Transformation-leaders booklist

‘Innovation comes from a well- stocked mind’.

‘Successful senior independence depends on lifetime- learning’

‘Stand still and you will miss the future’

‘Be a thought- leader’

Share your own current ‘best and most thought-provoking book’ and why to Info@transformation-leaders.com. And also watch for the monthly ‘book of the month’ featured in our regular end monthly ‘member reports’.

1. Books by T-L.com members and past client speakers to T-L.com

The Liquid Enterprise
Michael Bayler
How ‘the network’ is transforming value

Leaders Don’t Retire 2020 (limited edition)
Chris Brown
They hit ‘refresh’

The Authority Guide to ‘Meaningful’ Success
Tim Johnson
Bringing balance to work and personal goals

The Brand Marketing Architect
John Emerson
A campaign without a strategic plan is like a building without a blueprint

Business Wise
T-L.com Alumni Rob Hook and William Buist and others (Ecademy Press 2007)
The power of ‘visions in business’. And ‘how to manage virtual teams’ 

The Cult of the Leader
Prof Chris Bones
How corporations got to dramatically overpay some corporate leaders for failure, not success. A full 40 min address by Professor Chris Bones Dean Emeritus of Henley Business School is in the’ video section’ of our website in the video section

2. Climate Change

On Fire (JP)
Naomi Klein
The burning case for a Green New Deal. If change this big was easy, it would be done by now. Banning CfC’s in refrigeration globally for the damage to our ozone layer was successful. We started to understand the climate change issues first in 2007 in one of our annual end year insight events, with speaker John Gummer, then MP and our longest serving minister of the environment at Chatham House.

3. Banking

Moneyland
Oliver Bullough
The updated story of the huge scale of ‘offshore’ tax avoidance

Bean Counters (DB)
Richard Brooks
The triumph of the Accountants and How they broke Capitalism.
Genuinely a ‘must read’ to see how dangerous this Big 4 oligarchy has become. On the one hand a great British success story, and a key ingredient in the workings of the stock market. But on the other a big fee corporate tax mitigator and an over influential big consultancy player.

Justice Under Siege
Eva Joly
In France, even as a dogged Judge, taking on a huge French Petrochemical Giant for corruption right to the top of the French State demanded a whole 24/7 police protection team. And in the end her exit to safe senior Government role in Norway. ‘Equality under the law’ is a vital ingredient in any functioning democracy. But always demands huge reserves of courage, tenacity and intellect.

Adults in the Room (JE)
Yanis Varoufakis
The extreme dangers of negotiating from a position of weakness with the EU and bankers

The Big Short
Michael Lewis
The hubris of the US 2008 crash explained. All too few could see the disaster coming from sub- prime securities and then had the courage to ‘bet on it’.

JM Keynes. Universal Man and his seven lives
R Davenport-Hines
Unmissable account of the man and the economic visionary. His extraordinary and correct analysis  in the early prediction of the dangerous outcomes of the failed post 1914-18 Versailles treaty and his special hand in the successful construction of the post WW2 banking world at Bretton Woods and the foundation of the IMF. The arduous UK debtor negotiations with the USA after 1946 clearly shortened his life.     

4. Defence and foreign Policy

From Russia with Blood
Heidi Blake
Where Putin came from. Who helped him get there, and Russia’s programme of assassination of Russian expatriates on UK soil, which Tony Blair was keen to ignore, until it became so brazen and rash that Mrs May, and the West, had to react.

China’s next Strategic Advantage (Imperial)
Prof. George Yip
From imitation to innovation.  

The Shortest History of Germany
James Hawes
The real historical legacy of an industrious and successful West Germany and authoritarian- leaning re unified East. Expect more strategic post-unification political problems in shifts to ‘the political right’ in Germany. 

Our Boys. The story of a Paratrooper
Helen Parr
Unforgettable and recent, and brilliantly researched and written prizewinning book what it is like to be at the very dangerous sharp end of our remarkable volunteer armed forces on whom we spend £46 billion out of £800 billion or so , keeping our 67 million citizens safe from the daily testing of ours and NATO’s defences by the Russians, to the global advance of China, to the driven fanaticism of religious factions. By air and now space, in the oceans and on land.

5. Engineering and Telecoms

Exactly: Precision. Creating the modern world
Simon Winchester
A remarkable and brilliantly researched book on how we got to where we are, by the use of ‘precision’ and measurement in our industrial world. From the world’s first production line with standardised parts in Harpers Ferry in the USA.

Losing the Signal: Blackberry and RIM (ID)
McNish/Silcoff
The unmissable story of how an essential handheld information global device lost its strategic way.

The Machine that changed the world
James Womack etc
How ‘lean production’ revolutionised the Global Car wars and indeed much of manufacturing industry. Transportation leaders Toyota as prime example  

Elon Musk (AN)
Ashlee Vance
The incredible story so far of Elon Musk.  Tesla Spacex etc. Up to 2015

6. UK Public sector Change

Called to Account
Margaret Hodge MP
The essential primer for change in our UK public service The huge mistakes HMRC, Welfare etc

Slide Rule: The R101 story. (CB)
Neville Shute
Why innovation run by the public servants can go so badly wrong
The Blunders of our Governments
How our public sector loses billions of taxpayer’s money

7. Business Thinking

Any youtube video of Simon Sinek on how leaders of teams ‘should’ behave, but sadly, many do not.

Stop Talking- Start Doing
Shaa Wasmund
A book that made thinker Seth Godin uncomfortable. Don’t think, ‘do’.

The Trusted Advisor
David Maister
In short, spend most time on building ‘trusted relationships’.  And stop ‘selling’. 

The Tom Peters Seminar
‘Imagination’ is the source of building new ‘value’ in the economy.

Lessons from the art of Juggling
Gelb and Buzan
Balance between the business and the personal in times of rapid change. ‘The learning organisation’.

The One Minute Manager
Spencer Johnson
Catch people doing things ‘right’

Rapid Problem- Solving using Post it notes
David Straker
Variations on the theme of effective ‘Mind Mapping’. Tony Buzan  

The Speed of Trust
Stephen Covey
The Son of Stephen Covey. ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’. Essential reading for anyone starting a business. 

The Beermat Entrepreneur
Mike Southern
Turn your good idea into a great business. A fine starter textbook for entrepreneurs

Straight from the Gut
Jack Welsh
GE was the world’s largest company when Jack left in 2001. Where is it now? What did he then do? Founded a distance- learning MBA Business School

My Way of Thinking
Konosuke Matsushita
The inspirational creator of Panasonic, one of our first corporate clients after our foundation in 2000. World leaders in battery and sustainable electricity solutions.  

The ‘One Thing’ (CB)
Gary Keller
Concentrate on ‘the one thing’ and watch the difference that makes.

One + One= Three
Dave Trott
Stories to show how to prepare for change that are counter- intuitive.

Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
The ‘conductor’ and relentless driver of development ‘orchestras’ in computing that have changed our world. Born the same year as Bill Gates they both hit the developing digital world at the same ‘fault lines, with different strategic visions . Microsoft sometimes ended far ahead, then Apple. Both borrowed from other developments to make them better. Or, with bigger wallets, simply bought out their competitors.      
A remarkable journey to the world’s largest corporation. Engineering meets marketing

You’re Not Listening (CB) 2020
Kate Murphy
The power of REALLY listening

The Tipping Point (JE)
Malcolm Gladwell
‘Networks’ and the power of numbers within groups.

Drive
Daniel H Pink
The surprising truths about what motivates us

Confessions of an advertising man. Ogilvys (JD)
David Ogilvy
Thought provoking self- publicising insights on the development of mass communication by a remarkable learner and teacher.

The Long View
Brian Fetherstonhaugh
Career Strategies to Start Strong, Reach High, and Go Far. Plan with purpose to achieve deeper long- term goals.

Black Box thinking (CB)
Matthew Seyd
The critical role in developing a ‘success culture’ where all engaged in an enterprise or sport are very keen to be learning from mistakes. To  seek the marginal gains (or sometimes giant leaps) that can mean the difference between success and failure.

The Hungry Spirit
Charles Handy
The father of ‘portfolio working’ this is just one of his books. This is titled ‘beyond Capitalism. The quest for purpose in the modern world’. Published 1998 and very prescient. In short, are you ‘Sustenance Driven, ‘Outer Directed’ or ‘Inner Directed’?    

Niche
James Harkin
Why the market no longer favours the mainstream

8. UK politics

My life in Questions
Jeremy Paxman
Totally unmissable 2016 autobiography. Jam packed with insights.
Indeed, our UK Government risks throwing out a world leading ‘global treasure’ with the bathwater with the possible dismemberment of ‘the licence fee’. There is every benefit in communicating ‘on the one hand, and also on the other’. Life is always about dealing with paradoxes. The danger that awaits the nakedly commercial approach is Murdoch’s one sided, partisan and aggressive ‘Fox News’   

Great British Speeches
Simon Heffer
Including Margaret Thatcher on Europe ‘Let Europe be a family of nations’ 1988. Essentially her rejection of the Central European State project.              

Hubris: The Road to Donald Trump, Power, Populism and Narcissism
Lord David Owen
A unique perspective on the dangers of hubris in our leaders, which at aged 81 will be Owen’s last book. Unmissable observations on the dangers of leaders where hubris destroys perspective. Tony Blair being one recent example in Dr Owens ‘close up’ view. Not so, yet, with Mr Trump. Trump however has issues with ‘truth’ in Owen’s view. But eroded physical and mental health in any ‘second term’ can dangerously cloud judgement of any leader, who has already shown a sometimes tenuous attachment to ‘truth’. This makes the long serving Mrs ( Mutti) Merkel, an East German scientist by background , a very remarkable leader for her longevity and evident lack of hubris.       

9. Agriculture

Wilding
Isabella Tree
Not all our farmland is good for big subsidised high production farming. Here is an already 20- year project to put a 1,400 hectare estate in the Sussex Weald ‘back to nature’ to restore wildlife and soil health. Unmissable. And explains much of what is coming up in post- EU UK agricultural and subsidy planning where technology produces higher and higher yields from good land, but subsidies can produce wasteful farming in difficult terrain.   

10. Philosophy

Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
For the most powerful of Roman Emperors Marcus Aurelius was a highly trained Stoic. Such gems as ‘don’t complain, no one is interested ‘ lie in these ‘thoughts’ dictated to his secretaries to help refine his own personal behaviours. Dramatically different to any of the thoughts of the emperors Nero or Caligula.

The Rule of Saint Benedict (PC)
Very advanced thinking that resonates today, which founded an entire monastery movement, but coming out of extraordinarily violent and confused times.