This week, Forrester’s Board of Clients was in Cambridge. This amazing group advises the company on strategy, new products, and improving our service. Over the years, they have had a big influence on how we work and where we are going — this year, the discussion was particularly valuable.

I always host a dinner with the Board, and our tradition over dessert is to trade book ideas. I was quite intrigued with the first entry: The Advantage. The book recommends that every manager should have a 15-minute standup with his/her reports every day. The client who recommended the book is doing just that — and he reports that it’s making a big difference in his team’s performance.

Here’s the book list from this year:

  1. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick M. Lencioni
  2. The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks
  3. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
  4. The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind
  5. Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan
  6. Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren, PhD, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim
  7. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  8. Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn without Blowing It by Peggy Klaus
  9. Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
  10. Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
  11. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink
  12. Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel by Mark Sullivan
  13. Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell
  14. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
  15. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries
  16. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell
  17. How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel
  18. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
  19. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
  20. Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump by Robby Soave