Josh reminds us that taking the road of the PMBA is not easy...
The Personal MBA is Not:A stand-alone venture. You can’t learn about business solely from books – you have to be willing to go out and learn by doing. Whether you’re working full-time for a company or building your own business, a full 2/3 of your learning will be a direct result of your day-to-day work experiences, which provide the necessary context for understanding what you read.
A mindless replica of a traditional MBA program. The PMBA was created to expose you to a core set of advanced business concepts quickly and effectively. By design, it does not include anything and everything you might come across in business school. If you’re looking for a detailed analysis of the Black-Scholes option pricing model and its relationship to the volatility surfaces of certain financial derivatives, you’re going to be very disappointed.
An impersonal curriculum. You’ll find more material about learning who you are, what you’re good at, and how you can work more effectively with other people in the PMBA than you will in a standard business school curriculum. There’s a reason why these topics are included here: they are skills that will really help you in your life and work.
An infallible educational revelation. It’s perfectly okay if you disagree with one of the selections or think that a critical book has been overlooked. Feel free to make substitutions as you deem necessary. If you’re skeptical about the value of a title you haven’t read yet, I encourage you borrow the book from your local library and give it a try. If you’re of the same opinion after reading a few chapters, put it down and read something else! (Life is short.)
Easy. Working your way through this list will take time, energy, and persistence. There is no substitute for hard work and dedication.
If you are willing to put the work in, the next set of books are aimed at helping you:
Learn the Fundamentals
Ram Charan is the patient coach of the business world, constantly reminding readers to learn the fundamentals of the profession.
What the CEO Wants You to Know
by Ram Charan
In What the CEO Wants You to Know, Charan explains how to understand companies through the simple, fundamental concepts that are at the core of every business: cash, margin, profit, return on assets, velocity, growth, valuation, customers, employees, and shareholders. Along the way, he explains how these concepts interact in both large and small companies, and how you can improve your business by understanding the basics and focusing on improving your execution of the fundamentals.
Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business
by Ram Charan
Profitable Growth Is Everyone’s Business is a deeper look at how businesses grow and how they can stumble if they attempt to grow in the wrong way. Healthy businesses grow organically by reinvesting profits, focusing on day-to-day execution, and improving the core of the business over time. All employees (at every level of the organization) need to understand how the business operates and what the company is working to achieve. By focusing on the things that make the business successful, Charan argues that companies can quickly adapt to changes in the market and pursue continual and sustainable growth for long periods of time.
The next set of books focuses on Strategic Thinking
On Competition
by Michael Porter
Michael Porter has been a world-renowned expert on corporate strategy for decades, and his articles are assigned in to students in business schools around the world. His “five forces” model of corporate competition provides an intuitive way to analyze the attractiveness of any industry. By paying particular attention to the power of suppliers and customers, the threats of new entry and substitutes, and the level of internal rivalry in the industry, it is possible to develop strategies that create a defensible competitive position for your firm. On Competition is a compilation of eleven of Porter’s Harvard Business Review articles, two previously unpublished papers on health care and capital investment, and a comprehensive introduction to his work.
Blue Ocean Strategy
by W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne
The thesis of Blue Ocean Strategy is simple: why compete with other firms if you don’t have to?
In contrast to Porter’s work, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne advocate a different approach to strategy: try to create new industries that change the competitive landscape completely. By focusing your resources on creating uncontested market space (a “Blue Ocean”), you’re working to make your firm the industry leader while simultaneously making your current competition irrelevant. There’s no sense in operating in competitive war-zones (“Red Oceans”) if you have a choice.
The next set deals with change.
The Only Thing Constant is Change
Seeing What’s Next
by Clayton M. Christensen, Erik A. Roth, Scott D. Anthony
Clayton Christensen is famous for developing theories of why firms rise and fall in The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. Seeing What’s Next is a comprehensive introduction to the ideas presented in both books, with a smattering of business history thrown in for good measure.
This book attempts to answer the question: “How will innovation change an industry, and what impact will this have on the firms I care about?” By building on a framework of three core theories of innovation, the authors develop a three-part process of predicting industry change: (1) identifying signals of change; (2) analyzing competitive battles; and (3) understanding strategic choices. Predicting the future is notoriously difficult, but the authors provide an approachable model for making the best decisions you can with the information you have at your disposal.
Re-imagine
by Tom Peters
Tom Peters is the rock star of business commentary for a reason: he’s loud, opinionated, and more vocally passionate about business than anyone on Earth. The main idea of this book is written in big, bold, red letters across the back cover: “It is the foremost task – and responsibility – of our generation to re-imagine our enterprises and institutions, public and private.” You’ll find thoughts and ideas on almost anything you can think of: leadership, management, human talent, design, corporate systems, innovation, technology, R&D, diversity, risk-taking, decision-making, and societal trends. Reading this book is an informative, inspirational invitation to go out and make great things happen.
Then next set is a series of management books.
Masters of Management
The Essential Drucker
by Peter Drucker
No advanced study of business would be complete without Peter Drucker, the undisputed father of modern management theory. The Essential Drucker is a compilation of twenty-six of Drucker’s best articles, spanning six decades of observation and research. In this volume, Drucker discusses managing knowledge workers, making good decisions, hiring the right people, starting new ventures, building self-discipline, encouraging innovation, and predicting the future of work and society.
First, Break All the Rules
by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman
Based on in-depth interviews of 80,000 managers in 400 companies by the Gallup Organization, Buckingham and Coffman argue that the world’s best managers break virtually every conventional “rule” of management practice. They select employees for talent, not experience, intelligence, or determination. They define the right outcomes for people, not the right steps. They focus on developing employee strengths, not eradicating weaknesses. And they find the right fit for employees in the organization instead of relentlessly promoting people up to their level of incompetence. This book will help you examine what you believe about effective management and encourage you to think of ways to set people up for success in your organization from the beginning.
Even if you decide not to pursue the PMBA, in my opinion these books would be helpful for anyone entering the business arena. Josh is also coming out with a new list of books for 2007 and in addition, he offers PMBA coaching. You can find out more by visiting his website at personalmba.com.
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