From Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Others Don't
By Jim Collins
Harper Collins

"Some of the key concepts discerned in the study," comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people."

Using tough benchmarks, Jim Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
By Jim Collins and Jerry Portas
Harper Collins

This book has been called "the defining management study of the nineties."

Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day -- as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the comparison companies and what were the common practices these enduringly great companies followed throughout their history?"

Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond.

Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices
By Peter Drucker
HarperBusiness

Author of more than 30 books, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Peter Drucker turns his management expertise to non-profit management in this book. Based on interviews with nine experts including Father Leo Bartel and Frances Hesselbein, Drucker answers vital questions about administration, presenting the tasks, responsibilities and practices that must be followed to run these organizations successfully. This clear and direct book provides examples and explanations of mission, leadership, resources, marketing, goals, people development, and decision making.

First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
By Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman
Simon & Schuster

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "treat people as you like to be treated"; "people are capable of almost anything"; and "a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place."

The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Quoting leaders such as basketball coach Phil Jackson, Buckingham and Coffman outline "four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills.