The Business shelf is the heaviest one in the bookcase, both by interest and by necessity. I could probably split it in sub-shelves, either by type of authors (academics, business people), by type of business (IT, publishing, aviation, etc.) or by themes (innovation, leadership, change management, etc.). This shelf contrasts with the Novels shelf, one being fiction and the other non-fiction. The leadership theme has a clear link to the Civilizations shelf, as leaders played a key role in the evolution of civilizations.
Two of my favorite business books are Good to great: Why some companies make the leap… and some don’t, by Jim Collins, which reminded me of Jared Diamond’s study of civilizations, and Too big to fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin, who told us the story of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
My favorite academic authors are John Kotter, who wrote about leading change, Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, Noel Tichy and Peter Drucker. I enjoyed the books by business leaders who shared their experience, tips and principles, like Virgin’s Richard Branson, GE’s Jack Welch, IBM’s Lou Gerstner, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Steve Jobs or Ogilvy on Advertising.
I have special interests in innovation, with books like Diffusion of innovation and Mastering the dynamic of innovation, and in sales and marketing, with books like Harry Beckwith’s The invisible touch and Selling the invisible.
I’m tempted to create a sub-shelf for the travel business, or aviation, a type of business that I follow more closely. The books by Nawal Taneja, like Designing future-oriented airline businesses, Airline industry: Poised for disruptive innovation? or Re-platforming the airline business to meet travelers’ total mobility needs, would fit on this shelf.