For someone who loves books and dislikes naming favourites, it’s tough to quickly make a list of only 10 must-read books. There are so many valuable books an entrepreneur can learn from that this list is only a starting point, rather than “the Top-10”. But, then, one of the most important things an entrepreneur can do is to overcome his or her own resistance at some of the most inconvenient times. So here goes!

1. Good to Great (Jim Collins) – this book delves into some fundamental strengths that entrepreneurs need to seed into their business fairly early. Interestingly some of the companies listed in the book may no longer be called great (a weakness with most management books quoting specific examples), but I believe the principles stand the test of time.
2. The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell) – some small things do become big. Every entrepreneur and start-up would love to know how and why; Gladwell’s book offers a different perspective – from epidemics to better governance. Much learning for the start-up and the small business owner.
3. Losing My Virginity & Screw It, Let’s Do It (Richard Branson) – one autobiography is usually enough for most people – trust Richard Branson to not fit into that mould. I’ll count them as one. As an entrepreneur who went from selling records to creating one of the most diverse brands covering airlines to telephone services, Branson will certainly have something for everyone. The books offer a view into his struggles as much as his successes.
4. The High Performance Entrepreneur: Golden Rules for Success in Today’s World (Subroto Bagchi) – if for nothing else, read it for the first chapter: “How Do I Know if I Am Ready”. Of course, once you’ve gone through that chapter, it is remarkably easy to go through the rest of the book, which offers guidance from Bagchi’s own deep experience as an entrepreneurial manager and as an entrepreneur.
5. Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (C. K. Prahlad) – who says you have to have millions in the bank and service only rich customers to be a successful entrepreneur? I must admit I came very late to this book, and am yet to complete it, but it is an excellent reference source for case studies of innovative and very large businesses being grown in markets that are typically treated as poor or low value, environments that many Indian entrepreneurs can relate to.
6. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Chip Heath, Dan Heath) – Inspired by the Tipping Point, the Heath brothers describe what it takes to get your ideas across, and make a lasting impact. A must for entrepreneurs looking for funding, to hire great people and keep them motivated, and to capture lasting customer relationships.
7. It Happened in India: The Story of Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Central and the Great Indian Consumer (Kishore Biyani) – there are too few books about or by Indian entrepreneurs, so this is one growth story in desi style that many start-ups would be able to relate to. It is not as polished as most other entrepreneurial autobiographies, but valuable nevertheless.
8. The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs And Executives Should Do Before Writing A Business Plan (John Mullins) – an someone who turned from corporate life to academics and further to being involved with entrepreneurs, Mullins provides a great framework to help the entrepreneur filter and refine his concept of the “next big thing” into a real business.
9. Venture Capital Funding: A Practical Guide to Raising Finance (Stephen Bloomfield) – while written from a UK and European perspective, it is a valuable reference for anyone looking for external funding. A practical guide to the whys and the wherefores, the jargon and the structures of venture funding written for an entrepreneur.
10. And last but not the least – pick your favourite philosopher or guide. No matter whether we are overtly spiritual or completely agnostic, there are times, many times in an entrepreneur’s life, when we need to step beyond the intellectual construct of business, look beyond plans and strategies, and next year’s targets. Depending on how you are feeling and what you need at that particular time, this book (or these books) can be versatile in offering you guidance for your next steps, direction to correct your course, or simply a platform to stabilise yourself.

The thing about lists is that even if you find one item on the list that makes a substantial difference to you, the list has been useful. Among the above, I believe you will find more than one that will create such an impact. Happy reading!

[Column written for The Economic Times, 13 November 2009]

Cisco’s John Chambers is calling the current economic scenario “the biggest opportunity of our lifetime”, and asking managers to shift from a centralised approach to a more collaborative one. Of course, Cisco as a company has much to gain from the growth of collaborative network organisational models, but he does have a point.

But will it be simple to make that shift? After decades, maybe centuries, of command-and-control behaviour training from kindergarten, it will take more than a few months for people to learn how to collaborate. Remember the management adage: “Lead, be led or get out of the way”? May be time to question even that. I’m not suggesting that there is no further need for leaders, but Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leadership (or even a more evolved form) needs to be adopted, for true collaboration to happen rather than a push / shove / cut & chop. Many current management models have to be thrown out and new ones implemented, and even old ones re-discovered. While we may not realise it (or may not want to see it), many of the current management models are quite feudal in nature.

What’s more – and I might be out on a limb here – we may even have to de-construct our whole economic model which is built on the principle of “scaling up and consolidation”, in favor of fragmentation and individualisation.

A very very good documentary to watch in the current times is “The Corporation”, other than digging into the host of other literature that is available.

REVIEW: DISCORDANT DEMOCRATS: ARUN MAIRA (Penguin Books India)

As I read through Arun Maira’s book, the month unfolded with a number of high-pitched disagreements around the world. In India, quotas and reservations were a hot topic, as was an apparent divergence between the Prime Minister and corporate chiefs on executive income and distribution of wealth. Self-appointed moral police disapproved the expressions of a student of art, while, elsewhere in the world, suicide bombers expressed disapproval of foreigners on their soil.

We are surely not the first to wonder why, after millennia of physiological evolution, societies around the world are still stuck in the same, predictable response: where disagreement (on an issue) translates into disapproval (of a person), more often than not leading to conflict that is frequently violent.

The need to accept differences and the use of democratic dialogue as a process to close the gap is the basis of Arun Maira’s Discordant Democrats. While the book is largely about democracy in India, Maira draws from events, personalities and initiatives around the world to make the case for democracy as the only reasonable mechanism to manage diversity in society, and dialogue as the only reasonable mechanism to sustain it.

This is embodied in a quotation that is commonly attributed to French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In fact, Maira goes beyond free speech to the need for mass dialogue. While free speech typically stops at the “right to express different opinions”, dialogue is about the free “exchange” that can move people closer. Dialogue, unlike debate or argument, is not about sticking to one’s own point of view but about parties reaching a consensus through a process of mutual expression and understanding.

When comparisons are made between Communist China and democratic India, democracy is presented as the millstone around the neck of India’s development. India has a demographic diversity that is among the highest in the world, and a body politic that is among the most fragmented. It is the disagreements among the various segments, interest and pressure groups that some people often hold up as the biggest hurdle to India’s economic and social progress. On the other hand, the advocates of “democracy in action”; may hold up noisy debate as the true expression of desires of individuals and small, otherwise powerless, groups. And there is little common ground between these two groups.

But, as Maira writes in the preface: “This book is about democracy and about consensus: two ideas that cannot but be associated with India. Indeed, one must wonder whether India could be one country without democracy or without consensus.”

Maira takes a middle path, in differentiating between the “hardware” and the “software” of democracy. He describes the hardware as the mechanisms that we are all familiar with — the Constitution, devolved institutions and the framework of free and fair elections, whereas the software is dialogue and deliberations. The democratic hardware enables the freedom of divergent expression. But it is the democratic software that enables a convergence to consensus and the emergence of a functional rather than dysfunctional society.

This is an important distinction when we examine the relative success or failure of countries that are all apparently democratic in structure. Most elections may be free and fair, but are the results later really representative of the electorate’s wishes? From what we can see around us, the hardware of democracy is robust, but there needs to be greater emphasis on the software.

Maira devotes the latter part of the book to tools that he calls Weapons of Mass Dialogue. Using topical and real-life instances of the dialogue mechanism being applied, he takes the reader through the steps of creating a common aspiration, exploring and identifying the thought anchors of the parties in the dialogue, framing the situation and then arriving at a solution.

As a comparison, the example of a Native American tribe comes to mind. To resolve conflict between members, the tribe follows a structure that requires a member to silently listen to the other’s views and then express that person’s views back to him until he or she concurs that the listener has completely understood what has been said. Only then does the first listener get the opportunity to express his own views, while the first speaker only listens and then reiterates what he or she has heard.

This mechanism may appear lengthy in most modern debates, but when we are dealing with issues as complex as the evolution of our cities or the uplift of disadvantaged castes and socio-economic classes, do we really have any other option?

Our genetic response to crisis is hard-wired from our days in the wild: fight or flight. While the latter is clearly “escape”, the former is also an “exit” because it shows an inability to deal with a discord to a mutually satisfying result. We need to expand this to a trinity of responses that includes “unite” – an integrative process that can help cope with the complex and interrelated world we live in.

The tools may look contrived and slow to those championing the cause of “action” there are few alternatives to dialogue. But in a world where discordant democrats do not often listen to each other, Maira’s Weapons of Mass Dialogue are definitely worth a try. Here it is on Amazon.co.in.

EXCERPT:
We want action. And we want democracy. Sometimes, in despair, when that speedy action is difficult in democracy, he seemed willing to forsake democracy. But that is a cop-out. We have to find a way to have both – speedier action and more democracy. Once again, a very important “either-or” choice is raising its head. We must convert it into a ‘both-and’ solution. As Einstein said, we cannot solve the difficult problems that we face with the same thinking that led us into those problems. Rather, we must look into the theories-in-use that are causing the problem, and develop a new one. In this case, the problem with our theory-in-use of how people can work together to resolve problems that they are all part of. The call for an authority above them, “insulated from the intense pressure of democracy” – a dictator or expert that they would be willing to unquestioningly delegate upwards to – is giving up on the further evolution of humanity’s democratic enterprise.

[Here’s the book on Amazon.co.in.]