100 Books Like All In

I wrote extensively about Paul Polman in my own book—particularly about his courage. What I admire most is that he didn’t just talk about purpose; he lived it and delivered it.

Reading this book reminded me why I found his leadership at Unilever so compelling. Like purpose itself, Unilever isn’t perfect—but what Polman stood for and what he managed to achieve showed what’s truly possible when courage, conviction, and commitment meet strategy.

I loved how the book balances idealism with practical insight. It pushed my thinking further, reaffirming that profit and purpose can and must coexist if business is to remain relevant in today’s world.

I’ve read lots of books about the future of business and the future of capitalism, but this book deeply inspired me. Mackey and Sisodia articulate with clarity and conviction what I’ve long believed—that purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive but, in fact, must go hand in hand.

I particularly connected with their emphasis on conscious leadership and the need for a higher purpose to guide business strategy. It reinforced my own thinking and sharpened my understanding of how critical it is for leaders to align values with actions. I saw clear parallels with the approach I have developed, and it affirmed for me that embedding purpose isn’t just desirable—it’s essential.

Reading this book had a profound impact on me–as did the author himself. I had the privilege of meeting Colin Mayer in his wood-paneled office and interviewing him for my own book—an experience that deepened my respect for his thinking. I found myself nodding in agreement as he laid out how far corporations have drifted from their true purpose.

I was struck by his call to move from ownership to stewardship and how closely it aligned with my own belief that purpose must sit at the heart of business. His critique helped sharpen my understanding of corporate governance and reaffirmed my beliefs in the need for a better way forward for business and its relationship with society.

I’ve long admired Gary Hamel—not just because, like me, he’s a management consultant (albeit a far more famous one!), but because of the clarity and accessibility of his writing, which is much like Tom Peters–another breakthrough thinker I admire.

This book really hit home for me. I loved how Hamel puts values front and center, arguing that purpose isn’t just a nice-to-have, but a strategic imperative. I found myself deeply aligned with his call for innovation, adaptability, and unlocking human potential—principles I’ve built into the SOI methodology.

This book didn’t just affirm my thinking; it expanded it. It also reminded me why I do what I do–and actually why it’s important.

Kelsey builds an air-tight case for why the planet needs us to get more in touch with our emotions. Emotions dictate all our behavior and action in the world, and so we ought to know which emotions are most effective and in what situations to catalyze actions for climate justice. Because Kelsey is a scientist herself, she buttresses her case about the role of emotions in saving the planet with powerful data. We don’t need more books on “ten things you can do to save the planet.” What we do need is more books like this, which show us why doom and gloom isn’t the only game in town.

I love this book because it showed me that we can have growth without pollution, because the most important growth is the improvement of the joy our lives bring to us, not an increase in the GDP.

Real growth means making people healthier, eliminating hunger, creating rich natural and cultural communities, and providing more opportunities to walk to where we want to go. The old claim that it is “jobs vs. the environment” is shown to be false.

As a researcher exploring informational aspects of social-ecological systems, I find this comprehensive open access scholarly book on social sustainability endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking. The book’s central theme is the role played by the organization of information processing and its social evolution in complex adaptive systems throughout human history. The main strength of this work is its future perspective in the detailed context of the past, with this line capturing the shift: “for the first time in the history of our species we are faced with a major transition in that domain, from human to electronic information processing.” The author astutely observes and examines the unintended human consequences of information and communication technology advances, including the potential long-term impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

Newell’s Globalization and the Environment provides a thorough overview of the international political economy forces which shape global environmental governance. 

He applies a critical gaze to the roles of capitalism, trade, finance, and multinational corporations, along with a focus on the power exercised by the private sector which makes effective global environmental governance difficult. 

“Our cities and towns have been on a high carbon diet—and our metropolitan regions have become obese,” Peter Calthorpe states. Plying a generation of path-breaking work, he reveals how shifting to urbanism, “compact and walkable development,” can mitigate climate change and secure health and happiness. The metrics he presents are essential reading. Three types of neighborhoods—urban, compact, and sprawl—are assessed for their impact on land consumption, energy use, infrastructure, and utility cost, vehicle miles traveled, and greenhouse gas emissions. The information delivers a clear message: technology will not save us, but a lifestyle change will. It is “not radical,” Calthorpe writes, “but simply a shift from large lot single family homes” to the “streetcar suburbs” that once flourished in American cities. This seemingly simple solution is a vast undertaking, but the blueprint is fresh, and the next step requires, as Olmsted averred, “the best application of the arts of… show more.

Meadows, a pioneer in this arena, had an extraordinary gift for making complex systems thinking accessible without dumbing it down.

She left us all too soon. I do return to this book, especially her concept of "leverage points": places within systems where small shifts create disproportionate change. Her insight that changing paradigms proves more powerful than adjusting surface parameters directly informed my research on organizational edges.

What I treasure most is how she wrote with both rigour and humility. She acknowledged that systems are messy, that we can't predict everything, that unintended consequences are inevitable; yet she shows us how to work with complexity rather than against it.

When I'm helping organizations navigate transformation, her frameworks help me identify where to intervene for maximum impact. The chapter on system traps and opportunities has probably saved me from dozens of well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive interventions.

This is the book I gift… show more.