If you’re like me and work in operations, you’re constantly looking for the next way to step up your game.
But inspiration can be hard to come by, and you can’t always expect it to come from within.
So, how do we do it? We read constantly 📖
On my podcast, Operations, I ask all of my guests to tell me the best book they’ve read in the last six months. And after over 60 episodes, I’ve compiled quite the list.
While these books don’t fit into a single category, I’ve done my best to group them as follows:
- Scaling Companies
- Marketing & Sales
- Leadership
- Personal Growth & Development
- Inspirational Stories
- History
- Remarkable Narratives
Whether you’re a fellow ops pro or just a curious learning machine, here’s your chance to dive into the minds of the people who drive hypergrowth companies from behind the scenes.
7 Books About Scaling Companies
Curious about what it takes to run some of the biggest names in business? Whether you’re interested in how the sausage is made at Amazon or Netflix, or you’re looking for a guide to building a successful startup, this list has you covered. If you need more food for thought, there are also some great recommendations on this list to help you understand how data is shaping our future.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
1. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
Recommended by: Will Collins, VP of Operations, Drift
Featured in: How to Go from MBA to VP of Operations with Drift’s Will Collins 🔈
2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
Recommended by: Cameron Herold, Founder, COO Alliance
Featured in: The 8 Pillars of Being a Second in Command (aka the COO) With Cameron Herold 🔈
3. Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization? by Aaron Dignan
Recommended by: Jason Reichl, CRO, BreadcrumbsIO
Featured in: What’s the Dollar Impact of Ops? (with GoNimbly CEO Jason Reichl) 🔈
4. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
Recommended by: Maria Casella, Chief of Staff, NEWNESS
Featured in: How to Run a Virtual Kickoff That Actually Works with Drift’s Maria Casella, Mark Siciliano, and Jackie Wright 🔈
5. Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
Recommended by: Maria Casella, Chief of Staff, NEWNESS
Featured in: How to Run a Virtual Kickoff That Actually Works with Drift’s Maria Casella, Mark Siciliano, and Jackie Wright 🔈
6. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb
Recommended by: J Zac Stein, COO, Lattice
Featured in: Life of a COO in Hypergrowth (with Lattice COO J Zac Stein) 🔈
7. The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation That Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe by William Poundstone
Recommended by: Bridget Zingale, Senior Directo, Data & Analytics, HubSpot
Featured in: Building a More Data-Centric Company with HubSpot’s Bridget Zingale 🔈
5 Books About Marketing & Sales
If the past 18 months have taught us anything, it’s that we can’t predict how businesses might be called on to adapt. It’s then good to have a dynamic marketing and sales strategy. From story-driven marketing to the challenger sale, here are a few books to get you thinking about how you market and sell to your customers.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
8. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney
Recommended by: Tim Ozmina, Senior Conversion Marketing Manager, Drift
Featured in: Going Under the Hood of How Drift Uses Drift with Monique Lemieux and Tim Ozmina 🔈
9. Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World by Robert Mckee and Tom Gerace
Recommended by: Kyle Sutton, Director of Marketing, IBM
Featured in: Scrappiness, Storytelling, and Search Queries with SolarWinds’ Kyle Sutton 🔈
10. Make Noise: A Creator’s Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling by Eric Nuzum
Recommended by: Olga Andrienko, VP of Brand Marketing, SEMrush
Featured in: Scaling an International Marketing Team Across 50 Countries with SEMrush’s Olga Andrienko 🔈
11. The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
Recommended by: Melanie Fellay, CEO, Spekit
Featured in: The Intersection of Sales Operations and Sales Enablement with Spekit CEO Melanie Fellay 🔈
12. Leading Sales Development: The Art and Science of Building Exceptional Teams by Alea Homison and Jeremey Donovan
Recommended by: Pete Kazanjy, Founder, Atrium
Featured in: When to Invest in Sales Operations (Plus the Right Way to Measure Performance) with Atrium Founder Pete Kazanjy 🔈
6 Books About Leadership
No matter where they work or what title they hold, the following guests all agree that what you do as a leader counts. Dive into these books for some firsthand advice from Disney’s Robert Iger and Boston Beer Company’s Jim Koch. Or, draw some wisdom from books like Radical Candor to learn how to most effectively lead your team.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
13. Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
Recommended by: Rosalyn Santa Elena, VP of Global Revenue Operations, Neo4j
Featured in: How Clari Runs Effective QBRs with Rosalyn Santa Elena 🔈
14. Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet
Recommended by: Mickey Heynen, VP of Global Professional Services and Education, Confluent
Featured in: Why Professional Services Are the Product Managers of Your Future Company with Confluent’s Mickey Heynen 🔈
15. Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Recommended by: J Zac Stein, President & Chief Product Officer, Lattice
Featured in: Life of a COO in Hypergrowth (with Lattice COO J Zac Stein) 🔈
16. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger
Recommended by: Darrell Alfonso, Global Marketing Operations Manager, Amazon Web Services
Featured in: 4 Ways to Boost Marketing Ops Productivity from Amazon Web Services’ Darrell Alfonso 🔈
17. What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture by Ben Horowitz
Recommended by: Olga Andrienko, VP of Brand Marketing, SEMrush
Featured in: Scaling an International Marketing Team Across 50 Countries with SEMrush’s Olga Andrienko 🔈
18. Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two by Jim Koch
Recommended by: Brad Smith, Co-founder and CEO, Sonar
Featured in: Mastering the Game of Tech Stack Jenga with Sonar’s Brad Smith 🔈
10 Books About Personal Growth & Development
There’s always room to grow — and no one knows that better than the people on this list. Looking for tips on managing your remote work environment? Try reading Indistractible or Peak Performance. Want to master the art of communication? Pick up a copy of Talking to Strangers. I can guarantee that you’ll find new ways to improve yourself in any one of these books.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
19. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
Recommended by: Jason Holmes, Advisor and former COO, Showpad
Featured in: Anatomy of a Scale-Up with Jason Holmes (COO of Showpad) 🔈
20. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
Recommended by: Adam Schoenfeld, former VP of Strategy, Drift
Featured in: How Drift’s Marketing Ops Team Got 18% of Its Time Back (with Drift’s Adam Schoenfeld and Lynn Tan) 🔈
21. Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
Recommended by: Sara McNamara, Marketing Operations Solutions Architect, Salesforce
Featured in: Emotional Management vs. Tech Stack Management with Cloudera’s Sara McNamara 🔈
22. Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness
Recommended by: Stephen Hallowell, VP of Strategic Services, Highspot
Featured in: The Go-To-Market Maturity Model Part II with Highspot’s Stephen Hallowell 🔈
23. How Successful People Grow: 15 Ways to Get Ahead in Life by John C. Maxwell
Recommended by: Michelle Pietsch, VP of Revenue, Dooly
Featured in: Solving for the Reps’ Day in the Life with Dooly’s Michelle Pietsch 🔈
24. Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion by Pete Carroll with Yogi Roth
Recommended by: Anil Kumar, VP of Revenue Operations, Qualia
Featured in: How to Move Up-Market with Carta’s Anil Kumar 🔈
25. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Recommended by: Maribel Olvera, SVP of Operations, The Predictive Index
Featured in: Why Behavioral Science Is the Key to Building Your Operations Team (with Predictive Index’s Maribel Olvera) 🔈
26. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling with Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling
Recommended by: Todd Abbott, CEO, InsightSquared
Featured in: Get Reps Out of the Data Entry Business with InsightSquared CEO Todd Abbott 🔈
27. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
Recommended by: Karen Borchert, COO, ROKA
Featured in: Imperfection Is Commitment’s Secret Weapon with Flywheel COO Karen Borchert 🔈
28. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss with Tal Rahz
Recommended by: Rachel Haley, Co-founder and CEO, Clarus Designs (and former Senior Director of Sales Operations, Snowflake Computing)
Featured in: The Art & Science of Snowflake’s Sales Capacity Planning with Rachel Haley 🔈
7 Books with Inspirational Stories
We’re constantly surrounded by stories, and there’s a lot we can learn from them if we choose to pay attention. Whether it’s the story of Nike creator Phil Knight or social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, these books are sure to inspire and challenge you. Take your pick, and see the world from a different point of view.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
29. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
Recommended by: Allison Metcalfe, CRO, Demandbase
Featured in: A CRO’s World Clocks for Running a Business with Demandbase’s Allison Metcalfe 🔈
30. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Recommended by: Kyle Thelemann, Senior Manager of Business Intelligence, Drift
Featured in: The Two-Way Highway of Drift’s Data Engineering and Data Analytics Teams with Arun Venkateswaran and Kyle Thelemann 🔈
31. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Recommended by: Eyal Orgil, Co-founder and CRO, DealHub
Featured in: The Truth About CPQ Tools with DealHub CRO Eyal Orgil 🔈
32. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Recommended by: Caitlin Quinlan, SVP of Revenue Operations, Gainsight
Featured in: Designing the Post-Sale Customer Journey with Gainsight’s Caitlin Quinlan 🔈
33. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Recommended by: Shaun Newell, Chief of Social Enterprise, More Than Words
Featured in: How This Nonprofit Built a $3.7M Book Business (with More Than Words’ Leanne Goff & Shaun Newell) 🔈
34. Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson by William Fotheringham
Recommended by: Cole Schofield, Head of U.S. Customer Care, Wix
Featured in: Don’t Optimize for the Short-Term with Gusto’s Cole Schofield 🔈
35. Lessons from a Sheep Dog: A True Story of Transforming Love by Phillip Keller
Recommended by: Bala Balabaskaran, Co-founder & CTO, fullcast.io
Featured in: Inside Salesforce’s Annual Planning Process with Bala Balabaskaran (aka The Guy Who Built It) 🔈
8 Books About History
You’ve probably heard dozens of quotes about the value of knowing history. But you might be surprised to learn that a lot of ops people are some of the biggest history buffs out there. Explore these books if you’re interested in detailed accounts of the American auto industry during WWII and sweeping social histories about nations in crisis.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
36. The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime
Recommended by: Jake Randall, VP of CIAM and Workflows, Okta
Featured in: What Ops Pros Can Learn from this $9 Billion Company (with Okta’s Jake Randall) 🔈
37. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
Recommended by: Michelle Palleschi, President & COO, Sendoso
Featured in: Apple Product Launches and 10,000 Handwritten Notes with Michelle Palleschi (COO of Sendoso) 🔈
38. Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond
Recommended by: Sylvia Kainz, Director, Global Connectivity Partnerships, Airbnb
Featured in: How to Build a RevOps Team from Scratch (with Eventbrite’s Sylvia Kainz) 🔈
39. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Recommended by: Mike Tarullo, COO, Banza
Featured in: The Difference Between Operating and Operations (with Banza’s Mike Tarullo) 🔈
40. Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Recommended by: Ryan Toben, CRO, Kiddom
Featured in: From Sales Ops to GM With Gainsight’s Ryan Toben 🔈
41. Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy
Recommended by: Meagen Williams, VP of Professional Services, Acquia
Featured in: What “Good” Looks Like in Professional Services with Acquia’s Meagen Williams 🔈
42. October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville
Recommended by: Ian Mesey, Head of Revenue Operations, Bloomreach
Featured in: How to Think Deeply About Problems with Bloomreach’s Ian Mesey 🔈
43. One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
Recommended by: Dave Gerhardt, CBO, Drift
Featured in: Why Drift’s Dave Gerhardt Changed His Mind About Marketing Ops 🔈
7 Books with Remarkable Narratives
Want to take a break from reading leadership playbooks or an analysis of the 2008 mortgage crisis? Then this list is for you 📚 Get lost in alien scifi, family sagas, and essays about garlic farming. These books offer an escape from your day-to-day routine, and are a guaranteed conversation starter.
Click on the 🔈 to listen to the podcast episode where each book was mentioned.
44. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Recommended by: Brett Queener, VC and former EVP & GM, Salesforce
Featured in: Metrics Are Meaningless Without Segments with Brett Queener, VC and Former Salesforce EVP 🔈
45. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Recommended by: Kyle Morris, Founder, SifData and Kicksaw
Featured in: Why Ops Pros Should Learn to Code with SifData’s Kyle Morris 🔈
46. Run Away by Harlan Coben
Recommended by: Karen Steele, SVP of Marketing, Near
Featured in: How to Maximize the Partnership with Your CMO and Accelerate Revenue with Karen Steele 🔈
47. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
Recommended by: Emmanuelle Skala, SVP of Customer Success, Toast
Featured in: How Toast Uses Data to Drive Hospitable Moments with Emmanuelle Skala 🔈
48. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Recommended by: Kelley Chan, Director of Commercial Sales Strategy and Execution, GlobalFoundries
Featured in: The Future of Sales Ops’ Relationship with Sales with GlobalFoundries’ Kelley Chan 🔈
49. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Recommended by: Arun Venkateswaran, Data Team Lead, Drift
Featured in: The Two-Way Highway of Drift’s Data Engineering and Data Analytics Teams with Arun Venkateswaran and Kyle Thelemann 🔈
50. A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm by Stanley Crawford
Recommended by: Marko Savic, CMO, Powernoodle
Featured in: Creating Operational Scale to Drive Revenue with FunnelCake’s Marko Savic 🔈
Want even more ops learnings and best practices? Make sure you’re subscribed to Operations with Sean Lane. New episodes drop every other Friday.
