Best Management Books for MBA Aspirants

The CAT 2022 entrance exam is just around the corner, and MBA aspirants all over India are burning the midnight oil to preprare for the toughest management entrance exam. With the last two-month milestone hit for this year’s one of the most popular entrance examinations, the students need to have a holistic preparation plan ready for pre and post examination.

While your major focus is on the academic course content in order to crack the written examination, there must also be some attention given to build an understanding of the field of management. This would not only enhance your knowledge on topics such as management, organizations and organizational systems, but, it would also add to your life skills as these books are mostly written by subject experts who have vast knowledge to share from their experiences and studies.

As the popular actor and celebrity, Will Smith once said, “There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book”, one can actually learn a lot from these books.

Here are a few more reasons why you must read these Management Books:

• They increase your understanding of terms such as organization/organizational systems/leadership/marketing as they build the foundation of a good manager. (And you will be hearing them a lot as in a lot in your two years of MBA.
• They increase your understanding of terms such as organization/organizational systems/leadership/marketing as they build the foundation of a good manager. (And you will be hearing them a lot as in a lot in your two years of MBA)
• They give you a lot of insights on the field of management. Help you to know what you are really going in for.
• They give you some of the very useful/necessary life skills which may be useful for your preparation as well, e.g. time management skills
• They can really help/save you while the post written exam selection processes like Group Discussion and Personal Interview
• You will need them while your MBA course. You might as well read them now!
• They can be a good and worthy breather while you are endlessly submerged in the course books.
• Most importantly, they enhance your vision and ambition for yourself!

Some of the most interesting and fun to read Management Books:

1. Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson:

With more than 20 million copies sold, this concise work is one of the most loved books on management or rather life skills. The book describes its characters in a fun way as, two mice and two little men who live in a maze. The primary message is that change is inevitable and one must learn to adjust and adapt to it. It’s the other way to say that bend or break. The book intrigues the readers and also leaves them questioning about their ‘big cheese’ in life!

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven R. Covey:

Ironically, this book is one of the most popular ones in the list of management books as it talks very little on the subject of management and leadership directly. One of the best sources on life skills is a better term for this pick. Steven’s work compiled in this book focuses on confidence building and goal setting in a broader light.

3. The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen:

This management book looks at a different side of business and organizations, which is failure. Harvard Business School (HBS) Professor Clayton highlights that how large and even dominant organizations can fall like a pack of cards despite good leadership just because they did not adapt to change, in time. Hence, he brings out the importance of moving and changing with time and staying ahead in terms of technology even if it does not sound very cost effective in the current outlook. Being obsolete is straight loss and is definitely worse than not being cost effective.

4. The One Minute Manager, by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson:

This brief version on the one minute tasks which are crucial for any manager is a must read! As per the co-author, Blanchard’s, site the book has sold more than 13 million copies and has been translated to more than 37 languages worldwide. The book illustrates three major focus areas for an effective manager namely, one minute goals, one minute praises and one minute reprimands.

5. Who says Elephants can’t Dance? by, Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.:

The former CEO and Chairman of IBM, shares an account of one of the biggest turnarounds (IBM’s coming back from the verge of bankruptcy) witnessed by the technology companies. The book describes of his experiences with this IT mammoth in five stages, namely, ‘Grabbing hold’, ‘Strategy’, ‘Culture’, ‘Observations’ and ‘Lessons learnt’.

Some of the other good reads for lessons on management theories you can book mark are:

• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the leap… and others Don’t by Jim Collins
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
• Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad

So… Read on and make the bookmark (mark)