24 popular business books summarized in one line each

Since we can’t all be like Warren Buffett — who famously spends much of his day reading — Business Insider has summarised some influential business books.

Below, you’ll find nuggets of insight from game-changing executives, hard-charging startup founders and ground-breaking researchers. It’s also great reading:

Give and Take by Adam Grant



Givers – people who try to benefit others in their interactions – are the most successful people, since they create durable, career-enabling relationships.

Emotional Intelligence by Dan Goleman



IQ alone is not enough to be successful and must be complemented by selfcontrol, persistence and motivation.

The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen



You have to be willing to kill off or someone else will do it for you.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin



Advertising and marketing that is built of other people’s work is doomed to fail and the only way to stand out is to be truly remarkable.

Positioning by Al Ries & Jack Trout



Brands exist only in people’s minds, which is why they need to be both identifiable and differentiated.

My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan



After leading one of the world’s largest companies for 23 years, Sloan discovered decentralisation breeds innovation.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini



There are six universal principles that determine if people will change behaviour.

Drive by Daniel Pink



People are mostly motivated by having autonomy, mastery and purpose, rather than incentives.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie



Success in business comes from building strong relationships.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl



People are motivated more by meaning than by pleasure or even happiness.

Good to Great by Jim Collins



Good cos become great by confronting brutal realities of their business, finding out what they’re good at, creating a culture of discipline, and building and maintaining momentum.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries




Rather than work forward from technology or a complex strategy, work backward from the needs of the customers and build the simplest product possible.

Decisive by Chip Heath & Dan Heath


Our decision-making gets stifled by dozens of cognitive biases we may not be aware of.

The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer



For employees to be continually engaged, happy and productive, they need to experience small victories everyday.

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker



Being effective is as much about what you choose not to do as what you actually do every day.

Lean In by Sherly Sandberg

Women continue to face career obstacles but can overcome them by speaking up, setting goals, working hard and finding supporters.

Getting Things Done by David Allen



Stress-free productivity is a product of knowing your long-term priorities and breaking your nearterm goals into actionable projects.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely



People aren’t rational as a first-year economics textbook tells you and there are many situation where you can count on them to be irrational.

Rework by Jason Fried & David H Hannson



A lot of the accepted business wisdom — that workaholics are heroes, and that you need outside investors — is completely false.

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver



New tech made us much better at using data, but can make you more likely to make bad predictions as we overemphasise fluctuations in data.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport



You shouldn’t follow your passion; you should redefine your craft.

Quiet by Susan Cain



Although we have come to be told of the extroverted, charismatic leader as the ideal, introverts have an important advantage.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell



Talent, intelligence, hard work and ambition are all great, but the real secret of successful people is often luck, timing and where they’re from.

The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb



People are very good at fooling themselves into thinking they know more than they do, which makes it easy for big, unusual events to surprise us.