Amazon Best Business Books 2011

“Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” by Howard Schultz, Amazon Best Books of the Month, April 2011: Onward is not a puff piece. In just under 400 brisk pages, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz details the multitude of factors–the recession, new consumer behavior, overexpansion–that led to the company’s downturn during 2007-2008.

“Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions” by Guy Kawasaki, Apple’s former chief evangelist leads businessfolk down the path to enchantment. The entrepreneur’s entrepreneur is back with his 10th book, this time tackling the tricky art of influence and persuasion.

“Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization” by David Logan, The authors, management consultants and partners of JeffersonLarsonSmith, offer a fascinating look at corporate tribes. “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives” by Steven Levy, The contradictions of the Internet search behemoth are teased apart in this engaging, slightly starry-eyed business history. Wired magazine writer Levy (Hackers) insightfully recaps Google’s groundbreaking search engine and fabulously profitable online ad–brokering business, and elucidates the cutting-edge research and hard-nosed cost-efficiencies underlying them.

“Poke the Box” by Seth Godin, If you’re stuck at the starting line, you don’t need more time or permission. You don’t need to wait for a boss’s okay or to be told to push the button; you just need to poke.

“Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity” by Josh Linkner, “In today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace the most important resource any business has is the creative thinking of its people. In Disciplined Dreaming, Josh Linkner lays out a road map that will guide individuals, teams, and companies to higher levels of creativity. “We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World” by Simon Mainwaring, “Social media–viral, borderless–is the perfect vehicle to promote “contributory consumerism,” and Mainwaring has fascinating suggestions for technological innovation and systemic change…the author’s enthusiasm and evidence make an excellent (and counterintuitive) case for big business’s ability to make major strides in creating a more equitable world.”

“The Thank You Economy” by Gary Vaynerchuk, on The Thank You Economy The Thank You Economy is much more than saying “thank you.” The Thank You Economy represents a much bigger movement. This book could easily have been called The Humanization of Business or Manners Marketing.

“Beyond Wealth: The Road Map to a Rich Life” by Alexander Green, It’s not all about the money; the key to true richesLeo Tolstoy said, “Nobody knows where the human race is going. The highest wisdom, then, is to know where you are going.” Yet many today chase the false rabbits of success: status, luxury, reputation and material possessions. “Endgame: The End of the Debt Supercycle and How It Changes Everything” by John Mauldin, The End of the Debt Supercycle and How It Changes Everything, Mauldin and Tepper pull no punches and get directly the point. …Endgame is a veritable trip around the world, as Mauldin lays out the uncomfortable choices facing nearly every major country.