Best summer books of 2024: Business
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The Problem with Change: And the Essential Nature of Human Performance by Ashley Goodall (Ebury Edge/Little, Brown Spark)
Goodall rails wittily against consultants, disrupters, merger advisers, micro-managers and other perpetrators of change for change’s sake. He urges bosses and human resources executives to refocus their attention on how humans flourish at work — and then to leave us alone to get on with it.
The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power by Dana Mattioli (Torva/Little, Brown)
A hard-hitting analysis of Amazon’s dominance and the years-long quest by Lina Khan, now chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, to curb its allegedly anti-competitive behaviour. In the words of the FT’s reviewer, the book “makes a compelling case that no company should be this powerful”, in the spirit of Ida Tarbell, the campaigning journalist of the 1900s.
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (WH Allen/Portfolio)
A revealing snapshot of a moment in the rapid evolution of generative AI, full of sharp suggestions about how to “invite AI to the table” and make the most of its potential. Mollick shares his own experiments with AI, in an optimistic account that offsets the concerns of the machine-learning doomsters.
The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World’s Fastest-Growing Sport by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg (Monoray)
An entertaining crash course in the history of Formula One that provides, according to the FT’s Samuel Agini, “more than enough for both hardcore fans and newcomers”. Through deep research, the authors look back at the history of the motorsport, but bring the story right up to date with interviews with today’s F1 celebrities, bosses and investors.
Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter by Zoë Schiffer (Portfolio)
Schiffer takes aim at the fast-moving target that is X, formerly Twitter, focusing on the impact on staff of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site. In what reviewer Hannah Murphy called a “sharp and deeply sourced fly-on-the-wall account”, the author also looks at the way Musk’s libertarian views have hardened in recent years, and why.
Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams and Organisations by Mary C Murphy (Simon & Schuster)
While not exactly a “new” science, growth mindset — the idea that abilities and talents are learnable, not fixed — has in recent years found a new audience among corporate chieftains such as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. Murphy explores how to develop such a culture for teams, unleashing creativity and risk-taking and encouraging diversity.
Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World by Alison Taylor (Harvard Business Review Press)
A timely attempt to lead executives through the ethical jungle where the old default of not speaking about the latest political controversy can be as damaging as taking a stand. With reference to abundant real-world dilemmas, Taylor centres the solutions in respect for basic human rights.
The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder by Robert I Sutton and Huggy Rao (Penguin/St Martin’s Press)
An entertaining and practical guide about how to simplify, streamline or scrap the obstacles that slow down day-to-day work, while leaving in place the “good friction” that leads to more thoughtful decisions and better outcomes. Full of tales of monstrous bureaucracy and how brave “friction-fixers” tamed it.
Tell us what you think
Will you be taking any of these books on your summer holiday this year? Which ones? And what titles have we missed? Let us know in the comments below
The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson (Allen Lane/Crown Currency)
The latest book-length confessional from a survivor of the City or Wall Street recounts the allure and horror of working on Citigroup’s bond trading floor in London in the early 2000s, when the author made millions before burning out. FT reviewer John Gapper praised Stevenson’s sharp observations and his gift for the “colourful if merciless description” of his fellow traders.
The Algorithm: How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your Future by Hilke Schellmann (Hurst/Hachette Books)
This disturbing dive into the computer-says-no world of AI-powered recruitment and management reads as a cautionary tale of what goes wrong when biased algorithms take the lead in deciding who gets, or stays in, a job. Among other things, this is an “essential handbook for job hunters”, wrote Delphine Strauss in her FT review.
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