The Essential Psychology Books for Business Students
You may have aced your courses in finance,
business law, and management, but that doesn’t mean you’re ready to head out
into the business world just yet. A well-rounded business education should also
include the study of psychology, because an understanding of the human mind and
human behavior can make the difference between success and failure in any kind
of business venture, from finding investors to managing employees.
Knowing how to be persuasive, make hard
decisions, motivate others, and work within a group are all essential skills in
the business world, and they’re practices that have been the subject of much
psychological research and writing, the most accessible of which can be
incredibly enlightening for future businesspeople. If you don’t have time to
take a course in business psychology, consider reading one, a few, or all of
these books that are related to the topic. You’re bound to find some powerful
insights into the human mind that will make it easier to get where you want to
go in your career.
Knowing how to
persuade others is at the heart of being successful in business. You’ll need
the skill to get funding, lead, and sell products and services, so read up on
some of the most revealing studies on influence and persuasion in this classic
pop-psych tome.
·
Business Psychology and Organisational
Behaviour by Eugene McKenna: If you need a textbook on the ins and outs of business
psychology, this is a great choice, regardless of whether you’re enrolled in a
business psych course. It’s a great place to get foundational knowledge and
could give you some business-focused tips on understanding human behavior and
motivations.
·
Start With Why: How Great Leaders
Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek: Ever wonder why some leaders can get people to
do what they want while others struggle? It may boil down to simple psychology,
as you’ll learn in this book from Simon Sinek. Sinek offers insights into what
communication methods great managers and business leaders use that really
deliver results.
·
The Winner’s Brain: 8 Strategies Great
Minds Use to Achieve Success by Jeff Brown, Liz Neporent, and Mark
Fenske: Your brain is more
than just another organ in your body, as it controls everything that you do
from breathing to complex mathematical calculations. Yet your brain can also
hold you back, as these authors demonstrate that a large part of success is
really all in your head.
In business, you’re
going to have to make a lot of choices, some of them pretty tough, but do you
ever stop to think about why you make the choices you do? This book examines
the psychology behind choice and may help you to be more conscious of even the
small decisions you make, as they can have far-reaching consequences.
·
Switch: How to Change Things When Change
Is Hard by
Chip Heath and Dan Heath: Get advice from this dynamic brotherly duo on how to make
difficult changes in your life or your company with greater ease, defeating the
innate predilection for comfort to help you make changes for the better.
·
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us by Dan Pink: You might think you understand what motivates you and your
employees, but this book will likely show you that you don’t know the whole
truth. The psychology behind motivation is often much more complex than we
allow for, and this book offers some great lessons that will help you be a more
effective leader and manager.
·
The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor: This management classic was first published in
1960, and despite all that has happened since, it still holds a lot of wisdom
for modern managers. This expanded edition holds not only McGregor’s original
text, but also stories of how today’s business leaders are applying his
strategies, based in motivation psychology, with great success.
·
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieki: We tend to think of the mob mentality as being
a bad thing, but this book will show you that that’s not always the case. Your
employees, when working together, can often be a much wiser, more powerful, and
productive force than when working independently.
·
The Happiness Advantage: The Seven
Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor:
If you’re not familiar
with positive psychology, this book can be a great primer, showing you how to
apply many of its central principles to your life at work, making you happier
and ultimately more successful, even when the going gets tough.
·
Power, Influence, and Persuasion: Sell
Your Ideas and Make Things Happen by Harvard Business School Press: This is another great read on understanding
the psychology of persuasion. Let Harvard Business School experts teach you how
to command attention, change minds, influence decision-making, and more.
·
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do
in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg: While patterns and habits get a bad rap, they can be a boon for
businesses that are savvy enough to realize they exist. Duhigg explains how
some of the most successful businesses and products simply capitalized on or
transformed existing patterns, making this an enlightening read for any
prospective entrepreneur.
·
The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your
Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy:In business, you’re always selling something,
even if you’re not a salesman. You sell your ideas, your expertise, and even
yourself to potential employers, so you had better be good at doing it. Learn
some of the essential psychological tricks behind successful sales from Brian
Tracy in this book.
·
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck:It’s not hard to see how what you think can
influence your reality or at least your perception of it. In this book,
psychologist Dr. Dweck explains how establishing a positive mindset is as
essential to success as talent and ability.
·
The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body
Language Can Help–or Hurt–How You Lead by Carol Kinsey Goman:
You might not be
saying anything, but your body language may be speaking volumes. Drawing on
neuroscience, psychology, and management theory, Carol Kinsey Goman can help
instruct you to be more aware of your body language and to be better at reading
that of others.
·
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive
and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath:In order to get a business off of the ground,
you have to have your idea stick, yet it can be hard to figure out just what
makes an idea so “sticky” in the first place. This book will shed some light on
the matter, using the theory of memory, the human scale principle, and a little
something called curiosity gaps to explain why some ideas live on while others
die.
·
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden
Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely: Think your decisions are perfectly rational?
Think again. Dan Ariely explains some of the unconscious factors at play when
we’re trying to make decisions, which could have a big impact on your success
(or failure) at work.
·
The Upside of Irrationality: The
Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely:In this sequel of sorts to his previous book,
Ariely explains why being irrational isn’t always a bad thing, explaining some
of the surprisingly positive effects (though some negative, too) that our
predictably irrational decisions can have on our lives.
·
Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What
the Most Effective People Do Differently by John C. Maxwell: It’s easy to talk but much more difficult to
really be heard; at least that’s the lesson that Maxwell is trying show here.
He offers up some great practices that can help you take advantage of human
nature to become a better communicator and leader.
·
A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the
Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by S. Nassir Ghaemi:
Sometimes, qualities
that come along with mood disorders or other mental illnesses, also lend
themselves to great leadership, especially under pressure. In this book, you’ll
learn about the connections between mental illness and greatness in some of the
world’s most famous leaders, perhaps changing how you think about qualities you
had previously regarded as weaknesses.
·
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of
Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky: In today’s world, it’s impossible to operate
without harnessing the power of the web. In this book, you’ll learn more about
the new ways that people are organizing, cooperating, and joining up by using
the Internet, changing some of the basics of social interactions. A great
primer for anyone looking to learn more about marketing.
·
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin: Sometimes, becoming indispensable at a
business has a lot to do with being able to think differently than others. In
this book, you’ll learn how to set yourself apart and what qualities you can
cultivate to change how others see your role in a business.
·
Entrepreneurial DNA: The Breakthrough
Discovery that Aligns Your Business to Your Unique Strengths by Joe Abraham: Entrepreneurs are a much more diverse group
and there’s a much wider range of talents and abilities that lead to success
than we are often led to believe. Learn how your brain is hardwired for
entrepreneurship and how you can capitalize on your own talents for business.
·
How to Click with People: The Secret to
Better Relationships in Business and in Life by Rick Kirschner:
One of the benefits of
knowing a bit about psychology is getting better at interacting with others in
personal and professional relationships, and this book offers some helpful
guidelines for doing just that.
Peter’s
Comment
From my experience, men and women aspiring to be managers
must first know how to manage themselves.
In management there will always be pressure and when the pressure
is on, logic and reasoning can quickly fly out the window.
Some people have a natural ability to manage, while others
have to make an effort to learn their management skills. But every manager can
be a better manager with study.
