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Top 7 Books Management MBA students must read

Victims of Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes by Irving Janus

Classic management, describes the consequences when the desire of a group in order to maintain harmony between the members impedes its ability to engage in thoughtful, rational decision-making. Irv Janis takes the reader through a political decision from Pearl Harbor to the Watergate break-in order to make the case that the group cohesion can reinforce false assumptions and protect a group of complex information, all of which takes precedence realistic assessment of alternatives. The term “groupthink” is now well established in the management lexicon; Now visit the fascinating and very readable book, which is primarily focused our attention on the prevalence of this problem … and the ways in which to avoid.

Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin

This is a valuable talent overvalued, simple but powerful argument for why some are great, others not. This deliberate practice hard and be a great take many years, even a decade or two, is the reason. Mr. Colvin points out, it is not what we do not know, but what we do not understand, knowing the basics of your profession does not help anything; great innovations do not appear immediately, they grew out of the hard work and the accumulation of past work; the earlier you start a deliberate practice, experience and knowledge that you will compile achieve in their adult life, that you have been slaving in childhood, and most disappointingly organizations do not encourage or use what is in this book, or hundreds others who say divorce creativity to motivate employees and build a “talented” employees of high performing.

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

From the Super Bowl to the defenders, the Israeli Mossad, at the World Series of Poker, and from serial killers pilots – Johan Lehrer analyzes the cognitive science of decision-making. It is an attractive storyteller who uses the well-known decision contexts to convey how we handle the complexity of the decisions we face in business and in life. Highly readable and entertaining, but surprisingly faithful to the scientific literature. How’s your favorite novel is a page turner.

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

Daniel H. Pink offers a way in which we can achieve high productivity and satisfaction of both organizational and individual levels, exposing a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.


Today’s world requires internal motivation, which consists of three main elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose. It gives clear examples of each concept and focus on the key points I like behavior – autonomy, mastery, and purpose – consistently throughout the book.

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

You want to give your idea the power of viral marketing, which are urban legends, parables and fables? Follow the recipe for success! Whittle your idea down to its core the Simple, eliminating all that is necessary, but not critical. Then translate that core in an unusual sense, an unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional story centered on the human context.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

What Mozart and Bill Gates in common? In short, success.

Dropping exciting Gladwell tells the stories of some of the most successful people, the globe saw.

Some took advantage of opportunities in front of them while others were just lucky. Most of the work, too.

This is a great read for those who are looking into why some people are successful and some people are just never reach their full potential.

How to write a literature review

The lit review is the work that requires a student to search for the scholarly sources and professional research papers to summarize and assess them. You will face literature reviews numerous time in your life. You most likely have been doing it in the intro of the school essay, and you will surely have to deal with it in the university while preparing a report, the research proposal, or a dissertation. The lit review aims to present the strengths and weaknesses of chosen sources. In a dissertation, a literature review is a great guide that shows the development of the certain concept and different related projects and presents the significance of the new project the writer wants to undertake in the field.

In order to create an excellent review, you need to find the major focus first. It is crucial to have an idea to base the literature review around, and develop it into an interesting and professional topic. You cannot just go ahead and read all the sources on the subject, and it hard to think of a worse way to spend the time. This, you need to slowly narrow your focus in the area and think of the questions/problems in the sphere you may concentrate on while searching for the sources. Be very selective, and do not read anything that has no factual basis to back the claims up. While reading, you will certainly see that ideas and thoughts differ from researcher to researcher, and you need to analyze and decide who to believe or not believe yourself. Think of the questions that authors raise and look for the points they might have missed.

Remember that your literature review will be read, so make sure to organize it well. Give readers a glance on what they will see in the review by making a statement in the first few sentences. Think of the subheadings in the paper, and the way you should divide it to make it more comfortable to read.

If the literature review is a separate paper, it has to have the same basic sections as other papers do. However, it may have a few additional ones, and you need to consult your professor regarding the structure before you start writing.

Intro: Provide readers with the main theme and the central idea, which leads the whole work.

Body: Includes sources, organized by the prevalent idea, the year if publishing, or on any way you find convenient.

Conclusions & Recommendations: Show why the review has been conducted, what you got from it, and how this information can be used.

As you need to interpret and analyze the sources yourself, you need the readers to believe you are credible enough to do it. While you are not a professor yet, you need to use facts and many details to back up what you claim is true about the sources.

Make sure that each source you use for the work and as evidence for the analysis is good enough to be in your paper. If you feel like the book is way too biased or the author did not use credible data himself, do not make a review on it.

Be careful when you paraphrase the words of the author and make sure to cite such parts. Otherwise, those parts may be seen as plagiarized.

Also, do not forget that the writing is just half of the work. The other one is revising and editing. You need to reread the work a few times a day and look for the mistakes. Check whether you have not explained certain terms, overused specific words, or did not explain some things enough. Spend at least a week revising the paper, and it will be five times as good as it was before.