The Practice of Management

Thinkers like Drucker come along very rarely. While most of his books were written in the 50's, his principles of decentralized management ring even truer today than ever. If you take nothing else away from this text, learn this:

The number one goal of by business is to serve it's customers! (yes, even profits are secondary! Think about it for a while)

Drucker was recommended to me by a wonderful business mentor who has been highly influential in my career. It is the beginning to rethinking ones position on how to best manage a business and ultimately, how to get the most out of your resources.

Drucker taught GE how to do what it does best...churn out the markets very best managers. Think about the scale of that achievement, and then begin your journey.

Other outstanding reads are:
The Effective Executive
Good to Great
The Goal

This book has yet to equaled. In it you will find the fountain from which many of today's leading authors drank their inspiration.