A note on timing. This list is most useful after Session 6, not before. Reading without practice changes nothing. The training plan is the practice; the books below are how you go deeper if the practice has stuck.
This is a starting list of books behind the ideas in this guide. None is required reading.
The point of this program is not to follow any one author. It is to take the best parts of each and put them into our own plain language.
If you read one of these, you are not signing up for the author’s whole worldview. Take what helps. Leave what does not fit the work in front of you.
Plain-language starters
If you are short on time, start here.
- Donella Meadows — Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Short, approachable, and the clearest writing on why fixing the system beats blaming the person. The book behind our fifth principle.
- John Doerr — Measure What Matters. Practical introduction to outcome-shaped goals (OKRs). The framework is in the first third; the rest is case studies.
Leadership and service
- Stephen R. Covey — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The source of “begin with the end in mind.” Useful even if you skip the rest.
- L. David Marquet — Turn the Ship Around! A submarine captain’s case for leaders who create more leaders, not more followers. The shortest path to understanding leadership as service.
- Andy Grove — High Output Management. The classic on managing the output of a team rather than your own busywork. Dry in places, but the ideas hold up forty years on.
Honest culture and feedback
- Amy C. Edmondson — The Fearless Organization and Teaming. The research foundation for psychological safety: why people stay silent when they should not, and what changes when they speak.
- Kim Scott — Radical Candor. Care personally, challenge directly. The model behind our principle that feedback should be kind, clear, and timely. Read it for the four-quadrant model; skip the buzzword glossary if it does not help you.
Systems and learning
- Peter Senge — The Fifth Discipline. The book that put “learning organization” into the vocabulary. Heavier reading than Meadows; the lighter chapters are still worth it.
- Google re:Work — https://rework.withgoogle.com/. A free online resource. Edmondson’s psychological safety research translated into manager-grade tools.
How to read this list
Plan to read one or two of these in a year, not all of them in a quarter.
A book changes practice only when you actually try the idea on real work for a few weeks. If you cannot try it, do not buy it.