RECOMMENDED READING
As authors, we have the privilege of standing on the shoulders of giants. As authors of a holistic business book, these giants come from diverse backgrounds. To that point, if you’d like to further explore the intersections of mindfulness and innovation mapped out in this book, please open up the following titles.
ON MEDITATION
The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
When people ask us about meditation, this is the first book we recommend. If you don’t yet know him, Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Zen Master and one of the foremost living Buddhist teachers. This slim book, now a classic, took shape from a series of letters to a friend about the nature of meditation, and serves as the most lucid introduction to the practice.
Start Where You Are by Pema Chödrön
If Miracle is a perfect introduction to mindfulness, Start Where You Are is the perfect introduction to loving-kindness meditation. Structured around a centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist practice of arising compassion, Pema Chödrön, the American nun’s pragmatic approach to the problem (and opportunity) of suffering is something you will find yourself walking around with, whether or not the book is in your hand.
ON HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Flow by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi
In Flow, Czikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist, advances the argument that your life is the product of the way you invest your attention. That attention is best invested in a state of flow, that sweet spot where your skills match the challenge at hand, whether it’s playing tennis, managing a company, or writing a book. And like a good teacher, Czikszentmihalyi helps us to see how to structure more flow into our lives.
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
When we talk about myth, we tend to marginalize the word—to mythologize is to make grand, yes, but also to make unreal and unrelateable. Campbell, the comparative mythologist and student of Carl Jung, spent a lifetime explaining how the mythic may be the most real thing we have—for myths are simply the ways we organize meaning in our lives. The Power of Myth comes from a series of interviews he did with Bill Moyers at the conclusion of his career. By the end, we see the way Campbell structured meaning in his life.
ON PEOPLE AT WORK
Give and Take by Adam Grant
What if the people who get ahead are those who give the most? Such is the argument of Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who divides the working world into takers, people who are always looking to extract value; matchers, people who are always looking for an even split; and givers, people who are always looking to help. Intriguingly enough, it’s the givers who get the most in the end.
The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile
How do we ensure that people find themselves doing meaningful work? What’s the connection between meaning and engagement? How does all this relate to innovation and financial success? In The Progress Principal, the Harvard Business School research director Teresa Amabile makes clear the implicit, often murky qualities of our interior lives at work. With that helpful articulation, we can work a little—or a lot—better.
ON INNOVATION
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
The original and still the best, Christensen’s Dilemma dissects our innovation economy and helps us to see why creativity presents such a dilemma to organizations as they grow. Few books of the past 30 years have had such an influence on business and provided a vocabulary for the way we work. For these reasons and more, this is a must-read.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The thing about people is that they don’t really know what they want—but innovators can provide it for them. In The Lean Startup, entrepreneur-turned-guru Eric Ries provides a road map for rapidly bringing products to market and allowing the customer to tell you if you’re making what they need. Ries’s work has become orthodoxy in the start-up world, so we’d do well to know it—how else can we rebel?
ON WHERE WE ARE NOW
The Connected Company by Dave Gray
with Thomas Vander Wal
The walls that separate company from customer are growing ever more porous. The Connected Company shows how, exactly, this is happening, and what it means for the structures and running of our organizations. Plus it has terrific illustrations—always a bonus.
11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era
by Nilofer Merchant
Our friend Nilofer Merchant has surveyed the newly forming geography of the working world. In this book we come to realize how much the Social Era is about much more than social media; more than spending our days on Twitter and Facebook, we’ve now shifted paradigms into openness and fluidity. As such, organizations that were once gorillas need to turn into gazelles.
ON MANAGEMENT
The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker
Few people embody a craft as Drucker embodied management. This book distills six decades of his insights into the philosophy of business—as such, it’s required reading for anyone thinking deeply about the way we work.
The Power of Convergence by Faisal Hoque
While it might be bad form to recommend one’s own book, Convergence is very much the quantitative sibling to Everything Connects. If you want to get deeper into the hardcore management science that served as the original impetus to the book you’ve now finished, read this. We’ll be happy to see you again.