Sheryl Sandberg Thinks You Should Most Definitely Read These 7 Books

This post consists of books that Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg recommended in a recent NYT interview. So without further ado, here are 7 books Sheryl Sandberg thnks you should most definitely read. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by bestseller lists, here’s what the Facebook COO thinks you should be checking out – must-read books by Sheryl Sandberg; Here are her picks:

1. A Short Guide to a Happy Life
Author: Anna Quindlen

Best quotes from “A Short Guide to a Happy Life”

1. – Don’t ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: “If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.”
2. All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.
3. Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
4. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
5. All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.
6. Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That’s what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first.

2. Bossypants
Author: Tina Fey

Best quotes from the “Bossypants” by Tina Fey

1. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.
2. Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.
3. In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.
4. THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities.
5. Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions … Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.

3. Conscious Business
Subtitle: How to Build Value Through Values

Author: Fred Kofman

Best quotes from the “Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values”

1. – Leadership transforms individual potential into collective performance.
2. To change a culture, the leaders have to change the messages people receive about what they must do to fit in.
3. The behavior of leaders exemplifies what people with power—and those who aspire to have it—are supposed to do. A small change in a senior manager’s behavior can send a big message.
4. RESPONSE-ABILITY Response-ability is your ability to respond to a situation. You can respond to an offer by choosing to buy or not to buy. You can respond to a complaint by choosing to listen or argue. I call response-ability.
5. Leadership behaviors are one of the most critical influences on an organizational culture.
6. Unconditional response-ability is self-empowering. It lets you focus on those aspects of the situation that you can influence.
7. You can’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.
8. Most important, I learned that happiness and fulfillment do not come from pleasure but from meaning, from the pursuit of a noble purpose.
9. We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.
10. Power is the prize of responsibility; accountability is its price.

4. Home Game
Subtitle: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood

Author: Michael Lewis

Best quote from the “Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood”

– Memory loss is the key to human reproduction. If you remembered what new parenthood was actually like you wouldn’t go around lying to people about how wonderful it is, and you certainly wouldn’t ever do it twice.

5. Now, Discover Your Strengths
Authors: Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

Best quotes from the “Now, Discover Your Strengths”

1. If your senses are numbed with delusion and denial, you will stop looking for these true strengths and wind up living a second-rate version of someone’s life rather than a worldclass version of your own.
2. The only possible failure would be never managing to find the right role or the right partners to help you realize that strength.
3. Knowledge consists of the facts and lessons learned. Skills are the steps of an activity. These three-talents, knowledge, and skills-combine to create your strengths.
4. Each person’s talents are enduring and unique.
5. Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.
6. If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day.
7. Talents are your naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.
8. Rather, your smartness and your effectiveness depend on how well you capitalize on your strongest connections.

6. Queen of Fashion
Subtitle: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

Author: Caroline Weber

Best quote from the “Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution”

– Although, as many scholars have pointed out, she did not evince a sustained interest in politics qua broad-reaching international or domestic policy, it is my belief that she identified fashion as a key weapon in her struggle for personal prestige, authority, and sometimes mere survival.

7. The Lean Startup
Subtitle: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Author: Eric Ries

Best quotes from “The Lean Startup”

1. Our future prosperity depends on the quality of our collective imaginations.
2. Be tolerant of all mistakes the first time, not don’t make allow the same mistake twice.
3. The three A’s of metrics: actionable, accessible and auditable.
4. Build not only a product that can sell well, but a platform through which to deliver it.
5. This is one of the most important lessons of the scientific method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn.”
6. Reading is good, action is better.
7. The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.
8. Leadership requires creating conditions that enable employees to do the kinds of experimentation that entrepreneurship requires.

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Did any of these strike a chord with you?  What’s your favorite insights?