Which Management Theory Books?

Question

Which light management theory books would you recommend? 
 Often when I'm waiting or travelling on public transport I would pick up an eBook. Something light that you can dip into and back out of without too much issue. I've just finished a book called "Snakes in Suits", which is definitely interesting reading. 
 What other light-ish texts would be recommended, especially around the areas of development and mentoring? But suggestions in other areas are welcome. 
 When I say light, I mean something that doesn't expect me to be making notes and covers many topics, such as my copy of Huczynski & Buchanan. I certainly wouldn't be reading that on a train! 
 
 Thanks, 
 Mark

Andy Millar · Accepted Answer

And "The Peter Principle"! Like Parkinson it's scarily true. 
 Old thread, but since it's a very good question I'll answer on a more serious note: I found the "Harvard Business Review" short books (really collections of articles) that WH Smiths at airports and stations used to sell - and presumably still do - very good. I think the HBR articles may be available free to members, see the "reading list" link near the end of this post. 
 There's a good IET published book listed here, which may be available free on the IET virtual library (I've got an old fashioned paper copy), "Effective Team Leadership for Engineers, Pat Wellington and Niall Foster" . Unfortunately I found it too late to help me, I bought it just as I was leaving management to go back to engineering, but it's really good on management soft skills - it's the book I'd wished I'd had 30 years earlier. 
 Very old now, but the One Minute Manager series were ok, but a bit simplistic and misleading. 
 If you like them, "The Rules of..." series by Richard Templar I found very good. They're probably marmite, you'll love them or hate them. 
 For the best up to date books look at the CMI Management Book of the Year awards, this does seem to be a genuine competition not just "who paid us the most to advertise their book". There have been some really really good books in here (but not necessarily "quick reads") 
 https://www.managers.org.uk/community/awards/management-book-of-the-year/ 
 But looking at my bookshelves there are far more management books on there than I have actually read, generally it's the "Harvard Business Review" books which I'm most likely to have read cover to cover. Although these are often more about leadership than day-to-day management. 
 Best management reading I think I've had has been the various CMI magazines. Really practical day-to-day advice. 
 My favourite individual management books of all time, two I used to keep going back to during recruiting, were "The Perfect Interview" and "The Perfect CV" by Max Eggert. Very old now (from the days before online anything! I bought them when job hunting in the early '90s) yet the basic principles still hold true - that tends to be one of the signs of a useful management book. And wonderfully realistically written, too many management books assume you're managing perfect human beings on perfect projects in a perfect world. 
 On which note, I have never, ever, found a good book on engineering innovation and development management - which since this was what I was doing for most of the management part of my career I kept looking extremely hard! If anyone knows of one I'd love to hear about it. Books I found on engineering management seemed to suggest that all projects should be managed to be nice, fully controlled, waterfall projects, which bore no resemblance to the real messy world of R&D / D&D I worked (and still often work) in. However maybe with the wider adoption of agile and scrum such books do exist now, although on my occasional brief searches I've only seen them in relation to pure software development? To be fair I have just pulled one off my bookshelf, "Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, by John R. Bessant and Joe Tidd", which, flicking through to remind myself, is very good in its content, but is very, very, very heavy going - I do wonder how many non-academics who've worked in innovation management have bought it but never actually read it (I'm certainly one of them). 
 Just found this link to IET recommended books! "Career Development Update: An online reading list from the IET Library" 
 https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=013072311606752261868:abitwdgbuwo&q=https://www.theiet.org/media/11504/iet-library-reading-list-career-development-update.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwintIzP95iBAxUgSfEDHTxaCskQFnoECAUQAg&usg=AOvVaw2BZKfdPmctAEENlo12ufXU 
 (Awful link, but I've no idea where this list actually is on the IET website, I found it by chance while checking whether the "Effective Team Leadership" book was still available.) 
 Anyone else got any favourites?

Which Management Theory Books?

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