10 Business Books You Need

to Read in 2019
www.inc.com

Books on everything from ending poverty

to making eye contact await us in the
coming year.

When it comes to most­anticipated business books, Win or Die:

Leadership Secrets From Game of Thrones is the one to beat, if endless
Quora debates are anything to go by. We don't know much about that
entry, which comes out in March. But here are 10 other titles that
have us intrigued. They include new offerings from business
celebrities Clayton Christensen, Simon Sinek, and Marcus
Buckingham­­and one from Oscar­winning producer Brian Grazer,
who wants to look deep into your eyes.

January

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

1. The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of

Poverty, by Clayton M. Christensen, Efosa Ojomo, and Karen
Dillon
Poverty is arguably mankind's most intractable problem. Christensen,
a Harvard professor and originator of the concept of disruptive
innovation, here argues for a new focus: not on eliminating poverty
but rather on creating lasting prosperity. He urges entrepreneurs to
pursue the transformative power of "market­creating innovations"
that spawn jobs, profits (which can be reinvested in infrastructure
and public services), and cultural change, often through
democratizing consumer access. Such innovations, en masse, create
the foundation beneath many wealthy economies, Christensen says.
They can lift up developing nations as well.

February
CREDIT: via Amazon

2. Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI, by John Brockman

(editor)
At the highest level, debate about artificial intelligence often devolves
into scenarios utopian or dystopian. Will machines make human
beings the best they can be, or render them obsolete? Should we trust
something potentially smarter than us? What is humanity's role in a
world ruled by algorithms? Brockman, founder of the online salon
Edge.org, corrals 25 big brains­­ranging from Nobel Prize­winning
physicist Frank Wilczek to roboticist extraordinaire Rodney Brooks­­
to opine on this exhilarating, terrifying future.

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

3. Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How

to Fix It), by Tomas Chamorro­Premuzic
Women generally outperform men as leaders, research shows. So how
come there aren't more of them? One reason is our association of
leadership with such undesirable, traditionally masculine qualities as
self­absorption and overconfidence, which somehow translate as
strength and charisma. Organizations are wrongheaded when they
worry about lowering standards to advance more women, argues
Chamorro­Premuzic, a professor of business psychology. Instead, they
should focus on raising standards for men.
CREDIT: via Amazon

4. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, by Roger

McNamee
McNamee, an early investor in Facebook and a mentor to Mark
Zuckerberg, watched with horror the relentless revelations of how
Russia and other bad actors manipulated the social network to cause
vast societal harm. Disillusionment followed as the company's leaders
downplayed the problem. Thwarted in attempts to persuade
Facebook's leadership to mount a meaningful response, McNamee has
become a vocal critic of the business model, the culture, the
technology, and the attitudes that created the crisis. Zucked is an
angry­sad insider's account and meditation on what it will take to
protect democracy.

March

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

5. Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure
Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall
Big breakthroughs require two things. First, an idea so audacious it is
widely dismissed. Second, a large group of people capable of
transforming that idea from impossible to inevitable. The success of
that journey depends on "phase transitions": the scientific principle
whereby small changes in structure­­comparable to changes in
temperature that cause water to freeze or become liquid­­make
people more or less open to disruptive thinking. Bahcall, a physicist
and entrepreneur, explains how to optimize organizations so they
don't kill their most disruptive darlings.

CREDIT: via Amazon

6. Coders: The Making of a New Art and the Remaking of the

World, by Clive Thompson
Most of us don't go an hour without using software. So those who
create it are of intrinsic interest. Thompson, a writer for The New
York Times Magazine and Wired, presents a historical, psychological,
and cultural investigation of programmers in all their optimization­
obsessive, bug­battling glory. (Thompson himself does some
programming in the course of the book.) The word "art" in the title
isn't incidental: The book considers what beautiful coding looks like
and what it can achieve, as well as the moral quandaries posed by
tech titans' escalating growth and power.

April

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

7. Eye Contact: The Power of Personal Connection, by Brian Grazer

Grazer is the co­founder, with Ron Howard, of Imagine Entertainment
and an Oscar winner for the film A Beautiful Mind. So when he
proclaims that something as simple as eye contact has a profound
effect on relationships and the outcomes of interactions, you want to
know more. The producer bemoans the power of screens to draw eyes
downward, and urges readers to seek intimacy and connection in
conversations­­and not just those for which they have agendas.
Grazer's star quotient means he's gazed into some formidable
peepers. The book describes encounters with, among others, Bill
Gates, Eminem, George W. Bush, and Kate Moss.

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

8. Jumpstarting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive

Economic Growth and the American Dream, by Jonathan Gruber
and Simon Johnson
As Amazon expands into two regions already teeming with jobs and
economic activity, this book examines the lopsided prosperity that
leaves some parts of the country struggling while others­­typically
crowded enclaves on the coasts­­thrive. Things were different in
1940, when government investment in R&D began producing
breakthroughs in science and technology, from jet engines to life­
saving medicines, to benefit everyone. MIT economists Gruber and
Johnson think it's time to revisit that playbook.

CREDIT: Courtesy Publisher

9. Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader's Guide to the Real
World, by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall
Conventional management wisdom exists to reinforce the
organization's control over individuals, writes Buckingham, widely
popular for his look­to­your­strengths approach to personal
development. Among the "lies" he debunks are some sacred cows. For
example, people crave feedback; people have potential; work/life
balance is something we should all aspire to; and leadership is a
"thing." (Some of us have been questioning that last one for years.)
Buckingham urges freethinking leaders to toss off the straitjacket of
dogma in favor of "the glorious messiness" of individuals working
together.

June

CREDIT: via Amazon

10. The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek

A checkers match and the Super Bowl are finite games. Someone
wins. Someone doesn't. Business, by contrast, is a ceaseless endeavor
in which playing field, players, and rules change constantly. Leaders
require not just the resources but also the will to win such contests,
organizational expert Sinek explains. That means the courage to stand
up to short­term thinkers (Wall Street, popular sentiment) in defense
of your just cause, an open­playbook strategy visible to all, and the
understanding that, ultimately, we are competing against the best
version of ourselves.

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