The 2015 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Longlist
Ryan Schleicher
November 03, 2015
These 40 books—five selections across eight distinct categories—make up the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards Longlist.
Forty books might sound like a fairly sizable number of titles to make up a longlist, but when you consider hundreds upon hundreds of entries, the number forty is excruciating to reach. As Dylan, our Editorial Director, so eloquently wrote last year, "The culling process we undertake during the awards process is always painful. As great as it is to dive into the stacks and discover some books for the first time, and rediscover and revisit some past favorites from the year, there are always ones left behind, books that get laid back down softly on our desks with care instead of thrown back in a box on the floor. There is a list of books just as long as the list of books that made it here that caused us real distress to leave off—that we want to stand behind and will in other ways."
But here we are today, having completed this year's culling process, and like every year, one gratifying exercise is to take a step back and examine what trends the list reveals. Some years the trends are harder to identify, but that was not the case this year. From our General Manager, Sally Haldorson:
Whereas in years past we've seen books about how technological innovation is changing the world and shaping our future for the better, this year, perhaps the most optimistic books on our future are those that focus on social entrepreneurship (Getting Beyond Better), narratives of classic industries and bricks-and-mortar business striving to reinvigorate their culture through humanistic management practices (Everybody Matters, We Are Market Basket), and even books about devising new accounting metrics (Six Capitals, Or Can Accountants Save The World?), instead of laudatory accounts of tech companies. Even the tech startup book on the list—Startupland—is about a business that builds customer service tools.
And this from Dylan Schleicher, our Editorial Director:
Looking up and down this year's list, we see a continuing trend of books at the intersection of digital technology and business. And though a few extoll the benefits, more and more begin questioning technology as panacea for business. And it is not just the books that actively question its effect, like The Rise of the Robots, Geek Heresy, and Reclaiming Conversation, but books that remind us that so much of the work left to be done is inherently and entirely human—Unfinished Business, Everybody Matters, Widgets, and Boss Life, among others. There are more books this year about workplace culture, human psychology, action and interaction, our behavior in the marketplace, and how we make a better world and business world together.
We'll let you consider this trend and determine what you think it means for your business and for the greater business world. Is it a course correction compensating for a business media perceived to devote an overabundance of space to tech? Is it a reminder that while new and life-changing processes, products, and tools are leading to globally ubiquitous usage, we are still human, and therefore still require tangible, personal, sensory human interaction to thrive? Or, is this and any other overarching theme blanketing our longlist the product of good, old-fashioned coincidence? Could be all of it, might be none of it, but it is almost certainly a little bit of all these possibilities... and so, so many more.
If you're as fascinated by business book trends as we are, feel free to dig further. The aforementioned trend is just one of many you might extrapolate. But now, without further ado, we present to you the longlist for 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year:
GENERAL BUSINESS
- Cool: How the Brain's Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World by Steven Quartz and Anette Asp, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Data-ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else by Steve Lohr, Harper Business
- Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford, Basic Books
- Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Random House
- We Are Market Basket: The Story of the Unlikely Grassroots Movement That Saved a Beloved Business by Daniel Korschun and Grant Welker, AMACOM Books
LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
- Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia, Portfolio
- Leadership: Essential Writings by Our Greatest Thinkers edited by Elizabeth D. Samet, W.W. Norton & Company
- Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation by Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor, Harper Business
- The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers by Gillian Tett, Simon & Schuster
- Widgets: The 12 New Rules for Managing Your Employees As If They're Real People by Rodd Wagner, McGraw-Hill Education
MARKETING
- The Compass and The Nail: How the Patagonia Model of Loyalty Can Save Your Business, and Might Just Save the Planet by Craig Wilson, Rare Bird Books
- Does It Work?: 10 Principles for Delivering True Business Value in Digital Marketing by Shane Atchison and Jason Burby, McGraw-Hill Education
- Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profit-Hungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies by Michael Farmer, LID Publishing
- The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior by Shlomo Benartzi with Jonah Lehrer, Portfolio
- X: The Experience When Business Meets Design by Brian Solis, Wiley
SALES
- The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner, and Nick Toman, Portfolio
- Data Driven: How Performance Analytics Delivers Extraordinary Sales Results by Jenny Dearborn, Wiley
- The Revenue Growth Habit: The Simple Art of Growing Your Business by 15% in 15 Minutes Per Day by Alex Goldfayn, Wiley
- The Sell: The Secrets of Selling Anything to Anyone by Fredrik Eklund with Bruce Littlefield, Avery
- The Three Value Conversations: How to Create, Elevate, and Capture Customer Value at Every Stage of the Long-Lead Sale by Erik Peterson, Tim Riesterer, Conrad Smith, and Cheryl Geoffrion, McGraw-Hill Education
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business by Paul Downs, Blue Rider Press
- China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business by Edward Tse, Portfolio
- Clay Water Brick: Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least by Jessica Jackley, Spiegel & Grau
- Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works by Roger L. Martin and Sally R. Osberg, Harvard Business Review Press
- Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea Into a Global Business by Mikkel Svane with Carlye Adler, Jossey-Bass
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
- Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle, Penguin
- Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith, Crown Business
- The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore, Spiegel & Grau
- Works Well With Others: An Outsider's Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You by Ross McCammon, Dutton Books
INNOVATION & CREATIVITY
- A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman, Simon & Schuster
- Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology by Kentaro Toyama, PublicAffairs
- How to Fly A Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery by Kevin Ashton, Doubleday
- Not Impossible: The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn't Be Done by Mick Ebeling, Atria Books
- Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses "No, But" Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration—Lessons from The Second City by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton, Harper Business
FINANCE & ECONOMICS
- America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve by Roger Lowenstein, Penguin Press
- The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins by James Angelos, Crown
- Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler, W.W. Norton & Company
- Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants by Bethany McLean, Columbia Global Reports
- Six Capitals, or Can Accountants Save the Planet?: Rethinking Capitalism for the Twenty-First Century by Jane Gleeson-White, W.W. Norton & Company
Stay tuned for the Shortlist for the 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year, which we will announce on Tuesday, December 8. The Shortlist will be comprised of the winner of each of the eight above categories.
