Our recommendations for the best general business books.
 

Jay Abraham

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got.
The author is referred to as ‘the greatest marketing expert alive today’ – and you can see why. He pithily explores the gaps between what we do and what we could do to transform practically any business, not just by a few percentage points but a whole order of magnitude. With example after example he demonstrates how simple techniques can make a huge difference to profits. From the obvious opportunities no one takes up (like giving existing customers who’ve stopped using you an incentive to come back) to the incredible possibilities of barter, Abraham has the business of making money sewn up. New 11 December 2001

Meredith Belbin

Team roles at work.
Belbin's definitive subject with his classification of the different roles that individuals can take in teams and how different combinations of those role can make for effective groupings. Are you a plant, a completer/finisher ... or something completely different? Belbin can help you find out and discover what to do with your role. Click on Belbin's name above for more Belbin books.   New 15 December 2000

Paul Birch

Instant Leadership.
Packed with ideas to help you develop your leadership skills professionally, this book provides a host of techniques on motivating others, developing a business plan, improving meetings and organizational systems, target setting and a host of other requirements that go together to make perfect leadership. - New 14 October 1999

Brian Clegg

 Capturing Customers' Hearts.
A very readable book on taking customer service to a new dimension that analyzes 12 components of charisma, the characteristics of a company and its products that make customers fall in love with it. With plenty of good and bad real world examples, there has never been more need for this sort of focus on superb customer service. New 12 September 2000 

The Chameleon Manager.
Faced with frantic business change, threatened by the disappearance of job security, you need new skills to survive in the hectic business world of the 21st century. Starting from your dream portfolio, the Chameleon Manager guides you through the skills to navigate through creativity, communication and knowledge, the essentials for the new manager. And it's fun too.

Crash Course in Personal Development. 
A personal development course featuring 150 exercises and techniques from Instant Time Management, Instant Stress Management and Instant Negotiation, plus guided reading and Web links to build on your personal development.- Published September 2002

The Complete Flier's Guide. 
It might seem odd to have a book about getting the most out of air travel in the business section, but it's very much an interest for all business travellers. The handbook offers advice for staying healthy in the air including what to do to minimize the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis, what's wrong with airline food, flying with children, which are the safest seats to sit in, how to reduce jet lag and tips for avoiding air rage.The Complete Flier's Handbook cuts through the myths and media hype (what does it really mean when they say it's safer to fly than travel by car?) to offer practical advice for anyone taking to the skies.- Published June 2002

 Instant Interviewing.  
Interviewing is an essential part of any manager's job, but often there is little time given to training. When the interview comes along, it's something extra on top of the manager's normal responsibilities. Here is an ideal candidate for the Instant approach, improving interview skills, providing proven tips and 100 effective questions to cover a wide range of requirements. New 5 February 2001 Now available for immediate download as an Adobe Acrobat file: click here for details.

  Instant Motivation.  
Quick and easy exercise to motivate others to achieve, whether they are individuals, teams or large gatherings. Can you afford not to have Instant Motivation? New 24 December 1999

 Instant Negotiation.  
Negotiation has never been a pure science, but it's blend of logic and gut feel can be learned. This creative book packed with proven tips and advice includes a comprehensive range of over 70 self-development exercises that will help you to improve your skills in negotiation whether you are buying, selling or searching for common ground  New 13 September 2000 

  Instant Stress Management.  
Stress can be a killer or a crucial driver to succeed. This book features a whole range of quick and easy exercises to remove the unwanted stress. As stress is often accompanied by time pressure, the Instant format is ideal to ensure that the process of stress management doesn't generate further stress.. New 24 December 1999 Now available for immediate download as an Adobe Acrobat file: click here for details.

Instant Time Management.
The trouble with most approaches to time management is that they take too long! Instant Time Management presents a host of time management techniques in handy bite-sized chunks, ideal to really get something done. New 10 March 1999

 The Invisible Customer
 An increasing number of companies are providing service to invisible customers via the Web and call centres. But the new demands are failing to be met. Giving great customer service this way is an opportunity few companies of taken up. This book shows how it is possible. New 16 May 2000.

Mining the Internet.
The Internet may be the biggest business resource in existence, and it's certainly the most readily accessible, but just finding something out there can be a challenge. This readable book introduces you to the techniques you need to find the right information on the Web and to use other Internet resources like e-mail and newsgroups to get to the information you need. Now in it's second edition. New 6 October 2001

 Training Plus.
Many of the tricks and techniques of training have become tired and hackneyed. This book assembles a toolkit of new techniques to come at training in a creative way. Complete with an easy assessment of the current position, six action sections provide a whole host of new and practical techniques. Valuable whether you are a full-time trainer or anyone who manages staff. New 12 September 2000  

Brian Clegg & Paul Birch

Crash Course in Managing People 
A personal management skills development course featuring 150 exercises and techniques from Instant Leadership, Instant Motivation, Instant Interviewing and Instant Coaching, plus guided reading and Web links to expand your management edge.- Published September 2002

DisOrganization.
The traditional organisation is failing to keep up with the needs of a radically different, fast changing business world. DisOrganization is a new model for companies which have to be at both extremes of the leadership/management, centralised/fragmented and innovative/reactive scales. New 26 May 98

Instant Teamwork.
An essential toolkit for anyone running a team or training, instant teamwork pulls together a whole host of quick exercises to break the ice, add energy to a team activity or inspire creative thinking. New 3 November 98

Peter Cook

  Sex, Leadership and Rock'n'Roll
Superb book on taking a rock'n'roll approach to leadership, pointing out how it's no longer possible to manage like a conductor with an orchestra, following a set score. Imaginatively structured and very clever - highly recommended. New 9 March 2006

Winston Fletcher

  Beating the 24/7. 
This is an interesting book, giving pointers on work/life balance through a series of interviews with top business leaders from the UK. I can’t always agree with Fletcher’s assessment of the lessons to be learned, but to be fair, he does say that in the end the real benefit is in reading the statements from these 16 remarkable business people – and he’s so right. Whether or not you think they are setting a great example on work/life balance, there are real insights to be gained by reading the ideas of people like Richard Branson, Nicola Horlick, Lord Marshall, Michael Grade and Sir Christopher Bland. Good book. New 6 November 2002

David Freemantle

The Stimulus Factor. 
Freemantle, author of Superboss, argues that it's is impossible to motivate anyone - they can only motivate themselves. But what you can do is to provide the stimuli that will encourage them into the right types of motivation. You can argue it's all a matter of semantics, but there does seem to be a fresh, exciting idea about motivation here from this one-time airline director. New 30 June 2001

How to Choose.  
The topic of this book lies at the heart of not only most of business but most of our human interactions - choice. Every day, each of us makes millions of micro-decisions, which add up to describe our behaviour. These choices will influence the way we are perceived, the effectiveness of our businesses and more.You might not agree with everything in this book, but Freemantle's arguments are bound to spark discussion and get you thinking about the fascinating subject of choice. New 21 May 2002

James Gleick (see also in Popular Science)

What Just Happened: A chronicle from the information frontier. 
You might think this book has strayed in from the popular science section - Gleick is best known as a popular science writer - but we think this one fits best under business. It's a collection of articles and essays written over 10 years on Gleick's experience with the IT industry and his predictions for the way it's going to go. Sometimes, inevitably, he got it wrong, but it's still fascinating to see how one of the best science writers around viewed the growing PC and Internet world. The information revolution may about more than business, but it's certainly at the heart of most businesses now. New 16 July 2002

Charles Handy

The Empty Raincoat.
The leading British business expert looks at the way business has to develop beyond the drive for shareholder profit. Handy brilliantly assesses the paradoxes we all face in balancing business and life. An essential for survival in the modern workplace.

The Hungry Spirit.
Handy's writing is always people centred, and this 1998 book focuses particular on the impact of business life on the individual. He looks at the painful position that the ever present pressure for profit and climbing the greasy pole puts many of us in, and offers so real alternatives. If you like this book, check out The Chameleon Manager. New 9 December 98

Jonathan G. Koomey

Turning Numbers into Knowledge.
We are all swamped with data. We know information is power - but only if it's possible to use it. This remarkable book is a guide to seeing past the pile of numbers and information to the knowledge beyond it. It's a big book, and not necessarily one you will read cover to cover: in a way that's a shame, because it's often the case with this sort of reading that the bits you skip are the ones that are most valuable - so I'd ignore the author's advise, persevere and read it cover to cover. The best book I've seen on digging into the mass of information we are presented with in practically any line of work and making something of it. It's creative, stylish and powerful. Highly recommended. New 13 October 2004

Andy Law

Experiment at Work.
Subtitled 'explosions and experiences at the most frightening company on earth', this is an exploration of the reasoning behind and the experience of being in St Luke's, Law's revolutionary company that turns the whole experience of being at work upside. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measures.  New 9 July 2003

Tom Peters

Crazy Times call for Crazy Organizations: the Tom Peters Seminar.
A brilliant trip through the crisis that faces modern business and the drastic steps needed to win through, and enjoy life in a crazy world. If you only have one straight business book, get this one.

Eddie Obeng

  Money Making Machine.  
You won't ever have seen a business book like this. First impressions are that you've picked up a child's book, but this genuinely is a very useful business book. The two biggest lessons - I'm not going to give away the details, but it dispels the myth about how companies make money, and it shows how to change approach to deal with the new commercial imperatives - lessons that many traditional companies (just look at airlines, for example) just haven't learned. New 14 June 2002

Michael E. Porter

Competitive Strategy.
Michael Porter wrote the book on business strategy - and this is it! A true classic, Competitive Strategy explores the forces from differentiation to cost cutting that can be used to compete in the business arena. Non-optional book for anyone who wants to understand how business works.  New 24 March 2000

Robert Townsend

Up the Organisation.

Further Up the Organisation.

Further Up the Organisation.
There are plenty of words of management wisdom from people who have never run a business - Townsend was a director of American Express and Chairman of Avis. His various variants on the "Up the Organization" theme are both funny and trenchant criticisms of business folly. They are simply superb. Though out of print, you can pick up used copies of the above by clicking through to Amazon and checking out the "new and used" books on the right.

Fons Trompenaars

Riding the Waves of Culture.
A must for anyone working in a multi-national market, Trompenaars' book clearly identifies the pitfalls and possibilities arising from the impact of different cultures on business.
New 25 March 98

Leslie Yerkes

  They Just Don't Get It (with Randy Martin).
How can you resist a book that's subtitled "four principles for running a business good times or bad"? It's a quick read and in the form of an enjoyable narrative, but gets across some important principles for any business with customers and staff. New 11 November 2005

  Beans (with Charles Decker).
How can you resist a book that's subtitled "four principles for running a business good times or bad"? It's a quick read and in the form of an enjoyable narrative, but gets across some important principles for any business with customers and staff. New 6 May 2004

  Fun Works.
Fun Works goes to the heart of creativity, looking at bring fun into the workplace. This is a fundamental requirement if you want to get the most out of your workforce, yet it's easily overlooked in recession and in difficult times. Click the More button to see the author's thoughts on the subject. New 5 January 2002