I read a lot and not many books make much of an impression on me to be honest. However of the hundreds of books I have read, the following 5 have fundamentally changed the way I think. They all contain ideas and concepts which I have been able to apply in the real world. Read them and reflect and I’m sure you will be able to extract some nuggets of information which will influence your thinking too.
1. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Kahneman is a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize for economics with his work on the processes that underpin our decision-making and judgement. This book is a superlative distillation of his thinking and of the vast range of experiments he has been involved in throughout his career. It will change how you think about the way we make decisions and choices for ever!
2. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
How talented are the great leaders in business and society? How much is their performance down to chance rather than skill? This book looks in a new way at how we perceive random events as having meaning and how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences.
3. Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell
Looks at why some people are able to achieve so much more than others and what makes them special – it might surprise you! I don’t necessarily agree with all the conclusions Gladwell draws, but it certainly makes you reflect on how success is achieved.
4. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More with Less – Richard Koch
The 80/20 Principle demonstrates how you can achieve much more with much less effort, time and resources, simply by concentrating on the most important 20% to achieve 80% of the results. A bit repetitive in places but worth persevering with.
5. The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli
Written in 1532 this book is a treatise on how to gain and retain absolute power and it remains a best seller nearly 500 years after it was published. You can still see the principles outlined in the book at work every day in politics, organisations, committees etc. Once you understand what is going on and how they use Machiavellian principles, the actions of politicians etc. becomes a whole lot clearer!
Read these books and you will never perceive the world in quite the same way again!
Do you have any recommendations for me?
( Reviewed January 2018)
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