into Negotiated Peace. Harper Business, 1988.

Biz culture frankly sucks at making tough choices and getting people to step outside their own learned “best” approaches. Sometimes it seems like they’d rather peanut-butter-spread resources and fail slowly. We collectively must change that; these books are an amazing set of tools to do it:

Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. HarperCollins, 2008.

Howard, Ronald A. and Clinton D. Korver. Ethics in the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life. Harvard Business School Press, 2008.

Schwartz, Barry. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Harper Perennial, 2005.

Business cannot achieve new growth without change. After all, we have to stop doing some things to do things anew. And while we all “hate to change,” it can be done well or not so well. These compelling authors have given some great tools for leading a change effort:

Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t. Collins Business, 2001.

Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds (Leadership for the Common Good). Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. Harper, 1994.

Senge, M., Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, and Bryan Smith. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Doubleday Business, 1994.

Quite often, what stops people from being on the same side of the table is the listening skill set. We ought to add it to the education curriculum in every country. By listening well, people can move from the us-versus-them understanding to an us-versus-problem perspective. These have been instrumental in shaping my worldview:

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. Bantam, 1995.

Hart, Thomas N. The Art of Christian Listening. Paulist Press, 1980.