News & Opinion

The Best Books of 2012, strategy + business Edition

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November 27, 2012

The strategy + business best of business books list is always one of our favorites of the year—one we always look forward to—and this year's does not disappoint. The strength of the list is in it's breadth and flexibility. The categories always change slightly to reflect the important topics of the year, and they choose experts on those topics to pick the best books published in those categories.

The strategy + business best of business books list is always one of our favorites of the year—one we always look forward to—and this year's does not disappoint. The strength of the list is in it's breadth and flexibility. The categories always change slightly to reflect the important topics of the year, and they choose experts on those topics to pick the best books published in those categories. The picks are decidedly different from most other lists. They tend to include more obscure books than most other "best of" lists, so you may be hearing of some of these books for the first time, and they provide lengthy essays to explain the importance of those books, to boot. (Be sure to head over to the stratey + business site to take in those essays, as it is one of the things that makes the list so special.)

This year's categories are Biography, Strategy, Marketing, Innovation, Healthcare, Organizational Culture, and Capitalism. So, let's get to it...

Choosing the best Biography, Alice Schroeder (author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life) picked books that demonstrated Virtuosity Squared:

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith, Random House
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster
Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky, Doubleday

Considering Competition, Phil Rosenzweig (author of The Halo Effect... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers) chose the best books on Strategy:

The New Emerging Market Multinationals: Four Strategies for Disrupting Markets and Building Brands by Amitava Chattopadhyay & Rajeev Batra, with Aysegul Ozsomer, McGraw-Hill
Pragmatic Strategy: Eastern Wisdom, Global Success by Ikujiro Nonaka & Zhichang Zhu, Cambridge University Press
Competitive Strategy: Options and Games by Benoit Chevalier-Roignant & Lenos Trigeorgis, MIT Press

Looking at books on Marketing, Shaun Holliday (a senior executive advisor in Booz & Company's consumer and retail practice) looks at books that address the new Brand New:

Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies by Jim Stengel, Crown Business
Brand Real: How Smart Companies Live Their Brand Promise and Inspire Fierce Customer Loyalty by Laurence Vincent, Amacom
The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge by Doc Searls, Harvard Business Review Press

In books about Innovation this year, engineer and entrepreneur Krisztina "Z" Holly believes that Context Is King:

The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation by Ron Adner, Portfolio
Reverse Innovation: Create Far from Home, Win Everywhere by Vijay Govindarajan & Chris Trimble, Harvard Business Review Press
Cloud Surfing: A New Way to Think about Risk, Innovation, Scale, and Success by Thomas M. Koulopoulos, Bibliomotion

On what may be the topic of the year, Healthcare, Philip Lathrop (author of Restructuring Health Care: The Patient-Focused Paradigm) picked three books that went Beyond the Rhetoric of Reform:

Healthcare beyond Reform: Doing It Right for Half the Cost by Joe Flower, Productivity Press
How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks about Being Sick in America by Otis Webb Brawley, M.D., with Paul Goldberg, St. Martin's Press
Pursuing the Triple Aim: Seven Innovators Show the Way to Better Care, Better Health, and Lower Costs by Maureen Bisognano & Charles Kenney, Jossey-Bass

Sally Helgesen (author of The Female Vision: Women's Real Power at Work) knows that Small Talk is critically important in Organizational Culture, and chose three books that reflect that:

Productive Workplaces: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century: 25th Anniversary Edition by Marvin R. Weisbord, Jossey-Bass
Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution by Lisa Bodell, Bibliomotion
Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations by Boris Groysberg & Michael Slind, Harvard Business Review Press

And, wrapping up the list, James O'Toole (the Daniels Distinguished Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business) picked three books that speak Of Markets and Morals in Capitalism: