My 2021 Book Recommendations
It’s my favorite time of the year — and I’m happy to share my 2021 read-list with my conclusions. This year I developed a new reading approach, in which I read several books in parallel, usually from different topics.
With no further due, here are the books that influenced my thinking (with one favorite quote and a short summary each) :
- Good Strategy/Bad Strategy (By Richard Rumelt)
“The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.”
“Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes.”
“A leader’s most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives.”
“Strategy is visible as coordinated action imposed on a system. When I say the strategy is “imposed,” I mean just that. It is an exercise in centralized power used to overcome the natural workings of a system. This coordination is unnatural in the sense that it would not occur.”
Yes, there are four quotes instead of just one :) This book is my number one for this year, and I will defiantly read it a few more times as it changed the way I think about strategy.
- The Lost Art of Listening (By Michel P.Nicols Ph.D.)
“The essence of good listening is empathy, which can be achieved only by suspending our preoccupation with ourselves and entering into the experience of the other person.”
This book changed the way I listen to people. I remember a sentence about how people think about their answers instead of listening to others. I did that a lot, and I still do, but I try my best to listen wholeheartedly. This book changed how I listen to my partner, kids, and co-workers. If there is just one book from my list you decide to read yourself — let it be this one.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (By Daniel Kahneman)
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
“Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.”
I can’t use just a few quotes, as this book is a must-read and covers many topics — do yourself a favor and read it.
- Continuous Discovery (By Teresa Torres)
“Rather than defining your success by the code that you ship (your output), you define success as the value that code creates for your customers and your business (the outcomes).”
“An opportunity represents a need, a pain point, or a desire that was expressed during the interview. Be sure to represent opportunities as needs and not solutions. If the participant requests a specific feature or solution, ask about why they need that, and capture the opportunity”
One of the best product books I read, and I strongly recommend it to any product persona out there.
- The Book of Joy (By the Dalai Lama)
“We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”
I am not a religious person, but I have practiced meditation for the past two years. This book made me more joyful and deepened my understanding of our ability to crate the quality of our life.
- Leaders Eat Last (By Simon Sinek)
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
“the true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.”
Last week, a college of mine asked me why I write about the books I read. What leads me to spend my precious time writing this article? Well, because I believe it might motivate yourself and others to read. Also, reading is a personal hack, as it helps people grow faster.
- Only the Paranoid Survive (By Andrew S.Grove)
“strategic changes don’t just start at the top. It starts with your calendar.”
“if you’re wrong, you will die. But most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most die because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still.”
I wish Andrew Grove had written more books. His wisdom is unparalleled, and he writes in such a delightful way.
- High Output Management (By Andrew S.Grove)
“In the end, self-confidence mostly comes from a gut-level realization that nobody has ever died from making a wrong business decision, or taking inappropriate action, or being overruled. And everyone in your operation should be made to understand this.”
“Let chaos reign, then rein in the chaos.”
My all-time favorite book about management. It appealed to my inner engineer as well as my inner leader.
- Originals (By Adam Grant)
“Conviction in our ideas is dangerous not only because it leaves us vulnerable to false positives, but also because it stops us from generating the requisite variety to reach our creative potential.”
This book helped me lean in into my creativity. I loved the way Grant explained originality and the way to achieve it.
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (By Mark Manson)
“The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, accepting one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. “
This book felt like a western way of conveying Buddhism teachings. I didn’t like how it was written (heavily using the word “Fuck” in the book), but I love the meaning of owning your reality and making conscious choices.
- Tough Choices (By Carly Fiorina)
“Alignment and collaboration need not be fuzzy, ill-defined concepts for “let’s just all get along.” Effective teamwork is more than good manners and goodwill, although both help an organization function more effectively. Alignment results from shared goals. Collaboration results from shared measures of success.”
Reading leaders’ memoirs is always inspiring. I felt this one was a bit short but enjoyable.
- The Prosperity Paradox (by Clayton M.Chrisensen)
“Culture is a way of working together toward common goals that have been followed so frequently and so successfully that people don’t even think about trying to do things another way. If a culture has formed, people will autonomously do what they need to do to be successful.”
Sometimes I read books unrelated to my day-to-day, and this one was one of them. Inside I found a hidden gem of knowledge about markets, cultures, and more.
- Think Again (By Adam Grant)
“We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker. This reaction isn’t limited to people in power. “
Got to love the way he tells in this book about the time an article of his was rejected with a note that he should read more of Adam’s Grant work. Being him, it is a funny one.
- How Will You Measure Your Life? (By Clayton M.Christensen)
“You can talk all you want about having a clear purpose and strategy for your life, but ultimately this means nothing if you are not investing the resources you have in a way that is consistent with your strategy. In the end, a strategy is nothing but good intentions unless it’s effectively implemented.”
A mindful choice is a topic I reviewed his year from different angles, and this book was another reminder of how important it is to allocate your time in a meaningful way.
- 12 Rules for Life (By Jordan Peterson)
“To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality.”
Some parts of this book felt a bit tiresome, like a speech that keeps on going and going. But, I believe in the core concepts Peterson wrote about, and I recommend this book.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People (By Dale Carnegie)
“Everybody in the world is seeking happiness — and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.”
Although written a long time ago, this book is also a “western” way of conveying the concept of our core responsibility in life — our thoughts and actions.
- How to Raise Successful People (By Esther Wojcicki)
“Parenting is how culture gets transmitted to the next generation. It’s your chance to pass on your core principles and values and to use all of your wisdom and insight in order to improve someone else’s life.”
It was a nice read, but I would recommend other parenting books before this one. You are welcome to email me for recommendations on this topic :)
- Chatter (By Ethan Kross)
“When we’re upset and feel vulnerable or hurt or overwhelmed, we want to vent our emotions and feel consoled, validated, and understood. This provides an immediate sense of security and connection and feeds the basic need we have to belong. As a result, the first thing we usually seek out in others when our inner voice gets swamped in negativity is a fulfillment of our emotional needs.”
This book claims to help with controlling the chatter in our heads. Again, I felt it’s a western way, this time Academic western way, to help people with the same thing meditations did for centuries — how to manage our head, attentions, thoughts, and sufferings.
- Atomic Habits (By James Clear)
“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”
This book is all about creating personal habits, but it felt strongly connected to organizations’ cultures. I mean — you need to create a strong team that relies on procedures (organization habits in my POV), and this book helps with the right way of making these procedures/habits.
- UX for Lean Startups (By Laura Klein)
“Ask Open-Ended Questions When you start to ask questions, never give the participant a chance to simply answer yes or no. The idea here is to ask questions that start a discussion. These questions are bad for starting a discussion: “Do you think this is cool?” “Was that easy to use?” These questions are much better: “What do you think of this?” “How’d that go?”
It was a nice read, but I would recommend other product books before this one. You are welcome to email me for recommendations on this topic :)
Thank you for reading this article, I enjoyed writing it. Please don’t be shy and comment with your thoughts :)
