10 Books from My Transformation Journey

Access to sources of information multiplies our transformative power, and for me this human potential to gain and generate knowledge is what keeps us connected to a new era.

I have chosen some of the books that are part of my journey to help you walk with leadership and, above all, create a new future in this volatile environment that we are experiencing. I am sharing with you some authors who have guided me in this complex mission of understanding how to lead our corporations, in search of real business impacts.

I hope the books are as inspiring to you as they were to me.

Cesar Gon 

1) Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future

Today, instead of seeking more analysis, companies respond quickly, making intelligent and intuitive decisions. Fast/Forward illustrates the new strategic approach and provides a manual for making companies fit for the future.

2) Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation

Design a Better Business presents a complete design journey from the initial spark of an idea to its escalation in order to make the business even better.  

3) The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

The Phoenix Project is an IT guide to the DevOps revolution. In this book, readers not only learn how to improve their own IT organisations but will never see them in the same way again.

4) Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor and Lead

John Shook's Managing to Learn is built as a dialogue between a manager and their boss, and explains how "A3 thinking," a centre of Lean management and leadership, helps managers and executives identify, frame, and act on issues and challenges.

5) Organisational Culture and Leadership

In this book, Edgar Schein analyses and illustrates the concept of culture and shows its importance for the management of organisational change. It is an essential resource for leaders seeking continuous improvement in the face of current business realities.

6) The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production - Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionising World Industry

The authors Womack, Jones and Roos present the advantages of the lean production system over the mass production model. The book offers essential guidance to transform traditional ventures into examples of Lean success.

7) The Lean Turnaround: How Business Leaders Use Lean Principles to Create Value and Transform Their Company

Art Byrne shares everything he learned about Lean methodology and shows how anyone can achieve similar results, and what a company needs in order to be responsive to customers.

8) Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Antifragile is a book in the Uncertainty series by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which brings an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we do not understand. 

9) The Future of Management

For Gary Hamel, organisations need management innovation more than ever. Last century management is no longer enough in a world where adaptability and creativity drive business success. In order to prosper in the future, companies must reinvent their management.

10) The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Ben Horowitz offers sincere advice on the difficulties in building and running a start-up. The author expands the business lessons with lyrics from his favourite songs, sharing the insights he gained by developing, selling, buying, investing, and supervising technology companies.

---