Over the last two months, my reading theme has been based around how great companies are built from the ground up. These are my top 5 books on the topic

1. Building Organisations & Cultures for Success
Re-Read Bookshelf

2. GREAT BY CHOICE - Jim Collins
Fanatic discipline - 20 Mile March;
SMaC Recipe
Productive Paranoia - Contingency
Plans & Buffers
Empirical Creativity - Fire Bullets…then
Cannonballs
Level 5 Ambition
Maximise Return on Luck

3. THE CULTURE MAP - Erin Meyer
High context vs. low context cultures
change communication styles
Applications first learning vs principles
first learning
Positive & negative feedback styles very
Healthy conflict demands trust, which is
built in different ways
Collectivist vs individualist

4. RANGE - David Epstein
Generalists flourish in ‘wicked’
learning environments vs Specialists
flourish in ‘kind’ learning environments
Polymaths have deep expertise in a
couple of areas & some knowledge in
an array of others
Compare yourself with yourself of
yesterday
Experiment

5. THE POWER OF HABIT - Charles Duhigg
Cue + Response = Reward
Cravings are powerful & drive behaviour
Understanding our habit loops help
identify our cravings & change them
To change habits, work on one new thing
at a time, understand the loop, idetify the
desired response, select a cue, design the
reward, sustain the new stimulus until new
habits arise (around 30 days)

6. BUILT TO LAST - Jim Collins
Build a clock (get the structure & function of
the company right), don’t tell the time (focus
on doing a specific task)
Create your core ideology, which should
remain consistent (more than profits) but the
methods must be flexible enough to drive
progress
Set big hairy audacious goals
Experiment a lot
“Good enough”, never is good enough