Alumni Books

The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth
by James Allen (MBA 1989) and Chris Zook
(Harvard Business Review Press)

Based on their decade-long study of companies in more than 40 countries, the authors demonstrate how applying three traits of a “founder's mentality” (an insurgent's clear mission and purpose, an unambiguous owner mindset, and a relentless obsession with the front line) can resolve the predictable crises of growth.

Leading Strategic Change in an Era of Healthcare Transformation
edited by Jim Austin, Judith Bentkover, and Laurence Chait (MBA 1965)
(Springer)

This book focuses on how to lead transformative and strategic change in the healthcare industry in times of great uncertainty. It provides new tools, processes, examples, and case studies offering an effective framework in which to transform healthcare systems. It helps leaders answer such questions as: Why change? What to change? How to change? And when to change?

Central Park Trees and Landscapes: A Guide to New York City's Masterpiece
by Edward S. Barnard (PMD 32) and Neil Calvanese
(Columbia Univ. Press)

This field guide to the trees and landscapes of Central Park has two parts. The first discusses the geological and social history of the site, focusing mainly on the park’s construction in the late 1850s and 1860s. The second part has essays on the 200-plus tree species and varieties. This is supplemented with over 900 color photographs, botanical plates, and extraordinarily detailed maps.

Mercy Remembered: Commemorating the Jubilee Year of Mercy Proclaimed by Pope Francis
by Rev. Richard Berg and Greg Hadley (OPM 5)
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Hadley, the author of numerous books on Christianity, reflects on the nature of forgiveness, love, and joy in a year dubbed by Pope Francis the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The Uneven Road: Book Two of First Light
by Linda Cardillo (MBA 1978)
(Bellastoria Press)

This novel tells the story of a perilous journey that took Josiah Monroe physically and emotionally far from the remote peninsula on Chappaquiddick Island where he grew up.

God and Money: How We Discovered True Riches at Harvard Business School
by John Cortines and Gregory Baumer (both MBA 2015)
(Rose Publishing)

The authors tell a story of God’s transforming power and describe a lifestyle of giving that they call “radical generosity.” They outline the seven key principles for implementing this kind of generosity. Royalties from this book go to Christian ministries focused on spreading the Gospel and providing for those in need.

Charlie Whistler’s Omnium Gatherum: Campfire Stories and Adirondack Adventures
by Philip Delves Broughton (MBA 2006)
(Harper)

A compendium of practical knowledge, trivia, and worldly wisdom for boys of all ages, designed as an informal full-color family scrapbook treasured by generations of one fictional family at their Adirondack summer camp.

How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
by Philip Delves Broughton (MBA 2006)
(Macmillan)

Having the drive, ambition, and inspiration to start a new business takes a particular mindset: the ability to disrupt the status quo, use design thinking to generate fresh perspectives, build resilience and leap forward from failure, and ultimately to understand the deepest human needs. The author suggests thinking like an entrepreneur as a way to improve one’s business, life, and relationships.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg (MBA 2003)
(Random House)

At the core of this book are eight key productivity concepts—from motivation and goal-setting to focus and decision-making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Duhigg explains that the most productive people, companies, and organizations view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways. What do these people have in common? They know that productivity relies on making certain choices: the way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; and the way we interact with data.

Even the Odds: Sensible Risk Taking in Business, Investing, and Life
by Karen Firestone (MBA 1983)
(Bibliomotion)

Firestone has developed four core tenets of risk-taking that are applicable when anticipating, evaluating, and responding to risks in business, investing, and life. They are right-sizing; right-timing; relying on skill, knowledge, and experience; and staying skeptical about numbers, promises, and forecasts. Firestone supplements her argument with anecdotes and examples of how many prominent leaders in their fields (and Firestone herself) dealt with risk along the way.

The Ape & the Peacock
by Ralph Hancox (PMD 26)
(Fictive Press)

It’s 1957 in the fictional Canadian province of Superior. In the span of just a few days in November, the lives of several high-level government officials and a colorful cast of “destitutes” are about to change forever as wrongdoings lead to shocking consequences.

Con Job: The Fabufestan Exposés-Book I
by Ralph Hancox (PMD 26)
(Fictive Press)

The adventures of Gregor “Legs” Morowitz, on parole and virtually destitute, after he is offered his old job back at a Canadian boutique documentary and advertising company. The owners want him to head the team investigating the illegal drug trade in North America for a new TV documentary series.

Local Color
by Gwen Keane (PMD 50)
(High Tide Publications)

Based on her experiences growing up in a farm community in the 1950s, Keane describes an undeveloped area where children thrived, enjoying freedom and simple living. She talks about the people, their personalities, contributions, and the influences that set this community apart from city living or other rural areas. The community survived and depended on each individual. People were courteous, supportive, and generous. Yet it was a community of separatism. Black people lived within the confines society imposed.

Integral Advantage: Revisiting Emerging Markets and Societies
by Ronnie Lessem (MBA 1968)
(Routledge)

The BRIC countries are heralded for their double-digit economic growth rates, and yet, significant social and environmental fault-lines have developed in these regions. Lessem makes the case for “integral advantage,” a philosophy including nature and culture, technology and economy, all accommodated by an integral polity. Around the world, the failure of a society to develop is not due to its economic limitations in isolation but to the failure of nature and culture, technology, and economy to coevolve in unison under the rubric of an integral polity.

Family Inc.: Using Business Principles to Maximize Your Family’s Wealth
by Douglas P. McCormick (MBA 1997)
(Wiley)

This book is a roadmap to financial security for the family CFO. It gives you a crash course in corporate finance and the tools to apply the field’s proven, time-tested principles in the context of the family’s financial situation, including the key principles of wealth creation and management and methods for making one’s intellectual and real capital work for the family.

Working out of the Box: 40 Stories of Leading CEOs
by Aparna Piramal (MBA 2002)
(Random Business)

The author explores the connections between work spaces and work styles of 40 progressive leaders, capturing their quirks, individual styles of working, motivations, and leadership traits. She provides insights into what makes these CEOs tick and how they manage their most valuable assets.

Research Methodology: The Aims, Practices and Ethics of Science
by Peter Pruzan (MBA 1959)
(Springer)

This in-depth guide to effective scientific research explains at the outset what science can and can’t achieve and discusses its relationship to mathematics and laws. It explains aspects of the scientific method, including experimental design, verification, uncertainty, and statistics and also includes sections on planning research, presenting one’s findings in writing, ethics, and the responsibilities of scientists.

Rocket: Eight Lessons to Secure Infinite Growth
by Michael J. Silverstein (MBA 1980), Dylan Bolden, Rune Jacobsen, and Rohan Sajdeb
(McGraw-Hill Education)

This book offers the latest techniques for knowing customers’ desires and behaviors so as to deliver rewarding experiences every time they shop. The techniques include creating a demand-space map to predict how big a share can be won with the proper mix of emotional and functional benefits; determining a strategic direction for where to place investment bets; delivering the core benefits of a particular demand space in your product; and maintaining a long-term vision to continually quantify and modify for ongoing improvement.

It’s All About the Idea: 52 Steps to Make You and Your Team More Creative in the Next Year
by Tom Tuke-Hastings (AMP 189)
(The British Business School)

With 52 chapters and an exercise for every week of the year, this book makes creativity attainable for everyone. With simple, easily understandable chapters backed up by downloadable work sheets, it offers advice on learning how to brainstorm, freeing inner dreams, and embracing the word No.

Leadership Wisdom: Lessons from Poetry, Prose, and Curious Verse
by Bob Vanourek (MBA 1966)
(Motivational Press Inc.)

Vanourek has selected poems, prose or speech passages, and curious verse, each example with insights into leadership. He follows these pearls with engaging commentary from his own leadership experience and closes each entry with practical applications of immediate usefulness.

Global Risk Agility and Decision Making: Organizational Resilience in the Era of Manmade Risk
by Daniel Wagner and Dante Disparte (PLDA 6)
(Palgrave Macmillan)

The authors call for a greater sense of urgency from corporate boards, policymakers, and risk practitioners to resolve the many challenges facing today’s private and public sector organizations. They offer insights into specific risk domains that are shaping our world, including terrorism, cyber risk, climate change, and economic resource nationalism. Readers will learn how risk management is being transformed from a business prevention function to a values-based framework for thriving in increasingly perilous times.

Faculty Books

Building the Future: Big Teaming for Audacious Innovation
by Amy C. Edmondson and Susan Salter Reynolds
(Berrett-Koehler Publishers)

The authors explore large-scale systemic innovation that calls for “big teaming”: intense collaboration between professions and industries with completely different mindsets. To explore the kind of leadership required to build the future, they tell the story of a “smart city” startup launched with the goal of creating a showcase, high-tech city from scratch. The collaboration involved software entrepreneurs, real estate developers, city government officials, architects, builders, and technology corporations. Examining the work, norms, and values in each of these professional domains leads to insight into why teaming across fields is so challenging, and what leaders can do to help.

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in Emerging Markets
by Lakshmi Iyer
(World Scientific)

This series of HBS case studies on emerging markets answers to the following questions: When will governments define and enforce property rights? When will the division of policy authority across different government agents (e.g., federal and subnational governments, or politicians and bureaucrats) enable better policy decisions? And what are the consequences of globalization for the economic growth and stability of emerging market countries?

That’s Not How We Do It Here! A Story about How Organizations Rise and Fall—and Can Rise Again
by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber
(Portfolio)

The authors use a parable of a stressed meerkat community in the Kalahari Desert to consider why organizations rise and fall and how they can rise again in the face of adversity.

An Easy Introduction to Financial Accounting: A Self-Study Guide
by V.G. Narayanan
(V.G. Narayanan)

This self-study guide explains concepts in simple language with illustrative examples, provides review questions and quizzes after each chapter and section, and contains two full-length practice exams at the end of the book as well as a glossary. It compares and contrasts generally accepted accounting principles in the US and international financial reporting standards for every topic covered in the book.

Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government
edited by Rosario Patalano and Sophus A. Reinert
(Palgrave Macmillan)

The contributors to this book explore the life and work of Antonio Serra, the Neapolitan author of Breve trattato delle cause che possono far abbondare li regni d’oro e d’argento dove non sono miniere (Short Treatise on the Causes That Make Kingdoms Abound in Gold and Silver even in the Absence of Mines), published in 1613, a pioneering work in the discipline of economics and the history of social science.

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