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David Boyle. The Sum of Our Discontent: Why Numbers Make Us Irrational. This very well-written work, which Baker read five years ago, had such a profound influence on his thinking it inspired him to write his Measure What Matters to Customers book. It is an excellent history of counting and measuring and includes the ten Paradox’s of Counting, which helped him shape his Seven Moral Hazards of Measuring in that book. Highly recommended.
Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky. The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation. This book dispels any illusions one might have about the ability of anyone to predict the future, especially so-called experts. An educational and entertaining read.
Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth; and Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change. Clayton is one of the few management thinkers who understands the importance of utilizing theory in the embryonic discipline of management science, and these two books are excellent examples of the usefulness of positing, testing, falsifying and advancing theories in business. With more thinkers like Christensen, the discipline of management might some day reach parity with economics.
H. Thomas Johnson and Robert S. Kaplan. Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting. An indictment of the management accounting profession and how it has lost relevance in terms of helping businesses measure the right things. The book launched the activity based costing movement, and is also a historically fascinating read.
H. Thomas Johnson. “Reflections of a Recovering Management Accountant”; and Profit Beyond Measure: Extraordinary Results through Attention to Work and People. The first is an excellent paper Johnson delivered that especially resonated with Baker since he, too, considers himself a recovering accountant. The second is the book that is Johnson’s study of the legendary Toyota (and Scania) production process, all done without a standard cost accounting system. Baker believes both of these works are seminal, and will further the debate between managing by results vs. managing by means.
Michael Lewis. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. The parallels between Lewis’ book and the arguments made to trash timesheets by utilizing Key Predictive Indicators are uncanny. The conventional measures in baseball are not predictive of team success, and it took an outsider—Harvard economist Bill James—to prove why. In fact, conventional wisdom within baseball is still resisting his hypothesis, which corroborates the history of how long it takes a new theory to diffuse into a given population—decades, if not centuries. This book provides an apt sport metaphor on the importance of measures being guided by a theory. Even if you are not a baseball fan—and Baker is not—this is an astonishing book.
David Whyte. Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity. Another unusual book to include, especially since Whyte describes himself as a corporate poet; yet what he has to say about work is especially relevant to knowledge workers and hence worth reading. He is also a terrific writer.
Lin Yutang. The Importance of Living. You will thoroughly enjoy this classic. Superbly written and an enchanting read.