The Real Deal, Sandy Weill

There is much we can gain from reading about great businessmen, both in terms of inspiration and technique. However most biographies in this genre turn out to be sanitised accounts of their remarkable airbrushed business lives, designed to launch their post-retirement careers as expensive speakers on the info-tainment trail. But Sandy Weill's book is different. It is brutally honest about businesses he was involved in and about the man, a real human being, complete with numerous shortcomings about which he is candid and reflective. Why should you know about him? Well, he has created 3 times as much shareholder wealth as Jack Welsh and more than Warren Buffet. He built the leading securities firm in the US from scratch and transformed a sleepy financing company into the global bank Citigroup. Find out how he did it and how he managed people.

The Starfish and the Spider, Brafman and Beckstrom

The name? If you cut off the head of a spider, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish's leg (there is no head), it grows a new one and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top down organizations are like spiders. We are seeing a new phenomenon emerging - the starfish organization- and it is radically changing the way business is done. The starfish has whacked billions out of the music industry, for example, and is moving into all parts of business life. Think Wikipedia (if you don't know what that is you should); Skype, Lynex, the internet Organizations fall into the two types and understanding the difference is not only a fascinating insight, it provides important managerial information that will aid you in your management practice.