Recommended reads

In the spirit of encouraging charitable organisations to think digital, we in the Digital Participation team at SCVO asked Mike Hall, Business Tools Squad Lead at global search engine Skyscanner, to give us his top business reads. Here Mike lists 8 books that could help charities to grow their business and embrace the digital revolution. How Google Works By ex Google CEO Eric Schmidt and SVP for Product Jonathan Rosenberg – going through how Google has approached a lot of common problems in different ways.  It’s a really entertaining read and introduces the idea of searching for ‘Smart Creatives’ when recruiting as well as many others. The Hard Thing About Hard Things By Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz a major VC firm in Silicon Valley – focuses on the practicalities of dealing with hard problems faced when founding, growing and running a company. Work Rules I liked this one a lot! By Laszlo Bock, Google’s verison of head of HR.  A lot about giving people the environment that allows them to do their best work.  The perks that Google offer often seem very expensive so most companies (especially charities) would view them as wasteful, there are dozens of examples in here of things that you can do for your employees to make their lives better and make them better performers – regardless of budget. Lean Start Up By Eric Reis, another Silicon Valley entrepreneur.  Focuses on how constant change and innovation can create incredible businesses.  I think any organisation could take a lot from this book as it inspires you to try new things, and focus on starting small, testing out your ideas and growing the ones that have the most impact. The Goal This one has been very influential at Skyscanner, it's a good companion to Lean Start Up as it looks at constant and ongoing improvement and introduces the theory of constraints.  This has proven a very effective process tool at Skyscanner as it helps you see your processes as they really are and gives you guidance on how to optimise the process rather than individual elements of it.  It’s also told in the form of a novel so is easier to read then a lot of similar books! Thinking, fast and slow Not specifically a ‘business’ book but just flipping awesome.  It talks about biases and heuristics that are common across all or most people and gives some great insights into how the human mind receives information and forms a view of the world.  It also highlights some really interesting things that you can observe in day to day life or decision making.  This video sums it up quite well, albeit quite simplistically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU Start With Why  By Simon Sinek. I think most charities probably have this covered. This book covers how a great deal of companies miss a trick by explaining themselves in terms of What and How rather than Why. Very useful in marketing but also applicable to any aspect of communication including building teams and explaining ideas and initiatives to people. Turn the Ship Around By David Marquet.  I just finished this one and it’s one of my favorites, it’s a great read. The books covers his experiences Commanding the USS Santa Fe submarine.  It was quite a unique situation and he implemented a Leader Leader mentality rather than Leader Follower.  This video is a good intro, have a look at that and then read the book.  I love how this book talks about creating an environment to promote thinking and pushing control to where the information is in an organisation.