10 Book Recommendations for Better Leadership & Better Digital Products

“You know what? You should check out this book I started reading over the weekend,” is one of a hundred versions of a phrase that we repeat at meetings, on phone calls, and in the Modyo Slack channel. We're readers. And we eat up the advice, lessons and wisdom from some of the best brains out there so that we can improve what we build and how we think.

Now, we want to gather and share some of these books with you. We love recommending them, which is why we share one book every month in our newsletter. Through these books, we've gained valuable insight that we've been able to use in our daily work, and hope you will too. 

Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework by Mik Kersten

• Genre: Computers & Technology
• About: Change your brain from a project mentality to a product mentality. Learn how leading companies are rethinking their digital transformation with Mik Kersten' Flow Framework, a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

• Genre: Health & Fitness
• About: In this groundbreaking book, James Clear reveals exactly how tiny changes can lead to life-altering results. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to understand why they matter.

User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton with Peter Economy

Genre: Computers & Technology

About: Author Jeff Patton shows how interchangeable story maps enable teams to have better conversations about a project throughout its development process. User Story Mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it.

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr

• Genre: Business
• About: John Doerr encourages all leaders to think deeply about creating a focused and purposeful business environment. John Doerr, a Silicon Valley legend, explains how transparent goal setting and definition of key results can align organizations and motivate high performance.

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker

• Genre: Business
• About: Focusing on doing the things that are worth doing usually involves doing what other people have overlooked, as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Drawing extensively on both government and business records, Peter F. Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers new perspectives on old and seemingly obvious business situations.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others Don't by Jim Collins

• Genre: Business
• About: Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But as for the companies that weren’t born already engineered to succeed, Jim Collins explores the characteristics that turn a company from good into great.

Impact Mapping: Making a Big Impact with Software Products and Projects by Gojko Adzic

• Genre: Computers and technology
• About: Impact mapping helps create better plans and roadmaps that ensure business alignment and delivery. This book serves as a practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations achieve impact with software.

Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value by Melissa Perri

• Genre: Business
• About: Melissa Perri explains how laying the groundwork for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while, at the same time, achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within the structure of a company, you can create a product culture that benefits both the company and the customer.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

• Genre: Engineering
• About: Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us? Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior.

High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove

• Genre: Business
• About: In this timeless business management book, Andy Grove covers techniques for creating highly productive teams, demonstrating methods of motivation that lead to peak performance. High Output Management is a practical handbook for navigating real-life business scenarios and a powerful management manifesto with the ability to revolutionize the way we work.

Leaders are Readers

Whether you're rethinking an existing approach, looking for new ways to innovate, or want to return to the sage advice of timeless classics, these 10 books have helped shape who we are today, and we're sure they'll have a positive impact on the way you do business.

If you're looking to build better digital products, or are currently exploring how to create better solutions and get more value out of your digital channels, reach out and talk to us.

Did we miss any book recommendations? Come find us on LinkedIn and tell us what should be on the list!

Photo by Aleksei Ieshkin on Unsplash.