Here are 100 books that The Innovator's Dilemma fans have personally recommended if you like
The Innovator's Dilemma.
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How many people have had a great idea and just needed to gain support within a large organization to move ahead? I have, over and over again, along with very accomplished teams. It’s often hard work to create something new. It requires both art and science. When people understand how it works, they elevate their craft and achieve more while lifting others up. Some of them even change the world. I’ve found great wisdom and amazing stories of courage and adventure from people who have already been there, done that, and written about their experiences. I hope these book recommendations broaden your perspective and inspire your imagination!
This book provides actionable guidance for those who want to identify and assess new strategic growth opportunities for their companies. I found it especially valuable since my research has highlighted how much groundbreaking intrapreneurial success depends on strong alignment with the broader organization’s strategy.
A basic premise is that red oceans are already filled with lots of competition, and blue oceans offer a broader range of motion to define new categories and establish a sustainable leadership position. Readers will find a powerful framework and tools for those who commit to world-class strategy as they assess where to focus- and how to do it.
This book is a valuable primary reference, especially for a deep dive into strategy as part of the overall intrapreneurial journey.
OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD WALL STREET JOURNAL AND BUSINESSWEEK BESTSELLER RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC AND IMPACTFUL STRATEGY BOOKS EVER WRITTEN
The global phenomenon that has sold over 4 million copies, is published in a record-breaking 46 languages and is a bestseller across five continents--now updated and expanded with new content. Named by Fast Company as one of the most influential leadership books in its Leadership Hall of Fame. A strategy classic.
In this perennial bestseller, embraced by organizations and industries worldwide, globally preeminent management thinkers W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne challenge everything you thought you…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I am, first and foremost, someone who cares deeply about the world, people, and learning. I have been passionate about ideas, curiosity, and innovation since I was a child and since starting our company and writing four books, have had the privilege of helping over 400 organizations and 700,000 people to unlock their genius by not being experts but by being curious about the world around them and other people. I am also a teacher, speaker, and community volunteer who is keen to help people find their own unique brilliance.
I love this book because it is all about how we show up each day and how we engage the world.
I am particularly keen on the idea that we can choose to be open to learning new things, meeting new people, and making a difference…in other words, we can choose to “grow” …or we can choose to stand still.
And I hope that I will never stop wanting to know more, read more, learn, and try to make a difference.
From the renowned psychologist who introduced the world to “growth mindset” comes this updated edition of the million-copy bestseller—featuring transformative insights into redefining success, building lifelong resilience, and supercharging self-improvement.
“Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes
“It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this…
Every person faces moments that test their strength, their identity, and their belief in what is possible. For me, those moments became the foundation of Mastering Intentions. These five books reflect the power of mindset, discipline, and self-awareness to transform challenge into clarity. They each carry a truth I live by: that you can rebuild from anything when you move with intention. Each of these authors has, in their own way, taught me how to align thought with action, faith with focus, and purpose with power. If you are navigating transition, rebuilding after loss, or simply ready to step into a new chapter, these books will help you rise stronger and more grounded than before.
This book is one of the most effective guides to meaningful, lasting change.
James Clear explains how transformation happens through small adjustments practiced consistently over time. His philosophy aligns with a core belief in my own life and work: growth is created by what you do daily, not occasionally.
Clear breaks down the power of systems, discipline, and identity-based habit building. The book proves that success is rarely about dramatic breakthroughs. It is the result of steady, intentional actions that accumulate into extraordinary impact.
Mastering the next right step is the foundation of personal and professional excellence.
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 4 million copies sold!
Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I’ve spent my entire professional life dealing with how technology impacts business. I started out writing code to improve the operations of retail stores and factories. I managed teams developing products from videophones to cellphones. I’ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of the music business, from selling CDs to streaming files to billions of fans. These experiences provided the background for writing a book about tech disruption in the music business, starting with the phonograph and leading to Generative AI. The books on this list gave me the broader historical perspective I needed and the context to understand how other industries dealt with their own seismic changes.
I never knew that the telegraph started as a series of physical towers conveying coded messages by line of sight from one hill to another. It took years for the word telegraph to refer to the system we know so well, relying on electrical lines, the telegraph key, and Morse code.
I love how Standage finds the through line from this 19th-century communications network to the Internet we all take for granted today.
A new paperback edition of the book the Wall Street Journal dubbed “a Dot-Com cult classic,” by the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses-the fascinating story of the telegraph, the world's first “Internet.”
The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts…
Hi, I’m Neil. We need to live our tiny, precious lives with intention. I write about failure, resilience, happiness, trust, and gratitude. I’m the New York Times bestselling author of 10 books and journals that have sold over 2,000,000 copies and spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists, including The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, and You Are Awesome. I host the award-winning, ad-free, sponsor-free podcast 3 Books, where I’m on a 22-year quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world. Guests include Brené Brown, Quentin Tarantino, and David Sedaris. I give over 50 keynote speeches a year at places like Harvard, SXSW, and Microsoft.
If I were teaching a course on life, this would be a mandatory textbook. Talib defines black swan events as events that 1) are disproportionately huge, 2) cannot be predicted, and 3) are mistakenly explained in retrospect with hindsight and fallacies.
This book helped me leave my corporate job and strike out on my own. Why? To help unroll the canvas of myself and my life, so I was more exposed to black swan events, leading me to write more books and have more unlikely, amazing experiences.
The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.”
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions…
Throughout my oddly circuitous career, my mission has always been to help clients grow their businesses. Along the way, I’ve come up with some pretty useful insights and innovations. I mixed cartoons (I’m also one of the WSJ cartoonists) with direct marketing and created a new genre that broke many response records. Then I wrote How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, which helped readers drastically improve their sales results (and was named one of the top 64 sales books of all time). And now, How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed adapts nature’s ultimate growth model for business use, to produce explosive, sustainable growth.
I enjoyed Alan Weiss’ book, Million Dollar Consulting, for its refreshingly hard-nosed look at dealing with clients. A business can’t exist without them, but contrary to conventional wisdom, the customer isn’t always right. They’re often difficult, stubborn, and think they know more about a given subject than the expert staring them in the face. Weiss’ book is a practical course on landing and working effectively with clients, especially getting paid what you’re worth. If your business model includes working with high-end clients, this book is a treasure map for growth.
Build a thriving consultancy with the updated edition of this classic bestseller
Having inspired generations of consultants and entrepreneurs around the world, the "Rock Star of Consulting" Alan Weiss returns with a revised and completely updated edition of his authoritative guide to consulting success.
Weiss provides his time-tested model on creating a flourishing consulting business, while incorporating and focusing on the many dynamic changes in solo and boutique consulting, coaching, and entrepreneurship. In addition to guidance on raising capital, attracting clients, and creating a marketing plan, he also gives brand new step-by-step advice on:
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I have been a founder, CEO, venture capitalist, buyout specialist, Chairman, author, consultant, and coach. I’ve seen the startup world from every angle and also seen how destructive it can be if we don’t take care of our inner lives. My work now is to help people understand how we can transform ourselves to transform our businesses. These books were helpful to me when I needed them most and shaped not only my leadership approach but also my life.
This book came out when I was a struggling founder CEO and hit me in the right way. Steve is clearly a polarizing leader, and for good reason. He’s complex and deeply flawed, but he also created magic products that changed the world. As a founder, you must constantly step back and question your motivations, as they will subconsciously drive your decisions in ways you don’t always consider.
For me, this was a call to action to understand what it takes to inspire teams to greatness, but it was also a warning to approach it from the right source of inspiration.
From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life.
Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members, key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.
I have always tried to be "the best that I
can be'' at anything. These books helped me be the best that I could be
at commercial investment real estate sales...without hype...just good
solid advice.
This is the “playbook” for commercial real estate. Even though Robert Ringer wrote this book in 1973 he absolutely hit the nail on the head.
He teaches you “straightforward, easy-to-understand terms, how to defend yourself against the intimidators of the world.” Robert Ringer even identifies the “intimidators” and in a humorous and entertaining way.
The most amazing part is that once you have read the book, you will instantly recognize the characters from the book in your daily life.
#1 New York Times Bestseller! Why is Robert Ringer's classic Winning through Intimidation still one of the most talked about personal-development books of all time? Because it teaches you how to defend yourself against the intimidators of the world.
Believe it or not, the results a person obtains are inversely proportionate to the degree to which he is intimidated; it's not what you say or do that counts, but what your posture is when you say or do it! Those who choose to be ostriches and believe they can wish away these realities invite an enormous amount of unnecessary pain…
Throughout my oddly circuitous career, my mission has always been to help clients grow their businesses. Along the way, I’ve come up with some pretty useful insights and innovations. I mixed cartoons (I’m also one of the WSJ cartoonists) with direct marketing and created a new genre that broke many response records. Then I wrote How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, which helped readers drastically improve their sales results (and was named one of the top 64 sales books of all time). And now, How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed adapts nature’s ultimate growth model for business use, to produce explosive, sustainable growth.
Early in my career, I found myself mentored by several of the world’s top cartoonists from Playboy and The New Yorker, including the amazing Gahan Wilson. His cartoons were works of wonder, with intricate cross-hatching, quirky details, and trademark macabre stylings. By sheer luck, I’d stumbled into a backstage pass with one of the greatest cartooning talents ever, so observing his process was a privilege. Humor is about revealing the truth with a twist, which is why I treasure this particular book by Gahan. It’s a collection of his work, but also a statement of entire purpose for all of cartooning—to capture truth.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have done some pretty cool things in the arts. To share a few, I’ve given TEDx talks, I have produced and co-starred in a film that made it to Cannes, I have written 11+ books (one of which was a Barnes & Noble # 1 best seller), I have spoken at SAG/AFTRA and Writer’s Guild, I am an entertainment attorney, and I have an album up on iTunes/Apple Music/Spotify, etc. I really love inspiring people, and helping them to achieve life dreams. I hope this list will help inspire some of you to go after your dreams, too, and with a passion!
The stuff in this book is so good that I used his very techniques to end up co-writing a book with the author!
This book helped me to recognize that my success in show business (and indeed, in any field) was not going to be due to my talent (of which I have in excess supply!) but because of how well I could market that talent, and share it with the world.
Guerrilla Marketing was my trusted friend when I was starting out, and its lessons ring true 20 years later as I continue acting, producing, coding, speaking, and more. In fact, the lessons in this book helped me to book my first TEDx talk just this year (2024).
The book that started the guerilla marketing revolution, expanded and completely updated for the twenty-first century.
Jay Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing revolutionized marketing strategies for the small-business owner with his take-no-prisoners approach to finding clients. Based on hundreds of solid and effective ideas, Levinson’s philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. In this completely updated and expanded fourth edition, Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including strategies for marketing on the internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it); tips for using new…
