10 Books To Turn IT Pros Into Business Pros
Nobody doubts that as an IT professional you know your field. But how much do you know about business? If the answer is "not enough," it's time to start learning. Here are 10 books to help turn IT pros into business ninjas.
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Chances are, no matter what your role in IT is, you are being pressured to learn more about the business. Whether you are the CIO trying to transform IT, or on the help desk trying to serve it, someone is probably pushing you to learn more about the business side of things. You know your 1s from your 0s, and now here are 10 books to help you know your Ps from your Qs.
Learning to apply your IT skills to the business is no joke. The pressure to do so increases every day. Take Big Data as an example. You can set up all the databases you want, but if the data isn't getting to the business in a useful and timely format, you've wasted your time and the business's money.
[Having trouble making sense of disparate data? Read Data Visualizations: 11 Ways To Bring Analytics To Life.]
The same can be said for tracking marketing, social media, or even the way you set up your security efforts.
To be at your best, you need a mix of soft skills, for communication and business knowledge, and IT skills to get the job done. We've found 10 books that help the IT pro gain those skills -- whether you want to be a CIO, a middle manager, or just the best engineer you can be.
Check out our list and then join us in the comments section below to share your favorite books that helped you see the business side a little clearer.
Authors: Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
You are increasingly being asked to use data to serve the business. The business is not so great at using data. While you can't truly do all of their data-crunching for them, you sure can learn from the best in the business. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction examines the reality that most forecasters aren't any good. But a select few actually do have success. The book examines their mindset and procedures to show how they succeed. If your enterprise is asking you for Big Data, but then complaining it isn't helping, this book can help you help them.
Author: Philip N. Howard
The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center of every business decision that will be made in the coming decade. Howard gives a surprisingly optimistic view (though with plenty of cautions) of IoT and what its potential might be. Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up is the kind of book that you'll kick yourself for not reading sooner. Don't kick yourself.
Author: Jim Collins
The most interesting thing about Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't is that it has been around long enough to have become a classic, and to have some of its lessons debunked to a certain extent.
The idea that "greatness" can be woven into the DNA of a company looks to be a little bit of an exaggeration, since some of the companies that the book covered as great are no longer great (the Circuit City example seems especially dated). But in many ways, that makes the book more valuable. Some perspective helps us see which lessons are most important.
The book is full of lessons on exactly what good leadership looks like, and how business should be done. Read this with newfound perspective, and you might find more lessons than before. Of course, Collins couldn't leave the failures of some of his great companies without comment, so read his follow-up, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In.
Author: Seth Godin
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers is one of the classic marketing books for the Internet age. If you are an IT pro who has to interact with a roomful of marketing people, chances are they have learned to do all that they do from this book, or from other people who have read this book. All of Godin's books are must-reads if you want to know how modern marketers think.
Authors: Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur
Here is something you probably can relate to: Markova and McArthur ask their clients what their biggest problem at work is, and they all say "other people." If you think people in other departments are crazy for thinking the way they do, you're not alone.
Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking With People Who Think Differently will give you strategies on how to work with people who think entirely differently from you. Next time someone in sales starts talking, you'll have a strategy to make sure they don't sound to you like they're speaking in tongues.
Author: Roger L. Martin
Want to understand what your CEO is thinking? The best book how successful CEOs think is Martin's The Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking. Not only is it considered a classic leadership book, it also has a simple but important premise: Don't watch what great leaders do, learn how they think. Your situation is different from theirs, so copying their actions makes no sense. Learning to think better does. Of course, this is how good CEOs think. If you don't have a good CEO, I don't know which book tells you how bad CEOs think.
Author: Karla Sasser
Sasser was a recent guest on InformationWeek's IT Life Radio. Her book is one IT professionals need to better understand the business. Friggin' Beancounters: Navigating the BS Infested Cubicles of the Accounting Department is about the similarities between IT and accounting, and how once they were basically the same department. It investigates how these two rival departments can actually learn best practices from each other that could increase performance. There should be a book like this for every department. A bonus: The cartoons in it are great.
Author: Michael Witwer
As always, we like to throw in a little curve ball or wildcard into the mix. Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons isn't your usual business book. It is more of a biography. The topic isn't your traditional business topic, and probably your marketing and sales people are "too cool" to have ever played D&D. But this is a book about creativity and creation, and about making (and losing) money from them. At its heart, this book teaches you about business. Plus, there's more than one D&D player in the data center. It seems a perfect business book for the IT pro.
We hope this reading list offers you ways to improve your IT career and shore up your business savvy. Tell us which of these titles you've read, and what other books you'd recommend to help IT professionals on their business journey. Tell us if any of them have helped you transform the business, or at least understand it a little better.
We hope this reading list offers you ways to improve your IT career and shore up your business savvy. Tell us which of these titles you've read, and what other books you'd recommend to help IT professionals on their business journey. Tell us if any of them have helped you transform the business, or at least understand it a little better.
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