Good Reads for Business Owners

As a business owner, you have a busy life to say the least. The idea of picking up a book may not fit into your day, but there are many about business that can be immensely beneficial. 

Here are five books offering good reads to help you become a savvier business owner.

1. Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman

This is the perfect book to teach you how to avoid letting common problems and frustrations interfere with running your business. It teaches you how to strengthen the Six Key Components™ of your business, so you spend less time wasted on other things. Learn how to become more focused so you cannot only experience more growth but also get more enjoyment out of your business. You’ll learn how to align your leadership team’s vision and how to resolve the most common issues that can interfere with small business success.

2. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This has become known as “the 10,000 hours book.” This book takes a look at examples of success in less than common business scenarios. Instead of the same old “white paper” textbook examples, it looks at how The Beatles’ experiences in Germany or Michael Jordan’s practice made them household names. The author studies successful people and zeros in on what led to that success and applies it to business. Learn how to dedicate your time to the most effective methods so you can nurture your own success.

3. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, Stephen R. Covey 

This book is all about calm, cool collected success. It might be more aptly described as an exploration of emotional IQ and how to avoid letting emotions ruin your strategy. You can see how outcomes improve when you choose the right path. You can either:

• Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences
• Handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences
• Or have those Crucial Conversations using the right approach and succeed

Using this six-minute mastery technique, you can prepare yourself for the most difficult conversations, remain persuasive without being abrasive, and learn how to listen to others, and turn the most critical conversations around so you get the results you want.

4. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Act by Simon Sinek

This book looks at the most impressive leaders in history and uses them to inspire you to become more innovative, influential, and profitable. You will learn how to generate loyalty to achieve remarkable things. The author shares his idea of how using the same approach as these groundbreaking leaders can help you achieve the same rate of success, all starting with discovering your “why.”

It can be applied to any scenario, teaching you to inspire others instead of trying to manipulate them. The message is: you learn how to be successful through honesty and integrity.

5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

This is the ultimate book about teams to help you overcome any leadership crisis. Written in an engaging fable style, you learn the importance of courage in leadership and how to overcome team struggles caused by dysfunction. You then have insight into actionable steps you can apply in your day-to-day operations, so your team becomes more cohesive and effective.

Finding the time to read can be challenging, but I highly recommend these books because they can shape you into better leaders. 

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