Jeff Bezos belongs to the group of world-famous, successful entrepreneurs who started their business in a garage and have gone on to become billionaires. In 1994, he founded the online bookstore Amazon.com in his garage. Today, Amazon is among the largest businesses of its kind. It does not sell only books, but also DVDs, toys and its own electronic book readers called the Amazon Kindle. Besides Amazon, Jeff Bezos's entrepreneurial activities in recent years include e.g., the foundation of the company Blue Origin, which operates in the field of space tourism, and the purchase of the leading American newspaper, The Washington Post.
It could seem that books are just the main source of fat revenues for Jeff Bezos, but that would be very short-sighted. As shown in a recent interview with the CNBC television channel, the printed word is a source of inspiration not only for Bezos himself, but also for his top management team. Every summer, he organizes reading clubs for Amazon's top managers and this year was no exception. In three all-day reading clubs, he asked his managers to read three classic management books he considers a source of valuable advice for his successful business.
1. Peter Drucker: The Effective Executive
Peter F. Drucker is considered the founder and biggest propagator of modern management. In this book, which was first published in 1967, he deals mainly with time management, decision-making and how a manager can best help his company.
2. Clayton Christensen: The Innovator's Dilemma
This book was first published in 1997 and is known as one of the most influential management books of all time. In the book, Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen discusses how companies' excessive emphasis on meeting the current needs of their customers can lead to their failure to introduce modern technologies that could meet unspoken and future customer needs.
3. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox: The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
This book is not a theoretical management book, but a novel. First published in 1984, it has become a bestseller which is still recommended reading at business schools. The hero is a manager who gets the task of saving a failing manufacturing company within 90 days. He succeeds when he discovers a revolutionary new method to achieve greater productivity, profitability and personal involvement of his employees.
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