I’ve mentioned many of these books in class.
All are excellent; some are truly outstanding.
(► highly recommended by your peers)
(►► very highly recommended)
New Additions in Green
The very latest:
Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
The Moment of Complexity by Mark Taylor
Reinventing the Sacred, Stuart Kauffman
+
[Here is a sequence that really works: 1- Intro, 2- how-to, 3-want-to, 4-able-to. It's the "plot" for BA450, BA465H, BA465/565]
1-- Leadership and Self-Deception = the dramatic introduction
2-- Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life = how-to see games that play us
3-- Why We Do What We Do = wanting-to see games that play us
4-- First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently = able-to choose the games we play
None of the above is woo-woo stuff. It is about superior management.
Stuart Kauffman: 2008, Reinventing The Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion
See Kauffman's At Home in the Universe below. World-class "systems" scientist. Recently wrote a one-pager for Scientific American pointing out that economics needs to move from physics to biology if it is to be relevant in the 21st century -- remember "process 201" and process 301" in BA350?. In this book Kauffman goes on to address issues of purpose/meaning -- i.e., he "transcends" religionisms and scientisms. Truly a book worth digesting.
THINKING ABOUT HOW WE THINK ABOUT OURSELVES
►►The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception
Very readable, short paperback. To date, it's received the highest rating from your peers of any book I've had them read.
Here's my own summary.
Joseph Campbell: 1988, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers
Very readable book; dialogue format in six parts with the world's foremost authority on comparative mythology, a truly "wise" man
and a "heck of a nice guy."
James Carse, 1986, Finite and Infinite Games
Ancient wisdom, restated in modern game theory terms. Winner of "great teacher" awards and a
professor of religion. A small, profound little book.
►► Stephen Covey: 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Easy to read. Still a best seller. E.g., "seek first to understand, then to be understood."
►► Edward Deci,: 1995, Why We Do What We Do
Short and very readable. Top rate. All of your fellow students have given it very high marks.
Here's my own summary plus concept map and one-page list of key points.
►► Viktor Frankl: 1946, Man’s Search for Meaning; 1978, The Unheard Cry for Meaning
True scientist and probably the greatest psychiatrist of the 20th century. A truly wise man.
Survived
►► Daniel Goleman: 1995, Emotional Intelligence
You read his “What Makes a Leader”; well written; lots of variety; a must read.
Daniel Goleman et al., 2002, Primal Leadership
Very readable. Aimed directly at business people.
► Daniel Goleman: 2003, Destructive Emotions
Goleman has assembled a group of top-rate scientists -- and the Dalai Lama -- to discuss
Western and Eastern (Buddhist) knowledge of that "wolf" you really don't want to feed.
Daniel Goleman: 2006, Social Intelligence
A continuation of Emotional Intelligence but based on scientific research from 1995-2006 when neuroscientists
have starting studying, for the first time, interactions between brains! Discoveries of emotional interactions!
J. Krishnamurti: 1994, On Learning and Knowledge [one of a series]
A master teacher re Know Thyself. Profoundly simple....Seminal influence and widespread respect
from many of the best and the wisest. (One of a series.)
Stanley Milgram: 1974 Obedience to Authority
Milgram conducted the infamous shock experiments. In the variation where you could only hear "the student" screaming, the bad news is
that 65% of us go all the way., But the really bad news is that nobody, repeat nobody, even came close to predicting the power of context.
Leading psychiatrists, etc.? Less than 1/10 of 1% of us would go all the way. It's still news. Major network just ran a program on "The
Science of Evil" featuring Milgram's findings.
Ken Wilber: 2000, Integral Psychology
Outstanding integration of our understandings of "psychological development" from ancient wisdom
traditions to and modern science. "Levels of reality" in "multiple dimensions." Pretty readable.
THINKING ABOUT HOW WE THINK ABOUT ORGANIZATIONS
Russell Ackoff: 1999, Ackoff’s Best: His Classic Writings on Management
Russ sums it all up. Has probably had more influence on American management thinking than
any other living American. Very good “systems” stuff.
► John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, 2000, The Social Life of Information
“Easy” to read; punctures many of the info-revolution myths -- the "one blind man" problem;
Brown was the Chief Scientist at Xerox for years and Duguid is a Berkeley Prof of social and cultural aspects of
education.
►► Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, 1999, First, Break All the Rules: What the World's
Greatest Managers Do Differently
Based on in-depth interviews over 25 years with 60k supervisors and managers, 1m workers in 600
different companies. The four C's. A must read especially for all those little rules and the ways things
have been done for years that add up to organized stupidities. All of your fellow students have given it very high marks.
Gareth Morgan: 1997 (2nd, ed), Images of Organization
The
realities of "frames." Very
readable. Successive chapters on organizations as machines (
(
► Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins: 1999, Natural Capitalism: Creating
the Next Industrial Revolution
You read a couple of chapters from this book, including “Human Capitalism” (the Brazilian
city of
► John Kotter: 2002, The Heart of Change
Wrote the article you read, "Why Transformation Efforts Fail." Short, easy book filled with "real-life stories" of how people change their organizations. World renowned scholar. The key? Unlike what you're typically taught or otherwise told, changing must speak to people's feeling -- read emotions. This book joins Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence as one of your must reads.
► Barry Oshry: 1995, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life
A disarmingly simple read. Yet, as the editor of the Harvard Business Review notes, "the world's
master teacher about power and systems" has "put his wisdom on the pages of this much-awaited book."
Peter Senge: 1990, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization
Very readable. Many of my students have raved about this book.
► Duncan Watts: 2003, Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
One of the best and most readable books on the "new science of networks." You had a number of
excerpts among required readings in BA350.
Karl Weick: 1979, The Social Psychology of Organizing
“Most managers get into trouble because they don’t think in circles.” This is the book Professor
Drexler immediately pulled off his bookshelf as the "if-I-were-to-recommend-one book" choice.
Very provocative.
THINKING ABOUT HOW WE THINK ABOUT “SCIENCE,” ETC.
► Edwin Abbott, 1880?, Flatland
Small classic; fun to read; a “square” visits one-dimensional space” then three-dimensional space;
one-hundred years later, you’d be amazed how many people have read it.
Christopher Alexander, 1977 A Pattern Language -- perhaps the best book on architecture in the 20th century.
500+ examples. A number of software programmers(!) find his books to be of great practical value.
So do folks who think that Dilbert office spaces come at a price.
Antonio R. Damasio: 1994, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
World-class neuro-scientist. Great writer.
K. Eric Drexler: 1986, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology
An acclaimed, very readable introduction to molecular-sized "engines." The first sections read like
"Wow!" However, Part III starts with "Engines of Destruction." The was the book that was an epiphany for Bill Joy.
(See his famous article in Wired, 2000, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us.)
Thomas Friedman, 2000, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
Three time Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter lays out his “six dimensions” of
understanding the post Cold War world. Very readable; lots of stories.
►
Malcolm Gladwell: 2000, The Tipping Point
Very readable. Great introduction to the new science of
"networks"
►
Malcolm Gladwell: 2005,
Blink
A "mental" counterpart of the tipping point. The beginning of a "science of intuition," of pattern recognition, of gestalt perception,
of meanings. Yet another effort at escaping the limited and limiting model of the mind as computer.
James Gleick: 1987, Chaos: Making a New Science
Over twenty years old,
this is still cited as one of the best introductions to the "new science
of wholes."
Danny Hillis, 1998, The Pattern on the Stone
Small
paperback by one of
Stuart Kauffman: 1995, At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
Poignant, very well written; endorsements from 3 Nobel Laureates. Processes of evolution are more complex than merely random
mutations....
Richard Lewontin: 2000, The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment
Richard Lewontin: 1991, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA
“Brilliant, eloquent, passionate, and deeply critical.” (I.e., don’t forget the interactions stupid.)
World renowned as top-rate scientist. Small, very readable books.
Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan: 2003, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species
Cutting edge theory by world class scientists which addresses that all-important theoretical gap of the
processes of mutation. Sounds, at times, like a primer in "entrepreneurship." Indeed.
► Bill McKibben: 2003, Enough One of the best books around concerning likely consequences of hi-tech
prospects such as designer children and immortality.
►► Bill McKibben:2007, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future Those of your classmates
who've read it couldn't put it down. Pretty quick read. Addresses fundamental issues of "sustainability" and what we can start doing
about it. The central question McKibben addresses? What is the economy for? It's a macro version of the article, "Smashing the Clock"
about how the CEO of BestBuy discovered ROWE (results oriented work environment). Remember?
Robert Ornstein: 1991, The Evolution of Consciousness
Another world-class scientist writes a stimulating, provocative, very readable book. "Our minds are
organized around emotional ideals."
Neil Postman: 1992, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Postman is very good. The title says it all.
THINKING ABOUT How We Think About “CULTURE” AND ABOUT "Religion"
Karen Armstrong: 2001, The
who was formerly a nun -- writes an update on Hoffer's "true believers." Whether Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, fundamentalists'
efforts to "re-enchant" the world are nihilistic and typically undermine the #1 virtue of all the world's great faiths -- compassion.
The rest of us, however, must learn to listen to their underlying concerns.
► Karen Armstong,2005, A Short History of Myth
Short, very readable. Focus on those myth-based
morality tales that are essential to any culture. Works through the mythic
reformulations
of four fundamental human eras. Insight
into fundamental challenges facing human beings.
►►Ernest Becker: 1975, Escape From Evil
Becker’s
last book (died of cancer at 49; won the Pulitzer Prize for his earlier The Denial of Death;),
published posthumously
by wife and best friend. Read the first chapter slowly, read it again a couple days later, then once again. Then work through the rest
of the book. This is,
quite simply, one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read.
► Eric Hoffer: 1951, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
A timely, outstanding little classic. It will only take you an evening to read.
Elaine Pagels: 2003, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
A highly regarded scholar offers a competing vision of Christ's message based on recently discovered
manuscripts in the Mid-East dating from the time of Christ. The basic message: the transcendent is
here on Earth but we do not see it. "Know thyself" takes on real meaning.
►► Ken Wilber: 1998, The
Marriage of Sense and Soul
This one comes recommended by everyone from Al Gore to the founder of Lotus. World-class and very
readable. An attempt, in part, to reconcile modern science and religion -- more precisely, to move beyond
"objectivism" and "subjectivism" and beyond "scientism" and "religionism."
Christopher Hitchens: 2007, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
One of the better critiques of "religionism" I have found -- "man-made religion," that is, as one critic puts it.
SOME GOOD STUFF ON CREATIVE THINKING
Teresa Amabile -- I’m biased; pretty much anything written by her is bound to be solid and useful. Emphasis on the motivation of creativity.
Edward de Bono: 1992, Serious Creativity;
Big Ed focuses on “recipes,” “creative thinking skills,” or the logic of creativity.
Jean Lipman-Blumen & Harold J. Leavitt, 1999, Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, &
Using Them To Ignite Your Organization Nothing new here (as the authors point out!) If you
want to get something done, find 4-6 people who really care, who are busy, and give them a deadline.
Aimed at the practitioner -- a how-to book.
Gareth Morgan: 1993, Imaginization: The Art of Creative Management
Easy reading chapters. Lots of practical exercises for "thinking outside the box."
Alan Robinson and Sam Stern: 1997, Corporate Creativity
Easy to read -- lots of stories of how corporate creativity "actually happens." Over ten years of research.
Pretty unique among the various innovation books. More focus on the able-to.
ODDS AND ENDS
John Gray: 1998, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism
A former "free markets" advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Gray has had second thoughts about what it
takes for "global capitalism" to work as advertised. Small, well-written, by an apostate.
Eugene Linden, 1998, The Future in Plain Sight: Nine Clues to the Coming Instability
Very readable and credible. “We will know much about the future if we can answer one question: Will
life in the next century be less stable than it is now?"
Jane Jacobs, 1961 (1998), The Death and Life of Great American Cities
A classic. Understanding cities as “systems.” Quite readable; highly relevant.
Huston Smith, 1976, Forgotten Truth
A small classic by the author
of The Religions of
Paul Strassmann: 1997, The Squandered Computer
The Federal Reserve Board read his latest book before it was published! This one should be a must
for anyone going into MIS. Divided into intelligible parts and written for business executives.
Ronald Tobias: 1993, 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them
An outstanding, easy to read guide for writing novels. But it's more than that. It's about "Games That Play People"
– the science of stories. And, it's about you and me and us: "If you understand the essence of your plot,
you will understand better how to go about writing it."
►
Richard White: 1995, The
Organic Machine: The Remaking of the
Slim,
easy-to-read paperback. Salmon, the
"Reframed" through the dimension of energy.
Alfred North Whitehead: 1925, Science and the Modern World
Explains "Quantum Theory" in five short pages. One of the preeminent philosophers of the 20th
century. One class from him inspired my father to go ahead and get his Ph.D. in philosophy from
Harvard -- and he was only studying to become a minister at the time! A truly wise man who
understood "understanding."
A book I am going to read and reread. Amazing breadth and depth. The Title says it all. Highly praised by some of the best -- e.g., James
Gleick, Stephan Jay Gould. Not "just" informal knowledge networks but informal meaning networks!
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