In the summertime, there’s nothing better than finishing a long workday and relaxing in the sun with a captivating book. And if your workday involves leading up an IT strategy, you might be looking for that perfect book – the one that informs and inspires you to become more innovative and successful in your efforts to drive success for your company.
But with the thousands of books out there on business, leadership, and technology, you might be wondering which one is right for you.
We want to help make that decision easier. So we put together a list of seven books, filled with engaging stories and actionable insights that make them must-reads for any IT leader.
Whether you’re taking a break from a hard day’s work or enjoying a well-earned vacation, these books will leave you with tremendous food for thought – and might just inspire ideas that will take your IT strategy to the next level.
1) The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Teresa Amabile, Steven Kramer)
Employee wellbeing is critical to the success of any organization. But what makes an employee feel productive and satisfied with the work they’re doing? Does it just come down to their salaries or the perks their employers offer?
As The Progress Principle authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain, great employee experiences come down to something else: progress. Small day-to-day tasks define employees’ experiences – and only when they feel a sense of daily forward momentum can they have what the authors call great “inner work lives”.
After researching more than 12,000 journal entries provided by more than 200 employees, Amabile and Kramer have uncovered fascinating insights for any leader looking to foster a sense of progress among their workforces.
Employee experience has rightly become a top priority for the most innovative and successful companies. And with work environments becoming more digital than ever before, IT plays a crucial role in defining the day-to-day experiences for every employee within their organization.
After reading The Progress Principle, IT leaders will have a better understanding of how to make the right kind of progress to enable more happy and productive employees.
2) The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win (Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford)
The 5th Anniversary Edition of The Phoenix Project delivers a freshly updated and expanded version of one of the biggest sleeper hits in the IT space.
If you’re looking for something a bit more inventive than a traditional nonfiction guide, this is the book for you. The Phoenix Project is a gripping, entertaining novel about Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, who is in over his head managing an over-budgeted and behind-schedule project with massive stakes for the future of the company.
You’ll undoubtedly be swept away by this thrilling character-driven narrative. But more importantly, you’ll find yourself relating the story to your own real-world challenges and finding inspiration as Bill must redefine his philosophy on IT as the clock is ticking.
Sometimes fiction can teach us more about the real world than nonfiction – and there’s no better example than The Phoenix Project.
3) Swipe to Unlock: The Primer on Technology and Business Strategy (Parth Detroja, Aditya Agashe, Neel Mehta)
If you want to learn about where the technology space has been and where it’s going, Swipe to Unlock contains a treasure trove of actionable information.
Authored by product managers at Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, this #1 Amazon Business Bestseller covers everything from software development, cloud computing, trends in the technology space, and much more.
Between the depth of insight covered here and the expertise of the authors, it’s no surprise that Swipe to Unlock has been called “our generation’s Rosetta Stone for enabling anyone to peer into the technology changing everyday life.”
4) The CIO Paradox: Battling the Contradictions of IT Leadership (Martha Heller)
CEO and expert recruiter Martha Heller has spent more than 12 years working directly with CIOs – and the pages of The CIO Paradox are filled her wealth of knowledge and experience.
According to Heller, CIOs have to grapple with a number of contradictions: they’re tasked with driving innovation at the same time as cutting costs; they focus on the future while held back by technology decisions made in the past – the list goes on. These conflicting forces form the titular Paradox – and through the course of the book, Heller and the many successful CIOs she has interviewed offer strategies to get past these hurdles.
After reading The CIO Paradox, IT leaders will leave with a new understanding of IT’s responsibilities, as well as plenty of new tactics to bring maximum value to their organizations.
5) Implementing World Class IT Strategy: How IT Can Drive Organizational Innovation (Peter A. High)
IT strategy can no longer be developed in a vacuum, according to author and expert tech strategist Peter High. In Implementing World Class IT Strategy, High explains how in order to innovate, IT leaders must develop technology strategies that are in tune with their companies’ overall objectives at the enterprise and business unit levels.
High’s book offers actionable steps for IT leaders to conquer some of their biggest challenges, including:
- Creating synergy between IT strategy and overall business strategy
- Building an infrastructure that aligns with C-suite strategy
- Closing gaps between IT leaders and business leaders
This guide is helpful for any tech leader, but especially useful for CIOs looking to break down the barriers in their organization and make IT an integral part of their company’s business model.
6) The New IT: How Technology Leaders are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age (Jill Dyche)
Even the savviest IT leaders struggle to keep up with the ever-changing technology landscape. New platforms and solutions hit the market seemingly every day, often leaving IT leaders to worry about issues like shadow IT and wondering if their technology is meeting the needs of the digital age.
In The New IT, Jill Dyche provides a blueprint for preparing your IT strategy for the future. After years of consulting with business and IT executives at Fortune 500 companies, Dyche has seen it all when it comes to what works and doesn’t work in the world of IT.
Her book offers actionable guidance for IT leaders looking to assess their current and future IT profiles, align business technology to their company’s culture and strengths, and much more.
7) Data-ism: Inside the Big Data Revolution (Steve Lohr)
In the age of digital transformation, an IT department’s ability to analyze and leverage data is essential to their success. If IT leaders want to lead the charge for their companies, they need to develop a fluent understanding of the influence data can have on strategic innovation and growth.
In that regard, there’s no better resource than Data-ism by Steve Lohr, the New York Times’ chief technology reporter. Throughout the book, Lohr goes behind the scenes to detail the rise of the data revolution, explaining how the explosion of data has transformed everything from businesses to national governments.
This book is a must-read for anyone, not just IT leaders, who wants to learn about the role data plays in shaping our modern society.
