The Best in Boardroom Intelligence

From The Bible to biography, the editors of Directorship spent part of the summer distilling the essence of printed wisdom into a collection of classic works that we believe are as useful in the boardroom as they are in the study. First, the absolutes that no library would be complete without: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, The Bible, and the complete works of the boardroom bard, Shakespeare.

In its own timeless way, each work provides useful insights into the logistical, ethical, and emotional complexities of leadership. And if you want to glean insights into the mysteries of human nature, Shakespeare has no equal. For instance, want to know when the Bard predicts the credit crisis will end? “Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow.” And what the regulators are reminding us of now: “All that glisters is not gold.” Finally, the verdict on boards and management: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” But there are other works that our editors also deemed to be eminently worthy of consideration.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre (1923) is the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, a manipulator who was perhaps the original rogue trader and who operated in the wild days at the turn of the 19th century before regulation. Lefevre was among the first business writers to combine a riveting story with a lifetime of practical business and market lessons.

The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel by Benjamin Graham (1949). Warren Buffett called it “by far the best book on investing ever written.” We can’t do better than that.

The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith (1955) is as concise as it is insightful, and has never gone out of print. Why? “Every time it has been about to pass from print,” the late Galbraith himself wrote in 1997, “another speculative bubble...has stirred interest in the history of this, the great modern case of boom and collapse.”

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker (1966). As Fortune magazine wrote in a 2005 “smartest books” list: “Before you can manage anyone else, you’ve got to learn to manage yourself. In this slim volume, Drucker tells you how.” The original management guru’s lessons are, like most of the works listed here, timeless.

The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street’s Bullish 60s by the late New Yorker writer John Brooks (1973) examines the 1960s mutualfund boom and is, to quote a cover testimonial provided by Galbraith, “a small classic in the history of financial insanity.”

In Search of Excellence by Thomas Peters and Robert H. Waterman (1982) is worth reading for the chance to consider what made some once-great firms disappear (Digital Equipment, Wang Labs) and others (GE, Wal-Mart) carry on.

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (1990) reads with all the suspense of a mystery and was praised in its time for having “all the stuff of great business journalism: skullduggery, cigars, trophy wives, and enough greed to sink Wall Street.” Made into a movie, it launched a new genre: the business thriller with CEOs cast as either imbeciles or bad guys.

“A big, hairy, audacious goal,” a phrase coined in Built to Last by James Collins and Jerry I. Porras (1994), also applies to the story. The writers research and find what makes great companies great and tell the success stories of such firms as Boeing, Deloitte & Touche, and Sony. Another nugget they dispense: be a clockmaker, not a timekeeper.

Here’s a question: Why read about Buffett when you can read Buffett? While the sage has never written a book, Lawrence Cunningham compiled the best of Buffett’s annual shareholder letters from 1976 to 1996 into The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America (1997). Take notes.

If there is to be just one memoir, make it Katherine Graham’s Personal History (1997). Thrust reluctantly by the death of her husband to the top of The Washington Post Co., she tells the story of how an immensely wealthy but sheltered, naive, shy, stay-at-home mom became the most powerful woman in American journalism. It is profound in the questions it raises about overcoming one’s perceived personal limitations. She’s surrounded by a superb cast of brilliant editors, friends, rogues, business leaders, and politicians.