An MBA in Books, part 2
Last week, I wrote about how I believe most of the learning from business school can be picked up on your own with just a few books. That gives rise to an obvious question.
Did I Waste My Money?
I do believe my MBA was worth it - for me. I learned a lot and I gained a useful credential that opens doors in corporate which my small liberal arts college degree did not.
There are also a few jobs where an MBA is somewhat necessary, like top-tier strategy firms, certain investment banking roles, or to break into private equity and hedge funds from outside.
But there’s another piece. Reading about soft skills like negotiations and public speaking is one thing, but putting that into practice is another. I gained a lot from my in person, in depth courses where I was able to practice with and watch other students.
So although you might learn all the tricks of the trade reading these, you might not benefit. Ultimately, you will have to find ways to turn these lessons into habits: by recording your next presentation at work, or negotiating a little extra next time you rent an apartment or buy a car.
Back to the topic: here’s the other five books I recommend to get your literary MBA. These books are more focused on decision making and persuasion:
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini.
Public speaking and persuasion are critical skills - use this book to learn how to persuade people and how to be more effective in any role.
If there’s one thing I remember from this book , it was to use the word “because” in every sentence I can...because it’s very convincing.
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.
Similar to Influence, it’s about learning how people think so you can be better at persuading them.
The basic lesson is that people are emotional thinkers first. Stories over facts. (It’s not called Master of Bullshit Arts for nothing!)
The Challenger Sale, by Matthew Dixon.
I was less sure about this one. Every management job requires selling - to customers, to execs, to partners. This book covers one sales strategy - educating the customer - but also contrasts it with other common methods, so the book works well as a survey of general sales methods.
The Introvert’s Edge is also a good alternative if the idea of selling things gives you the heebie-jeebies. Ultimately, sales is more a process - defining and tweaking the pitch - than a skill. And of course, Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is a good sales guide too.
Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferazzi.
People say an MBA is about the network, but you can develop your network on your own.
Ferazzi lays out how developing a network is really as simple as showing authentic interest in other people.
Scrum, by Jeff Sutherland.
Modern management is about agile, not command and control.
Learning how to orient a team around well-defined goals and frequent, more than daily communication will get you there 80% of the time.
I lied a bit. There are a couple other skills, mostly quantitative, worth getting, but where books won’t help you much. That said, you can still learn them pretty quickly through some short YouTube videos.
Financial modeling - this is important. You really have to understand the financial statements to intelligently run a business.
Hilariously, Martin Shkreli - yes that one - has done one of the better free courses. This is him doing a model of Apple.
Game theory - optional. I really liked this course and if game theory is useful for anything, it’s to force you to think about incentives.
Learning the prisoner’s dilemma is usually enough, but these videos cover some other interesting examples.
Understanding options (optional, hah). Not for everyone, but I think a simple tutorial on options pricing is very useful for framing how to think probabilistically.
Let me know what else you'd like to read about this year. And if you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter!