Top 25 management books announced

The top 25 management books in the UK have been announced at the Chartered Management Institute’s (CMI) national conference in London. The books are now one step closer to winning the coveted title of CMI Management Book of the Year, having made it on to the competition shortlist for this year’s awards.   The winner will be decided by  a panel of management experts including Professor Cary Cooper CBE of Lancaster University and Sir Anthony Cleaver of Novia Financial Plc,

The CMI Management Book of the Year competition, run by CMI in association with the British Library, aims to uncover the UK’s best books on management and leadership and raise the profile of the great management writing in the UK. The shortlisted books are those that, in the opinion of the expert panel of competition judges, will help transform the working practices of managers and help to raise awareness of how management theories and thinking can be better applied in practice.

With £5,000 at stake for the winning author, the shortlisted books, which include Fixing Britain: the business of reshaping our nation, by Digby Jones and Buy-in: saving your good idea from getting shot down, by John P. Kotter and Lorne A Whitehead, will now undergo an intense review process, where the judges will whittle down the entries to find the winners. One winner will be chosen in each of the five categories – most practical management book, best book for innovation and entrepreneurship, best eBook, best commuters’ read and the most outstanding management and leadership textbook. An overall winner will also be chosen from the five category winners. 

A full list of all the shortlisted books can be found below.

The Management Book of the Year competition, which is now in its second year, was created in response to research that showed employees are unwilling to turn to their bosses for help when they need it at work and struggle to find useful, practical books to help them develop professionally. CMI and the British Library want to identify and publicise the books that all managers and leaders should be reading if they are to get ahead in their careers and help the organisations they work for recover and succeed.

Judy Craske, Project Director at Menter Môn's Shaping the Future project and competition judge, said: “People have fairly rigid views of how they can develop workplace skills; we tend to think of training courses or on-the-job learning supplied by our employers. However, and particularly when the economy is as turbulent as it is at present, there is also an onus on individual managers, and those aspiring to be the managers and leaders of the future, to commit to doing all they can to aid their own development. Management books are a great way of doing this, but only if you know which ones you should be reading. We’re confident that there’s something for every manager on our shortlist, from someone who hasn’t yet started his or her management career, right through to the CEO of a multinational company.”

Piers Cain, knowledge manager at CMI, said: “Unfortunately, the UK is, yet again, teetering on the edge of recession. We need highly-skilled managers if organisations are to succeed and recover. We believe reading to learn to be an important part of this. To revitalise and professionalise management, we need to expose our managers to good ideas and innovative thinking. This is what the Management Book of the Year competition seeks to do. We want to encourage all the UK’s managers and leaders to commit to reading to aid their professional development and have a positive impact on the performance of their organisations.

“It is thrilling to see who, out of the huge number of entries we received, has made it on to the shortlist. I wish all of the finalists every success as they near the closing stages of the competition.”

Simon Bell, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Licensing at the British Library, says: "Once again the quality of books entered into this award have been of the highest quality.  This demonstrates the quality of management books that are available on the market and the increasing number that are being used on a daily basis by business people and researchers alike.  Platforms like the British Library’s Management Business Portal bring some of these resources to life so that students of management and business can understand some of the issues facing the UK economy and business today.  The Library looks forward to the results!”

A full list of the shortlisted books in each category is as follows and details of all these books are available at http://yearbook.managers.org.uk. The winning book will be announced on 6 February 2012:

Practical Management category:

• The art of action: how leaders close the gaps between plans, actions and results, by Stephen Bungay
• Being the boss, by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback
• The cult of the leader: a manifesto for more authentic business, by Christopher Bones
• Good strategy/bad strategy: the difference and why it matters, by Richard Rumelt
• The leader’s guide to influence: how to use soft skills to get hard results, by Mike Brent and Fiona Dent

Innovation and Entrepreneurship category:

• Fixing Britain: the business of reshaping our nation, by Digby Jones
• From brainwave to business: how to turn your brilliant idea into a successful start-up, by Celia Gates
• Identifying hidden needs: creating breakthrough products, by Keith Goffin, Fred Lemke and Ursula Koners
• The innovator's DNA, Jeff Dyer, by Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen
• Out of our minds: learning to be creative, 2nd ed., by Ken Robinson

eBook category:

• Bad apples: identify, prevent and manage negative behaviour at work, by John Taylor and Adrian Furnham
• Bold: how to be brave in business and win, by Shaun Smith and Andy Milligan
• International business, by Mike Peng and Klaus Meyer
• Strategic management: competitiveness and globalization, by Henk A.Volberda, Robert E. Morgan, Patrick Reinmoeller, Michael A. Hitt, R. Duane Ireland and Robert E. Hoskisson
• Women and the new business leadership, by Peninah Thomson and Tom Lloyd

Best commuters’ read category:

• Buy-in: saving your good idea from getting shot down, by John P. Kotter and Lorne A Whitehead
• Decision book: fifty models for strategic thinking, by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler
• Put your mindset to work: the one asset you really need to win and keep the job you love, by James Reed and Paul G. Stoltz
• The mobile MBA: 112 skills to take you further, faster, by Jo Owen
• John Adair's 100 greatest ideas for personal success, by John Adair

Outstanding management and leadership textbook category:

• Corporate responsibility, by Mick Blowfield & Alan Murray
• Effectual entrepreneurship, by Stuart Read, Saras Sarasvathy, Nick Dew, Robert Wiltbank, Anne-Valérie Ohlsson
• The new psychology of leadership: identity, influence and power, by S. Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher, & Michael J. Platow
• Strategic management: competitiveness and globalization, by Henk A.Volberda, Robert E. Morgan, Patrick Reinmoeller, Michael A. Hitt, R. Duane Ireland & Robert E. Hoskisson
• A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership, 2nd ed., by Brad Jackson & Ken Parry

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For further information and interviews, contact:

Harriet Fitzgerald: 0207 010 0828/ 07866 922 350

Shona Matthew: 0207 010 884

Email: harriet.fitzgerald@kindredagency.com / Shona.Mathew@kindredagency.com

or

Miki Lentin: 0 20 7412 7112 / miki.lentin@bl.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

• CMI is the only chartered professional body dedicated to raising standards of management and leadership across all sectors of UK commerce and industry. CMI is the founder of the National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership and sets the standards that others follow.

• The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, photographs, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. www.bl.uk

• By setting minimum professional standards – built into our qualifications, membership criteria and learning resources – we recognise individual capability and give employers confidence in their managers’ performance.

• As a membership organisation, CMI has also been providing forward-thinking advice and support to individuals and businesses, for more than 50 years. As the only organisation to offer qualifications from Level 2 (GCSE) to Level 8 (PhD), CMI is committed to equipping individuals with the skills and knowledge to be exceptional managers and leaders.

• Qualifications and accreditations such as Chartered Manager, combined with products such as CMI’s Continuous Professional Development scheme and the online support resource, ManagementKnow, support the development of management and leadership excellence across the UK.

• Through in-depth research and policy surveys of its 90,000 individual and 450 corporate members, CMI maintains its position as the premier authority on key management and leadership issues