Learn Strategy with the Following Insightful Books in 2019

You all know someone or have encountered someone that despite being of similar or worse background, education, family situation, and overall academic and general intelligence, is doing way better at life, financially and socially, than you. And they didn’t have daddy’s money either! So just how the hell did that happen? Well, they just used strategy.

Yes, that’s it. They learned the ground in which they were operating and leveraged their skills, strongpoints, and relationships in a way to get them exactly where they aspired to be.

Strategy comes more intuitively for some more so than others, but the key to achieving it is to let go of certain preconceptions of how the world works and learn how it actually does then start operating under that knowledge. It can be tricky, you gotta open your mind to a whole new ways of thinking. Which ways are those? Find out by reading the savviest books on strategy.

#1 How to Think Strategically by Greg Githens

How to Think Strategically provides specific, actionable tips for becoming a competent strategic thinker. Several of its concepts are memorable, delivered through straightforward lists that include the “Four X-Factors of Strategic Thinking” and the “Twenty Microskills of Strategic Thinking.”

Each element of every list is explained in clear and thorough terms. The writing is clear and concise supplemented by engaging imagery: one chapter describes “Shoulder Angels” representing “dullness” and “sharpness.” How to Think Strategically is convincing, pushing its readership toward success and toward becoming a more skilled leader. It is of significant value to anyone at any stage of their career.

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#2 My Value or My Values – Rebirth of a Fallen Company by Heather E. Robertson

If you want to read business books that tell you what to do-how to create a better business; how to avoid the pitfalls-don’t read any of the Strategies to Go… Strategies to Go, like coffee to go, are designed as stories you can take away, read on the go and draw your own conclusions based on what will work best for you and your business.

They tell it like it is-what really happens in business-allowing you to learn the lessons that fit your needs and the strategic needs of your business. Based on the lives and businesses of real people, the characters are based on a composite of heroes and villains I have worked with. You will share their frustrations and anger, the exuberance of their success and their pain of losing, and most of all, you will learn from their experiences.

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#3 My Value or My Values – Redeeming Customers’ Trust by Heather E. Robertson

Most of us spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, 1/3 of our lives at work (at least) and cram everything else into the final 1/3. Given the investments that we make in time, shouldn’t we be very clear about what makes us get up in the morning, go to work each day to do what we do?

This book tells a story in a unique way and asks these questions. Without launching into the answers, it takes you on a journey that inspires you to go and find the answers for yourself. After all, your career is all about your choices and your life. What you choose to do can define who you are. If you choose to spend your time with others who have shared values, together you can make a difference and achieve great things. At the same time you might even have some fun and do something truly worthwhile!

If you choose otherwise, you may miss out…it’s up to you .

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#4 The Magic Of The OK Box by David Drennan

In his career, David Drennan has been a manager, director, professor and consultant to many well-known organisations. His clients include such companies as British Aerospace, Coca Cola, Mars, Her Majesty’s Treasury, Volvo Cars, Nuclear Electric, the Bank of England and many more. During more than twenty-five years in the business, he has learned what are the true fundamentals in managing people well.

That’s what young manager Philip Walker discovers when he is sent by his company to Highfield College to learn what these essential principles are and to hear from other managers just how they put them into practice in their different companies. Philip is fascinated by the whole experience and later tells his Operations Director, I don’t think I’m ever going to manage in quite the same way again.

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#5 The Heart of Consulting by Liz & Russell Dimitriadis & Jaffe

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the fascinating field of consultancy. Written by two consultants with decades of experience between them, this is an honest reflection of their 30 years of work. It provides significant insight into the nuances and everyday world of consulting in the community and government sectors. It is sure to be of great value for years to come.

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#6 Entrepreneurship $ales by Trevor K. Whittaker

Trevor K. Whittaker brings his more than thirty-five years of business and sales experience to bear in Entrepreneurship $ales 101, sharing a mine of information with would-be sales people. There is an art to selling, and as selling is the absolute foundation of business (Entrepreneurship (minus) 101 – Whittaker’s first book in this series) it is important that entrepreneurs and their sales staff are familiar with and experts in the art of the deal.

From ‘summarising needs’ to the ‘close’, Whittaker analyses each step in handling prospects, supplying his own methods and insights along the way, such as the sales quadrant and kpa (key performance areas). Whittaker shows that sales is a people industry where both the prospect and the sales entrepreneur need to understand each other for both sides to benefit in terms of efficiency, opportunity and success.

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#7 Entrepreneurship (minus) 101 by Trevor K. Whittaker

To become or to be an entrepreneur is not a light undertaking. It will break some or make others, but one thing is clear, you should know your own strengths and weakness and suitability for the task before you take the leap. In Entrepreneurship (minus) 101, Trevor K. Whittaker shares ten essential ‘secrets’, gained from his own extensive business experience. If adopted, they will make success, if not guaranteed, at least attainable.

If you are an existing entrepreneur and think you know it all, think again! The overriding mantra is Know Yourself: know your strengths and weakness and work on those weaknesses before you embark or continue on what is a highly demanding – but ultimately a highly rewarding – journey. So do you have what it takes? Read Entrepreneurship (minus) 101 and find out.

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#8 Lean, an Ongoing Journey by Mark Roberts

Ever since the manufacturing philosophy of Lean derived from the Toyota Production System, businesses across the world have cut waste and saved money by implementing the Lean system in the workplace. You don’t have to be in manufacturing to find the Lean concept useful, and this book explains it in detail. Each aspect of a Lean roll out is covered thoroughly in an understandable and clear way, including all the typical concepts and problems encountered.

Whether you’re a CEO wondering if Lean will work for you, or if you are already midway through implementing Lean, you will find this book an extremely useful source of advice, encouragement and practical know-how. Offering his years of experience and many real-life examples from the workplace, Mark Roberts has written a comprehensive guide from a knowledgeable first-hand perspective.

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#9 Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development by Jennifer Hancock

Strategies are important. They help us know what we are working on, why we are working on it and most importantly, how. The problem is, not all strategies are effective. Author and Humanist Jennifer Hancock will teach you several steps to ensure that your strategy is reality based.

This book will help you learn how to answer the three most important questions for any strategy. What is your real problem? What is really causing it and what will really work to solve it? It is a short concise book that will help you put your strategy on a firm, reality based foundation.

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#10 Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta

These books give you the questions, mindset, inspiration and motivation to create a strategy for your business so that you are in the right frame of mind to think big and set your business apart. There are plenty of templates online to follow to draft a plan but it is the thinking behind it that really matters and these books help you think better and more clearly.

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#11 Violent politics by William R. Polk

From the American Revolution, the Spanish guerrillas uprising against Napoleon, to the Vietnam war. William Polk explores the lessons of historical insurgency and the risk and cost of occupancy through detailed comparative analysis. Leading to the common theme of forceful occupation by outsiders creates the conditions for insurgency.

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#12 Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan

There’s a famous quote that says Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day. The truth of the matter is that most strategies fail and even the top business school strategy models tend to have failure rates of 70%. The strategy model in Tribal Leadership has a success rate of 80% and it has radically altered the results I have produced in both my personal and professional life. John King (who is listed as a co-author of the book) invented this model and what it takes into account is culture.

The strategy model works with another model in the book called The Cultural Map. By having a strategy actually work with the culture and lead to a more effective environment, it’s no wonder this model works significantly better than anything I’ve ever come across before in any other management or leadership book. There’s no close second for me.

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