Life at a top B-school will involve reading and understanding more than 200 pages a day of reading material and cases. You will be expected to read one or two Harvard Cases (each about 30-40 pages), and a lot of reading material from books and magazines before classes. So, get used to a lot of reading! Reading best MBA books before you get into the MBA program will help you immensely. Of course, a good book gives you so much learning and perspective which is always helpful. So, here are the top MBA Books on Business and Management. This best MBA books list includes books by Indian Authors like Rashmi Bansal and Saurabh Mukherjea, as well as classic best MBA books by Porter and Thiel.
1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
One of the most important self-help books of our times, 7 Habits is a must read for all MBA aspirants and graduates. This is one of the best MBA Books to read For MBA students and aspirants It will help you manage yourself more effectively and is certainly, one of the best MBA books.
2. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
In “Zero to One”, business visionary Peter Thiel shows how we can discover particular approaches to make those new things. Thiel argues for building the most significant ability that each pioneer must ace: figuring out how to have an independent mind. A must read for campus entrepreneurs, it is also one of the most popular business books for MBA students.
3. Connect the Dots by Rashmi Bansal
Connect the Dots is the narrative of 20 Indian entrepreneurs without an MBA degree, who began their own endeavours and flourished. This book tells you that you needn't to bother about an extravagant degree or a rich dad to think ambitiously and get it going. It's everything in your mind, your heart, your hands. If we have to pick one best MBA book, this is it! It is also counted among one of the best MBA books to read for MBA students and aspirants
4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Among the best books for MBA students, this book is one of the classics in the history of publishing. As a salesman at one point in his life, author Dale Carnegie made his sales territory the national leader for the firm he worked for. Even Warren Buffet, one of the most successful investors of the 20th century, took Carnegie's course! This top MBA book offers simple yet very effective principles like: Criticizing others doesn’t yield anything positive, Give honest and sincere appreciation and give people what they want, not what you want. If you haven’t read this already, make sure you read this top MBA book before you go to the B-school. One of the best MBA Books in the MBA books list, it will help create a positive network which is so important in business world.
5. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
This is one of the best Books for MBA students. The book instructs how human instinct fills in as a method of having a favourable position of influence. He says there are two frameworks that add to how we think. Framework 1 – being quick, programmed, and passionate – drives to having sentiments and impressions. Framework 2 is objective reasoning which is moderate and deliberate and is the explanation behind intelligent reasoning. Author pinpoints when to surrender to Framework 1 and when to exploit Framework 2.
6. Good to Great by Jim Collins
Jim Collins draws out the motivation behind why a few organisations have caused it to the progress of good-to-extraordinary and others to have not. A good book to understand how management theories are formulated.
7. The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs by Charles D. Ellis
The Partnership chronicles the most significant periods in Goldman Sachs' history and the people who assembled one of the world's biggest investing bank giant. It is a tempting story of Goldman's ascent under testing times of rivalry, lawful guidelines and dynamic changes in the market. If you are interested in reading management histories and finance.
8. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
This management book about Innovation, written by Harvard Business School Professor in 1997, has since become the quintessential management book in Tech sector. The “innovator’s dilemma” is that in every company there is a “disincentive” to pursue new markets. Managers in established companies are faced with the question: "Should we make better products to make better profits or make worse profits for people that are not our customers that eat into our own margins?". Paradoxically, this will doom companies in the long run. A must read for budding entrepreneurs and strategy consultants.
9. Competitive Strategy by Michael E. Porter
The most cited scholar today in economics and business, Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter almost single-handedly invented the business school discipline of competitive analysis and strategy—the study of how firms identify and seize upon opportunities they can exploit against competitors. This book is a must read for consultants in making, and for anyone who wants to understand how companies compete in the marketplace.
10) The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
This provocative and one of the most popular business books for MBA students says - if you want to master the art of business, you don’t really need to go to a business school! The Personal MBA is written to help you learn the art of business on your own terms. The Personal MBA explains fundamental, universal business concepts like: “The Iron Law of the Market”, “10 Ways to Evaluate a Market”, “The 12 Standard Forms of Value” and “The Pricing Uncertainty Principle”. “True leaders aren’t made by business schools — they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experience they need to succeed,” says the book.
So, while this book is not a replacement of the real thing, it does offer useful tools for MBA aspirants, especially those you don’t have work experience before MBA.
11) The Victory Project by Saurabh Mukherjea & Anupam Gupta
How can working executives manage their stress and find their purpose? How can newly minted MBAs get to their dream jobs? And how can MBA aspirants understand their strengths and weaknesses and make the best of their 2 years pursuing an MBA? This is one of the best MBA books in India, written by well known Finance Wiz Saurabh Mukherjeaand his co-author. The book attempts to answer these questions by using the principles of Simplicity, Specialization, Creativity and Collaboration. It delves into a treasure trove of material from global gurus as well as from highly successful Indian and American professionals, and it draws on the authors' own careers to show how readers can apply these principles to the fields of business and investment, even to life itself. The Victory Project is a guide to surviving and thriving in the professional and social domains, which are increasingly becoming tough, competitive, often cutthroat and deeply political.
12) The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
This famous 2009 book is the ultimate blueprint for those who want to live more and work less (who doesn’t!), explained by an author who quit struggling for 80 hours each week to only earn $40,000 per year, yet soon found himself averaging only four hours of work per week and making $40,000 each month. Ferris gives an enticing account of how you can outsource assistants to have unlimited freedom to do whatever you want, how professionals can travel the world and still have their jobs intact and how easily you can eliminate 50% of your workload. This is certainly a book you will need to read after you have slogged for a few years after your MBA as will feel caught up in a rat race!
Hope you liked our selection of best MBA books for MBA aspirants and students at B-schools. These top MBA books in India are also available at a cost of only a few thousand rupees and will give you the right mindset for an MBA. So, go get them!
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