My 2006's Favourite Books

BFC — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:44:13 GMT

One of my favourite hobbies is reading. I would like to read more than I am actually doing, but the fact is: the day has only 24 hours and when you have a son with 30 months who needs a lot of attention from you, when you waste on average 90 minutes per day commuting to work, you have to be more and more selective on the reading you choose (btw, this Christmas I received an iPod Video and an iTrip, which allows me to enter in the podcast bandwagon and try to capitalize the time wasted in traffic). So, I decided to give an award to the best three books I've read in 2006, independent of the category.

3rd Place: The Book of Questions

This book was given to me in my birthday by a great friend of mine. When I saw the front of the book I asked to my friend: "Hey, The Book of Questions?! I hope to get the answers, right?". He told me, "No, there are only questions". In fact, it contains 217 Questions, dealing with integrity, money, etc. Questions too personal to talk about loud. This book is a great tool for self-discovery, and if you think you know yourself in depth, try to read this book and be totally honest. Right now I have this book on my bedside. I usually open the book randomly, and think about a given question.

2nd Place: Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant

I think this book is a must read for everyone who wants to have a different way of seeing competition and market space. The idea is quite simple: run away from the bloody read-oceans where everyone competes, and try to figure out blue oceans, invading untapped market spaces and creating new demand. The fundamental point is to create what the author calls "Value Innovation", which is a combination of differentiation and low cost. The book gives a lot of examples of blue oceans.

And the Winner is: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

I loved this book. I subscribe most of the ideas explained in this book, which sentence that an organization must be in continuous learning, which is the only way to excel in the business environment. There are five disciplines that build learning organizations:

Systems Thinking - understand the whole system, rather than the individual parts
Personal Mastery - be the best that you can
Mental Models - "separate the map from the territory"
Shared Vision - your motivation increase if you share the same vision with the other members of the group.
Team Learning - be open to new ideas, and think together in group.

This is the way I idealize an organization. I decided to read more about this all subject, and I have already in my wish list for 2007 more books about the "Fifth Discipline".