BusinessPundit has assembled a list of the 25 Best Business Books ever.
It’s a good list, though it’s a head-scratcher to see “In Search of Excellence” as its top choice, especially with the criticisms that book has faced over the years, since almost every one of its Excellent companies wound up excelling at creating serious problems for themselves. It’s also strange to see Frederick Winslow Taylor and his scientific management on the list, since Taylor’s scholarship has not stood the test of time. It’s odd, also, to see more Jim Collins books than those of other management gurus (and wasn’t “Good To Great” written to figure out why companies that were “Built to Last” sometimes didn’t?) And if you’re going to pick a book on organizational culture, it would seem to me that something by Mancur Olson ought to be on the list.
But they justify all their choices, and it’s clearly filled with good reading.
