Outliers
by Malcolm Gladwell
From the bestselling author that produced The Tipping Point, this book looks at the best, brightest and most famous people in different fields around the world, and tries to explain what makes them different. Using case studies ranging from Canadian junior hockey champions, to Asian maths prodigies, rock bands, soccer players and software entrepreneurs, the author builds an argument about how it is culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck that can account for success, more so than any particular set of character traits or habits.
Execution
by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck and Clare Smith
Principally put together by former chairman and chief executive of Honeywell Larry Bossidy and the management guru Ram Charan, this book argues that the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution, and that most executives do not understand that execution is a discipline that needs to be learned and not just the tactical side to business. To create cultures that focus on execution, the authors advocate following five rules. These include picking specific priorities for their businesses and setting clear timetables for achieving them, assigning projects to the right people and groups that can execute them, and setting milestones and conducting interim reviews and measuring staff performance.